Hey, welcome back here to the Semi-Seminarian, and
I’m your old buddy, Pastor Jim. Let me ask you
straight: what if the kingdom of God has
already slipped into your life—so small you almost
missed it? Jesus said it looks like a speck of
seed, like a pinch of leaven buried in dough.
Not fireworks, not headlines—just something
alive, hidden, stubborn enough to outlast empires.
That’s what we’re after today. We’re walking
that dusty path where farmers drop specks in
the soil, and we’re standing in the kitchen where
a woman tucks yesterday’s miracle into tomorrow’s
bread. If you listen close, you just might
find the holy hiding in your own backyard. And
hey, if this rings true, would you help me out?
Like, share, subscribe—not for me, for the porch.
Every click is one more chair for a weary soul
who thought God skipped their street.
I’ll see you on the other side. Most importantly—
Wayne… all right, there it is. Two parables
tonight. We’ve been looking at the parables and
we’re going to keep doing parables until
we run out of parables. So—two parables tonight.
What’s interesting? We’re going to read both
of these parables from all three—Matthew, Mark,
and Luke—because they’re in all three. But ironically,
before you start sweating, the longest passage
that tells these two parables is only four verses
long. I hope when we’re done you’ll see why its
shortness is ironic. Let’s begin where we always begin—
by setting the scene in our minds so we can
fully feel what this looked, smelled, and sounded like.
It’s late afternoon in Galilee. The color of
the hills slides from gold to honey to shadow.
The air is heavy with that baked-earth smell
you only get after a long day of sun on stone.
Cicadas tune up like a choir with one note.
You walk the footpath between the houses; every
step shakes dust into a little cloud around your ankles.
A small garden sits inside a ring
of fieldstones—some onions, a few cucurbits
curling like question marks, barley stalks bowed
as if praying. There’s a man crouched low, dirty
at the knees. He’s pinching something between
finger and thumb—smaller than a freckle, lighter
than a breath. He squints, smiles the way farmers
smile when they know a thing you don’t, and tucks that
speck down into living soil. He doesn’t raise his voice;
he doesn’t need to—the ground hears him just fine.
The village is close enough to smell tonight’s bread.
Inside one of those stone houses, the
light is different—window-gold, hearth-soft,
a rustle of hands that know their way around flour.
A woman wipes a line of white across her
apron with the back of her wrist. She has a clay
jar holding a piece of yesterday’s miracle—the
living leaven her mother kept, and her mother before her.
She pinches off just a bit, hides it in the fresh flour.
The room goes quiet except for the rhythm of the knead.
Out the door, a boy chases birds and laughs. Up the slope,
olive trees hold their own wind. Somewhere in
this ordinary, untelevised life, the kingdom
of God has already started. Jesus is on the path
between the garden plot and the oven glow. He’s
not looking for a podium; He’s looking for your
attention. He speaks like a man who has noticed
the holy hiding in plain sight—and if you let Him,
He will place it in your hands. Church,
still your hands and steady your hearts. Set your feet on the dust of this page.
Attend to the reading—not as a headline, but as bread. We don’t skim the Word; we eat it.
Listen for the Voice that said “Let there be,” and there was. Let the Scriptures speak.
Matthew 13:31–33 (ESV). He put another parable
before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is
like a grain of mustard seed that a man took
and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of
all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger
than all the garden plants 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 leaven that a woman
took and hid in three measures of flour, till
it was all leavened.”
Mark 4:30–32 (ESV). And he said, “With what
can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable
shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard
seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest
of all the seeds on earth. Yet when it is sown
it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden
plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds
of the air can make nests in its shade.”
Luke 13:18–21 (ESV). He said therefore, “What
is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?
It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed
in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air
made nests in its branches.” And again he said, “To what shall I compare
the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took
and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.”
This is the Word of the Lord—seed for soil, leaven for dough, life for the weary.
Thanks be to God. And now, with dust still on our feet and the smell of bread
in our clothes, let’s walk inside the story until it rises in us.
Walk back with me to the man by the fieldstones. He doesn’t make a speech
about vision or strategy. He doesn’t hang a banner.
He plants. The word Jesus uses calls it a grain— a mite of a thing.
What you hold is not impressive; it is alive. Brassica nigra—the black mustard
Galileans knew—can shoot up taller than a tall man, an unruly shrub turning
tree-ish in the right soil.
It becomes the largest of the garden plants—the kind of thing you plant once
and then fight off in places you never meant to have it. Mustard is not a cedar;
it’s a holy nuisance, a volunteer you can’t quite keep down.
Jesus doesn’t just say it grows; he says it becomes a tree—and when he says that,
the prophets hum behind his words. In Ezekiel, God plants a sprig and grows
a noble cedar where birds nest; in Daniel, an empire is a tree with branches
for the nations. Jesus takes the image down from palaces and plants it in
a backyard— not imperial cedar, but back-garden mustard.
Not Senate shade, but porch shade. Not the shadow of Rome,
but the shared shelter of mercy. And then, those birds—the ones you chase off
your barley, the ones the sower fed by accident when seed fell on the path.
Jesus says the kingdom makes room for them. The image isn’t careful; it’s generous.
The kingdom grows so that those you’d prefer to keep moving along
can stay and build. The scandal of grace isn’t that God tolerates
the wrong birds; it’s that He feeds them and gives them a place to raise their young.
If you’re standing in that yard with arms folded, thinking about neat rows,
the story rubs you a little raw. Mustard is not orderly. Mustard laughs at your lines.
It finds the crack in your plan the way grace finds the crack in your heart—
pushes up, makes shade, invites guests, and dares you to call it a weed.
Step inside: the oven breathes like a tame fire. On the table—three measures (σάτα)
of flour—about 22 liters, roughly 35–40 pounds—more than a household needs,
bread for neighbors. A woman reaches for yesterday’s leaven—the living memory
of another day’s miracle. She hides it (ἐγκρύπτω—tucks it away) in all that flour.
She works it with her whole body. No speech to accompany it. No applause.
Just the work, and then the waiting. If you’ve ever baked with a starter, you know
the first rule: Don’t rush the rise. Hurry ruins the crust. Holiness is patient.
Most of the time in Scripture, leaven is a warning—clear your house before Passover;
beware the Pharisees’ leaven. Jesus knows that language and flips it on purpose.
Holiness in Jesus is not a fragile quarantine; it is a robust contagion of life.
She moves toward the lump. She works from within. She doesn’t ask permission—
she keeps going until it is all leavened.
If you look up from the dough, you’ll see the woman’s forearms dusted white,
sinew-strong from years of kneading bread. Jesus places her at the center.
The kingdom’s revolution includes women at the table—their work not a footnote
but a sacrament. The Spirit delights to drive history through hands nobody counted.
Set the stories side by side like two loaves cooling on one board. Mustard seed is
the kingdom outside you—visible shelter: there, branches; there, shade; there, nests.
Leaven is the kingdom inside you—tucked away where no one applauds it, working until
the whole is affected. The kingdom is both: it builds shade for the world and raises
the loaf of a life. Grace first—a given seed, a gifted starter—then transformation:
branches, nests, dough rising. The order matters. Mercy comes before improvement.
We are not saved by our shade or by our crust. We are rescued—and then we grow.
Jesus points to the smallest and to the all. We despise small beginnings; He blesses
the speck—the practice nobody retweets, the prayer nobody hears, the apology that
drives across town. And He speaks the word that makes planners nervous: until it was all leavened.
That’s kitchen eschatology. Grace aims for every part of the loaf—habits and grudges,
schedules and bank accounts, enemies and children, the names we use for ourselves
and for others. The Spirit doesn’t do partials; She is after the all.
Seed + all looks like a yard full of shade that doesn’t ask credentials at the branch.
Leaven + all tastes like bread carrying life through every slice, not just the Sabbath heel.
Any gospel that leaves rooms in your house unlived-in isn’t finished working yet.
Remember the boy chasing birds? He’s back—laughing—because the birds he rooted
from the barley are now building homes in branches his father never planned.
The kingdom’s hospitality isn’t tidy. It isn’t an HOA with bylaws. It is a wideness with
a spine—welcome and change. The birds don’t keep pecking seed from the path forever;
there’s a tree now. Shade reshapes appetites. Mercy re-educates.
Religious folks who major in separation hear “leaven” and reach for a broom.
Jesus reaches for a jar. His holiness is not fragile; it’s ferocious in gentleness.
He walks right into uncleanness and gives life. That’s why He eats at the wrong tables,
touches the wrong folks, and lets the wrong woman pour perfume on His feet. He is
not in danger—death is. In the parable, the leaven goes where the flour is thickest.
If you think a clean room is a holy room, Jesus frustrates your plans by moving
toward the mess. And if you are a mess, take courage—He is moving toward you. He
intends to “hide” grace in the lump until your whole life is alive with Him. It won’t
look dramatic every day. Some mornings it looks like keeping your word and doing
your job; telling the truth when lying would be cheaper. Some nights it looks like
washing dishes, sitting in silence, praying a psalm when your mouth wants salt.
That, too, is a resurrection.
The man in the garden won’t pull his seed up to check on it. The woman in the kitchen
won’t crank the oven hotter to cheat the rise. Farmers and bakers share a creed:
Trust time to God. The kingdom’s calendar is not a corporate sprint; it’s seasonal
faithfulness. We live between sowing and shade, between tucking and tasting.
In that in-between, impatient people invent fireworks. Jesus keeps pointing to dirt
and dough. The Spirit is not in a hurry because She is in charge. She is not late
because She is eternal. She doesn’t miss a window—She makes one.
Your job is to keep your hands on the work you were given: plant, water, knead, wait,
tend, welcome. Nothing on television can outgrow a seed. Nothing on the internet
can outlast bread.
Three measures is a comical image if you’re counting portions—about 22 liters,
35–40 pounds—too much for one family. It’s Jesus: small beginnings
turned into unnecessary feasts. He doesn’t raise up a pious soul to live alone with
his spiritual victories; He leavens enough for the cul-de-sac. Kingdom leaven refuses
to stay private. When the Spirit finishes in a life, neighbors eat.
Galilee to Oklahoma: the path is a church hallway with scuffed baseboards; the garden
is a pantry shelf stacked with canned corn; the woman with flour on her sleeves
is Jan in the fellowship kitchen; Gigi stirring something that will feed a family who
only asked for prayer. The leaven isn’t celebrity; it’s consistency. The seed isn’t
spectacle; it’s presence.
Don’t miss the quiet Christology: He is not only the teacher; He is the seed—buried
small, rising into a shelter big enough for the world. He is the leaven—hidden in a
tomb, working through the whole human loaf until death is different. The cross is
the seed at its smallest; Easter morning is the tree at its wildest; Pentecost is the
leaven racing the length of the dough. And the Church, at her best, is a backyard full
of shade and a table full of bread that never runs out—because she never quits sharing.
If you’re tempted to measure the kingdom by how loud it is, look again. Jesus didn’t
come with a PR team. He came with a story that keeps coming true—one backyard
at a time, one oven at a time, one porch at a time, one human heart at a time—
until the birds stop circling and start nesting, and the bread comes out singing when
you tap the bottom of the loaf.
Religious folks who value tidy branches and bland bread will always try to reverse
the order: change first, then welcome. Jesus insists on welcome first, then change
that actually lasts. Mustard gives shade before it’s pruned. Leaven joins the flour
before it lifts it. Grace is the doorway; holiness is the room you learn to live in.
Guard the room and barricade the door, and the house is empty. Open the door and
forget the room, and the house is chaos. Jesus is better than both: He opens and He
furnishes. He welcomes and He works.
All right, church—plain talk. Some of us are waiting on a moment to brag about.
God is handing us a handful of seed and a jar of starter in a neighborhood full of birds.
This week the kingdom will look small and hidden. It will look like making shade for
someone who never found a branch with their name on it. It will look like tucking grace
into the parts of your life that have been dense and dry for years. It will look like waiting
while the Spirit does what only God can do.
Do not despise the day of small beginnings. Do not rush the rise. Tend what you’ve been
given. The King has planted Himself in your soil.
The Spirit has hidden Herself in your dough. The Father is already setting the table.
So go: plant one speck of mercy where it can take root—visible enough to cast shade,
ordinary enough to be overlooked by anyone who isn’t thirsty. Hide grace in one practice
you will keep—quiet, regular, stubborn—let it work till it is all leavened. When the birds
you didn’t expect show up, make room. Add a chair. Offer bread. Welcome is not compromise;
it is kingdom. And when impatience tempts you, remember the farmer and the baker.
Resurrection works on a clock you don’t control.
Take heart, beloved. The seed is already in the soil. The leaven is already in the lump.
The shade is already stretching. The loaf is already rising. And the ones who thought
God forgot their address will find a branch for tired wings and a table where their names
are not a problem to solve, but a guest list to celebrate. Amen?
Friends, here’s the scandal: the kingdom doesn’t wait on your résumé, your plans, or your polish.
It shows up small—like mustard seed tucked in dirt, like leaven vanishing in flour—and then it goes
to work until everything changes. That’s how God moves: quiet enough to be overlooked,
relentless enough to outlast everything you fear.
Plant mercy this week. Hide grace where you thought it was too far gone. Make room when
the wrong sort of birds show up. Trust that what God started, He intends to finish.
If this spoke to you, don’t keep it—like it, share it, subscribe. Every time you do, the porch
grows a little wider, the table a little longer, and someone else hears that God has not
forgotten their address. Until next time—tend the seed, trust the leaven, wait on the Lord.