Behold The Hidden Power of God's Grace
18 Then Jesus asked, "What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? 19 It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air perched in its branches."
20 Again he asked, "What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? 21 It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough." (Luke 13:18 - 21, NIV)
What is the kingdom of God like? In our reality, the kingdom of God is always big and getting bigger. Since we have been on a steady diet of media obsessions and culture cues, we expect our living to be large, our houses to be huge, and our cars to be spacious. We will not choose a shack over a mansion, a Kia over a Lexus, or a modest living over a big fake check from Publishers Clearing House. Besides big, there are four other words to what we are seeking in God's kingdom: better, faster, more, and now. These words capture the kind of kingdom we expect from Jesus because these desires would make our lives meaningful, happy, and satisfied. Does not Jesus want to make us happy?
In the text, people had witnessed Jesus' healing the woman who had been bent over for eighteen years of demonic sickness. His actions gained the full attention of everyone who looked toward him as the answer to their dreams and struggles. In their minds, their expectations went into hyper speed and excitement about Jesus pulsated throughout the crowd. They believed if Jesus healed the woman, might he grant their wishes too? If Jesus has this kind of power, maybe he will instantly make my life better? If Jesus performed a miracle for her, maybe I deserved a chance for the life I always wanted rather than to suffer and barely scrimp by? Jesus raised the bar that he could make dreams come true for all after the evidence seen in the woman.
Jesus' vision and the people' vision were not the same. In their minds, they imagined the kingdom of God was like the Roman Empire that built cites quickly from their knowledge and expertise in civil engineering and vast military might. Or maybe they pictured God's kingdom rolling in with spectacular pomp and circumstance during the days of Moses with plagues of frogs, locusts, and parting the waters with milk and honey for all. Or maybe they pictured Jesus as a modern day Benny Hinn blowing on people with his holy breath and healing them in seconds. Instead of going bigger, better, faster, or flashy, Jesus went small. He told them the kingdom of God can be found in a miniature mustard seed. When the people heard mustard seed, Jesus had taken a pin and popped their dreams. The seed can barely be handled in human hands. It's a tiny seed that can grow a tree ten feet tall. The all knew about mustard seeds and trees quite well because these trees were everywhere. Maybe they were scratching their heads because Jesus' parable underwhelmed them.
In the parable, Jesus was not trying to make a name for himself nor become a traveling miracle evangelist. He showed the people that God's kingdom was a subversive delivery system of growing His grace in the world and in them.
First, grace is slow process. Grace is not a spiritual chia pet plant that grows in days, but a slow gradual recognition that God's grace slowly grows at the rate of human life, not at the rate of computer microchips and smartphones' bandwidth. Kingdom grace is the intentional slow walk with the Master who always is paying attention to your life and nudging you to pay attention to His life at work in you.
Next, kingdom grace is subversive. In Jesus' time, no one would stand by a mustard seed plant and watch it grow. It's the equivalent of watching paint dry on a wall. My twin daughters argued with me that they were not growing. My wife and I began taking yearly measurements of them by marking their physical growth along the doorpost with pencil. The evidence of growth was seen as each child changes and moves up toward young adulthood without their noticing.
In the same way, Jesus was not interested in quick noticeable results of grace at work in human life. He was challenging the crowd to notice God was at work in the world even when they could not see with the naked eye.
If we are honest, many of us don't believe the kingdom of grace was working when we lost jobs or taken down by illness. The grace of God is forever working in our lives changing our hearts of stones to hearts of flesh. Jesus' kingdom will not seen by calculating spiritual progress according to our own and the world's benchmarks. It can only be seen through the eyes of faith that God's grace is still working inside of us and we "can be confident of this: he has began a good work in you will carry on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6).
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