Mustard Seed
My Dear People,
It was illegal to plant mustard in your garden. Illegal. And yet Jesus would dare compare the Kingdom of God itself to exactly that.
In Jesus' day, in the part of the world where he lived, it was illegal to plant mustard in your yard because the black mustard plant, of which he was speaking, grows so vigorously and so wildly that it will quickly take over an entire garden.
We might expect the great Kingdom of God (!) to be compared to a mighty Cedar of Lebanon (see Old Testament), which also grows from a tee-tiny seed, and which is also found in that part of the world, but, as perhaps we have come to expect, our expectations are, well, just that, our expectations. The Kingdom of God is something else entirely.
It started small, with a parishioner asking if he and some fellow musicians might hold a concert at St. Paul's. They needed to hold the concert somewhere as part of some ongoing musical training that one of them is engaged in, and they suggested that we might build an event around it. We agreed, and dreamed up what we're calling our "Concert for Caring" series: bring a canned good, or something along those lines, for our food pantry, and come enjoy the music. It all happened pretty quickly. We wondered about the short notice, etc., but pressed ahead anyway. Last Friday we began getting the word out.
As of today, 41 people are attending, with 104 maybes. The Weekly Rant and Nuevas Raices, a Hispanic publication, have picked it up. A number of VCU folks are coming. And what we first envisioned as a brass quartet has turned out to be four trumpets, three horns, one euphonium, two trombones, one bass trombone, a tuba, and two percussionists!
Whoa, Nelly!
Who knows what will happen? Who knows how many people will be there?
What started small isn't so small anymore. There's a sense of things having happily grown out of control.
Hmmm... Sounds like the Kingdom of God.
Thanks be to God,
your brother in Christ,
Wallace+
