July 26, 2026: Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52
Jesus put before the crowds another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
“Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”
My friend Ann, who works with young children as a Catechist of the Good Shepherd, uses the parable of the mustard seed as imagery that children can think about in describing God’s work in our lives, partly because children can relate to something small like the mustard seed. And she says that in actuality, the mustard seed in Israel that Jesus is talking about in our gospel reading today is tiny, so tiny, much, much smaller than the mustard seed you will see in a spice jar in the grocery store here in the U.S. This makes the transformation that we hear Jesus talking about in Matthew today – a mustard seed turning into a tree – that much more fantastic.
What if we think about ourselves and our lives as mustard seeds? Our individual lives and beings are so small in comparison to God, but just as the power of God can cause a tiny seed to grow into a tree, so can God’s work in our lives bring about wonderful, unpredictable results. Now can be our time to allow the mustard seed that is each of our lives to grow, to be nurtured by God’s Word, to flourish by seeing God’s beauty in creation by the hydrangeas, hibiscus and other summer flowers in bloom around us. But lest we think that this is all this time is for – to soak up God’s love, to rest complacent in the gifts God has in store for us – we are wrong. For just as the mustard seed is transformed by the power of God, so too must we allow ourselves to be changed. Just as the mustard seed grew and spread its branches into a tree, so we are called by God to stretch and grow.
It isn’t easy. In fact, sometimes it is very, very hard. It takes great courage to heed the voice of God, to be true to God’s call to become more fully who we are, more like the people God intends for us to be. Henri Howen says that, “The Gospels confront us with this persistent voice inviting us to move from where it is comfortable, from where we want to stay, from where we feel at home.” He goes on to say that this movement from where we are comfortable, “voluntary displacement”, he calls it, is important because we need to cast off the illusion that we have it all together. We need, according to Nowen, to experience our true condition, which is that we, like everyone else, are pilgrims on the way, sinners in need of grace.
The key phrase here for me is that we are on the way. We aren’t where we’re going to end up, but neither are we where we started. We are somewhere in between. As long as we’re living we are being called to stretch and grow, to become something different, something new. And sometimes it is very difficult to trust this process, and very difficult to live with the vulnerability that inevitably comes with change. Most of us, if we are honest, would much rather be comfortable than be challenged. Many of us find ways to shut God out, so that we don’t have to hear God’s call to grow. We find ways to take flight from ourselves and who we really are – pilgrims on the way, sinners in need of grace.
But the more we concentrate on our discomfort, and rail against our call to growth, the less we have reason to hope. As long as the focus is on our illusions and our attachments we run the risk of becoming spiritually bankrupt. The only thing that makes transition, growth, and letting go bearable is trusting that the mercy and compassion of God will sustain us through it all. We need to remind ourselves that the God who is responsible for turning a tiny seed into a tree is with us this very moment. The goodness of God will walk before us and light our way. The grace of God from which we are never separated with give us the courage and strength to go through our periods of transition and come to transformation and new life.
Like the mustard seed, whose growth into a tree is so unpredictable, we are not being called to our own pre-ordained vision of what our lives should look like. God’s vision for us is usually not predictable, and we often don’t know the effects of our work here on earth. As human beings we are not privileged with the knowledge of what exactly the tree will look like that grew from our own individual mustard seed. It is God who has the vision of who we are to become, and it is God who is ultimately responsible for ensuring our growth. Our call is to be faithful to what God has in store for us by heeding the voice of God within. It is the power of God that calls the mustard seed forth out of darkness to become something different, and it is the power of God that leads us towards God’s vision of who we are called to be. We just have to listen.