“Then Jesus said, “What is the Kingdom of God like? How can I illustrate it? It is like a tiny mustard seed that a man planted in a garden; it grows and becomes a tree, and the birds make nests in its branches.” He also asked, “What else is the Kingdom of God like? It is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.” Luke 13:18-21 NLT
Jesus, in speaking of the Kingdom of God, uses two words in his object lesson illustrations – tiny and little. Well, really he says it’s like a “kokkos” a grain and “zumé” yeast. The New Living Translation inserts the word “little,” but it’s not in the original language. Apparently yeast is so powerfully pervasive that it needs no modifier word.
Is Jesus saying that the Kingdom starts out small, but grows and expands to something much bigger and more powerful? That’s what it looks like. I don’t want to read too much into Jesus’ word-play here, but it’s interesting to think of God’s plans or His ways being anything but gigantic!
Are God’s ways subtle? I can see how they would be hidden, mysterious, even secretive in the way that would peek our curiosity. It’s hard for my brain to understand words like omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent by descriptions like a mustard seed or a smallest smidgen of yeast!
God does love to start small; creating humans from dust, choosing one unknown nomadic (Abram) to become a nation, a people that would become more populous than the sands of the sea or stars in the sky. And the most famous small to significant example, a chromosome supernaturally implanted into Mary’s ovum, where God takes on flesh and becomes a man. Yeah, this is how God has always approached us and world in which we experience life.
God comes like a grain, a smidgen of greatness, so small, so understated, that it can be easily dismissed or even entirely missed. But it does not remain small, nor nearly invisible. It grows exponentially larger than we can even imagine. Yeah, that sounds exactly like God, like Jesus’ birth, life and death, like what the Kingdom of God will become. It starts small, but hardly insignificant. To find it, to discover it, to live it, we must look for it, like a young child, so curious to touch everything, to exploring their environment constantly. God is not hidden, and neither is His Kingdom. He’s just waiting for us to find Him.
Prayer
Dad,
It is an absolute wonder to know that, in all your magnanimity, you are still subtle when it comes to us! You still whisper to us. You still want us to come, taking a second look. You still wait to be big in our life and still patiently approach everything that exists in our world and beyond. Small enough, gentle enough for a child to see you and know you. Yet, big enough to be just, right and true above and beyond all other gods. You are enough.