July 22, 2008

Today’s text

Matthew 13:31-33

He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and shelter in its branches. He told them another parable, 'The kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour till it was leavened all through.

Prayer

You do not care much for appearances, do you Jesus? The large, the impressive, the great, the unusual--these categories hold little attraction for you.

You are captured by the small, the insignificant, the weak, the unimpressive and unpromising. For you the small is great; the weak are strong; the insignificant holds the secret of the universe.

And what is more insignificant than an iterant preacher who is arrested, taken from his rag tag followers, and executed by the authorities under the absurd charge of sedition? Certainly, you were small, insignificant in the world of the powerful and important, and weak, having no force but your words.

You sowed those words, and they could not be killed, not then or now. They took root and grew into a harvest of faith, of hope and love in the life of the world and the soil of our souls.

Nothing can kill this seed and the verdant growth of eternal life they produce even now in our lives. I don’t know Jesus: is our faith the tree that grows from your seed, giving rest to our sols and the lives of all who find shelter in your love growing with us?

Or is the tree that grows your kingdom, your rule, in which we and all life is invited to find shelter. Perhaps both ideas work.

I know only that the seed that was sown grows, and it provides shelter for this soul, a soul in which others, too, have found rest and shelter. And that thought makes me smile, for I know that your seed has had its way also in me.

May it always be so … that your joy and mine may be complete.

Pr. David L. Miller