I think we would all agree they are very different. In our example, outside of stories by JRR Tolkien, trees don’t move around by themselves, and they certainly can’t grow and flourish in salt water. Likewise, mountains that get up and move are called volcanoes and usually the way they move is by erupting and nobody wants to be around that.
But they do have one thing in common: they are both things Jesus uses to help us grasp something important about faith. In the gospel we heard just now, we arrive mid-conversation with Jesus sounded noticeably annoyed with the disciples. What our reading omits is that Jesus has just advised the disciples that they are required to forgive others multiple times, even up to seven times a day if they are repentant. This concept was so mind-blowing for the disciples that they are dumbstruck. “Increase our faith!” they beg in wonder. Jesus tells them that if they had faith the size of a mustard seed, they could order a mulberry tree to uproot itself and plant itself in the sea.
When Jesus talks about faith the size of a mustard seed in Matthew’s gospel, he says this after the disciples have tried and failed to cast a demon out a man. After they ask him why, he tells them they have no faith. But this time, that mustard seed faith he advises would allow them to tell a mountain to move and it would obey.
Interestingly, the Buddhists have a parable of the mustard seed as well. It goes like this:
A mother’s child died, and she was inconsolable. She approaches the teacher Shakyamuni, who has a great reputation for helping people in their suffering. She wails about being alone, about her heartbreak, and is inconsolable. She asks the teacher to bring back her dead child, back to the land of the living. “Certainly,” he agrees---if first she can bring him a single mustard seed from any house that has not known death. The woman goes from house to house but can find no one who has escaped mourning and loss. After weeks at her quest, the woman goes home. Her understanding of her grief has changed: it’s no longer a weight erased but a weight made bearable, because she has discovered that everyone shares this burden in one form or another. She has learned that she can share her grief with others who too have experienced loss. A shared loss is a bearable loss.
It's amazing that mustard seeds can end up causing so much inspiration when it comes to matters of faith.
In Jesus’s talk about mulberry trees and mountains and mustard seeds, whether you think about a mulberry tree, which is big, or a great mountain, which is big, getting up and move themselves around, isn’t the real miracle.
The miracle is in the faith that makes things possible. The amount of faith you have isn’t the issue. It’s allowing faith to take root and grow in your life that matters.
It reminds me of the scene in the second Star Wars movie made-- The Empire Strikes Back. Luke has gone to find the great Jedi master Yoda to complete the training his friend Ben had barely begun with him. After a slow start, Yoda has Luke stacking rocks using only the Force while doing a handstand—and it’s hard work. Suddenly, Luke realizes his ship is sinking into the water. Yoda encourages him to use the Force to lift it. Luke exclaims that there is a huge difference between a rock and a spaceship.
"No!” Yoda exclaims. “Only different in your mind!”
And so, Luke tries to raise the ship, and at first it rises from the water, but then Luke’s concentration breaks, and it sinks below the surface worse than before. “It’s too big!” Luke gasps. And after explaining the Force again, Yoda raises the spacecraft out of the water and places it on dry land.
When it comes to faith, size is not the issue.
Perhaps the disciples get it wrong when they think that faith is quantifiable. If you think that way, a little is good, but more must be better, right?
Jesus’s answer avoids using measurements. He doesn’t say, if you had an ounce of faith, or a pound of faith, or a gallon of faith. Instead, he says, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could do the impossible.”
Jesus chooses a small seed, a living thing, to describe faith. Seeds are amazing things, too. In the case of the mustard seed, a seed the size of a period at the end of a sentence is all you need in terms of faith. But a seed is a paradox. It looks inanimate, but it is alive, and from it grows a plant hundreds of times bigger that the seed from which the plant came.
Then I wondered: what kind of faith does a mustard seed itself actually have?
It doesn’t let its smallness get in the way of doing its business. But drop it into the soil and give it some sun and water, and it gets to work.
I know this because the January I was four, my mom bought me this “kid’s garden” kit at the local TG&Y—it was a five and dime store that was around when I was very little. My mom bought this kit for me, I suspect, to keep me occupied, because she was 41 and pregnant with my sister and had two little kids who both asked lots of questions.
The garden kit had glass jars that fit on a tray, a bag of soil, and even a wee red tin watering can. There were seeds for sunflowers, marigold, lavender, chives, and mustard. Frankly they all seemed small to me. After assembling all the jars, we put them on the windowsill in the dining room and waited. That was the hard part. Every day I would watch and watch and have to hold back from watering too much. Every day I would lose more of my mother’s lap, and every day she distracted me with these jars of dirt.
Mom had always made sure to plant one of the seeds close to the edge of the glass. And finally, after what seemed like forever but what probably about three weeks, in some of the jars I could see a tiny pale sprout from the larger sunflower seeds. Mom assured me that all the seeds, even the tiniest, did the same thing.
Mom had always made sure to plant one of the seeds close to the edge of the glass. And finally, after what seemed like forever but what probably about three weeks, in some of the jars I could see a tiny pale sprout from the larger sunflower seeds. Mom assured me that all the seeds, even the tiniest, did the same thing.
The sunflower seed cracked open, and that first sprout began to spread out into tiny roots to feed the seed. Then another sprout emerged and began to push like magic toward the top of the soil. It broke the top of the soil and kept going up and up. Then it formed a few tiny leaves. Over the next few days all the other pots began bursting forth with sprouts and then seedlings. Every day they seemed to grow and grow. Finally, in the middle of June, all of them had grown into plants—even the tiny mustard seed.
And guess what also happened? My baby sister was born. Boy, my Mom sure could time things. And luckily, the plants were at a stage when they could be ignored for a while, we got to turn our attention to the baby. But I remember how proud I was when some of my own plants were used when we made dinner—even the marigolds went into the salad! And we ground up a little mustard and put that on sandwiches.
What made those seeds grow? Soil, and water, and the right temperatures, and sunshine. But it started with the seeds doing what was inside them all along, responding to the right conditions with the will to break open and sprout.
Even the smallest seeds-- acorns, nuts, berries, even-- can become amazing plants, providing shade and food and fragrance and beauty—even medicine. It all starts with the seed breaking open and straining into roots and sprouts.
What if Jesus is reminding us of this? Sometimes, we develop a shell that prevents us from growing into what we are meant to be as disciples. We hold ourselves aloof from experiences that might crack us open, like love, fellowship, or trust in God rather than hoarding our own resources and depending only upon ourselves. Or maybe we doubt ourselves, or that we can really trust God to use us to do great things. And so, we hesitate in growing, and instead ask God our favorite request: Give us more.
But there’s no need for more. We have everything we need right here to grow in faith, to grow in discipleship. It’s all inside us, waiting to sprout.
More faith isn’t required. Instead, Jesus then makes an important point in the middle of our gospel: you don’t need to have a huge amount of faith to do this. You just need a tiny bit. Faith the size of a mustard seed can produce wonders and miracles. With God’s help, anything is possible—including transforming our tiny, grinchy hearts that get paralyzed through fear, cynicism, or lack of faith from doing what they were meant to do: act in love for the healing of the world.
Faith isn’t about knowing how to measure it. Faith isn’t about what you know. It is about how you love, and how you act on that love. And loving means leaving behind the fear that others will hurt you, even through potential grief at maybe losing them some day. It’s about investing your heart, your strength, your love, your resources in what really matters—in making the world a better place, in helping the kingdom of God to grow and flourish to give hope and nourishment to the aching world.
Jesus describes faith as a tiny seed because it is how it grows inside you that makes all the difference. Faith isn’t about flashy miracles like ordering around trees or mountains—not really.
When it comes to faith, size is not the issue. Action is what matters. Letting go of what holds you back matters. Being bold because you are on the solid rock of confidence and trust in God is what matters. A little is all that it takes—but together, it can make all the difference.
What made those seeds grow? Soil, and water, and the right temperatures, and sunshine. But it started with the seeds doing what was inside them all along, responding to the right conditions with the will to break open and sprout.
Even the smallest seeds-- acorns, nuts, berries, even-- can become amazing plants, providing shade and food and fragrance and beauty—even medicine. It all starts with the seed breaking open and straining into roots and sprouts.
What if Jesus is reminding us of this? Sometimes, we develop a shell that prevents us from growing into what we are meant to be as disciples. We hold ourselves aloof from experiences that might crack us open, like love, fellowship, or trust in God rather than hoarding our own resources and depending only upon ourselves. Or maybe we doubt ourselves, or that we can really trust God to use us to do great things. And so, we hesitate in growing, and instead ask God our favorite request: Give us more.
But there’s no need for more. We have everything we need right here to grow in faith, to grow in discipleship. It’s all inside us, waiting to sprout.
More faith isn’t required. Instead, Jesus then makes an important point in the middle of our gospel: you don’t need to have a huge amount of faith to do this. You just need a tiny bit. Faith the size of a mustard seed can produce wonders and miracles. With God’s help, anything is possible—including transforming our tiny, grinchy hearts that get paralyzed through fear, cynicism, or lack of faith from doing what they were meant to do: act in love for the healing of the world.
Faith isn’t about knowing how to measure it. Faith isn’t about what you know. It is about how you love, and how you act on that love. And loving means leaving behind the fear that others will hurt you, even through potential grief at maybe losing them some day. It’s about investing your heart, your strength, your love, your resources in what really matters—in making the world a better place, in helping the kingdom of God to grow and flourish to give hope and nourishment to the aching world.
Jesus describes faith as a tiny seed because it is how it grows inside you that makes all the difference. Faith isn’t about flashy miracles like ordering around trees or mountains—not really.
When it comes to faith, size is not the issue. Action is what matters. Letting go of what holds you back matters. Being bold because you are on the solid rock of confidence and trust in God is what matters. A little is all that it takes—but together, it can make all the difference.
Preached at the 505 on October 1 and the 10:30 Holy Eucharist on October 2 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.
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