Reflection
To what shall we compare the kingdom of God?
It is like a mustard seed that is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth.
But once it is sown, it springs up and puts forth large branches,
so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.
Mark 4:26-34
The mustard seed begins as something small and seemingly insignificant. It breaks through hard ground, grows and makes its presence visible. The tiny seed becomes a tree which provides for the needs of others. It symbolizes that from small beginnings things can be changed. From a handful of disciples there can grow a global movement. We are meant to be those mustard seeds growing into the community Jesus envisioned – a community where the poor are rich, where status makes no difference, where all of God’s people gather are loved, where no one is a stranger, and where all the creatures of earth find a home. That is what the reign of God is like. It is like a mustard seed where from small beginnings all is transformed into a glorious display of the power of God.
Prayer
May your reign transform the earth.
Action
Reflect on the power Jesus puts into the hands of individuals.
Can we really change the way things are?
Suggested Reading
He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.
Luke 17:6
The Kingdom of God is within you.
Luke 17:21
The story of the mustard seed is an encouragement to look beyond initial appearances, beyond the seemingly insignificant mustard seed, in order to discover the presence of God who, as humble love, is always at work in the soil of our life and history.
Pope Francis
We must assess our thoughts and beliefs and reckon whether they are moving us closer to conformity to Christ or farther away from it.
John Ortberg
Christianity does not consist in any partial amendment of our lives, any particular moral virtues, but in an entire change of our natural temper, a life wholly devoted to God.
William Law
I surrendered unto Him all there was of me; everything! Then for the first time I realized what it meant to have real power.
Kathryn Kuhlman
If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to born both within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don’t know its name or realize that it’s what we’re starving to death for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it.”
Frederick Buechner