Matthew 13:31-35

³¹ He entrusted another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom from the sky is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and planted in his field.

³² It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is largest of the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

³³ He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all permeated.”

³⁴ All these things Jesus said to the crowds using stories; indeed, he said nothing to them without a story.

³⁵ This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: “I will open my mouth with stories; Using them I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.” _________________________________________

we become the message

As Jesus tells these stories, it soon becomes evident that the referent of the seed morphs into something else. At first, the seed is the word of God, which is how Luke records Jesus explaining it.[1] That message is received well by some soils (lives), and not so well by others. But those lives who receive the seed are transformed into it. We become the message. We expand with it, and become permeated with it. That is why Jesus can also say – without contradiction – that the good seed is “the children of the kingdom.”[2] Once he gets the divine message into us, we become the divine message for others.

Elsewhere, Jesus uses the mustard seed as a symbol of faith,[3] but here he uses it as a symbol of evangelism. His point is that once empowered by God’s message, even the smallest of lives will become larger than life. No one should underestimate her capacity to impact the world for Christ and his kingdom.

The yeast now becomes the message, and once it is worked into the lump of dough, it permeates it entirely. That is how discipleship works. Christ’s kingdom is first a part of your existence, but it grows within you, and soon becomes inseparable from the rest of you. You never cease being you, but you do change.

LORD, as we become your message to the lost, help us to submit to the change, so that the lost may hear your message of grace in us clearly.

[1] Luke 8:11.

[2] Matthew 13:38.

[3] Matthew 17:20; Luke 17:6.