When We Care Enough

Jesus spoke the “Parable of the Mustard Seed” from a boat anchored off the shore of the Sea of Galilee. In that area, the mustard plant grows eight to ten feet high. As with all the “seed-parables,” Jesus makes the contrast between the insignificant beginning and the final product a point of wonder. The mustard seed is “the smallest of seeds,” He says in today’s Lesson, “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 their branches” (Mt. 13:32).

With this point of wonder in mind, a preacher once began his Sunday Sermon by telling the congregation that he was going to invent a parable. “Imagine I have a big basket,” he said…

“I put the basket in the middle of the Church and I say to you, ‘Put your hands in your pockets and take out all the change and loose bills that you…