The Kingdom is like Kudzu

Tuesday July 26th, Matthew 13: 31 He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches." From my experience with mustard, my first thought is that I don’t have the foggiest idea what Jesus is talking about here. I used to pull lots of mustard (see last week’s parable of the weeds) out of the oats when I was growing up on the farm. It had a green stem and leaves and yellow flowers and it wasn’t much bigger than the grain among which it grew. But hearing the parable contextually, perhaps we could substitute a Redwood seed for a mustard seed. The kingdom of heaven is like a small little thing that finds root and grows and grows and lives and lives. Or, the Kingdom of heaven is like an apple seed that grows into a full beautiful tree providing shelter and nourishment for all in the kingdom. Or to take on the obnoxious nature of the mustard pant we could say the kingdom is like chickweed that takes over your garden. The Kingdom is like Kudzu that you planted in your garden, that took over and covered over all the things you planted. The kingdom of heaven is like, and Jesus offends his hearers by suggesting the Kingdom of God is like a garden in which an unclean weed is planted, violating the diverse kinds rule from Leviticus 19:19 and making your garden unfit to produce anything to be used for holy purposes. My take??? The kingdom of God is like an invasive weed you plant in your garden and takes over, covering all the things we think are important until all you see is Kingdom stuff.