AS A MUSTARD SEED

“So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” (Luke 17:6)

In several translations of this Gospel verse, the focus has been on the size of a mustard seed. However, in the original Greek language, our Lord Jesus Christ says, “like a mustard seed” or “as a mustard seed.” The small size of the mustard seed is only one of its characteristics. There are other features that reveal the full meaning of the metaphor used by our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus expands on the mustard seed metaphor, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a person took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all the other seeds, but when it is fully grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the sky come and nest in its branches.” (Matthew 13:32). It is one of the fastest-growing plants, the height of which reaches 3 to 4 meters in just a few months. The mustard seed is a vivid example of the potential of the seed of faith. Although small and insignificant, it grows and becomes a blessing to those around it.

A seed does not grow until it falls into fertile soil. Our Lord Jesus points out that our faith must also be sown in good and fertile soil so that it grows and bears a hundredfold fruit. “But the seed in the good soil – these are the ones who have heard the word with a good and virtuous heart, and hold it firmly, and produce fruit with perseverance.” (Luke 8:15)

When the grain begins to grow, it pushes aside the stones and other obstacles encountered on the way to its rooting. However, this does not happen momentarily but with an incessant and continuous growth. The grain stubbornly throws up roots and strives upwards with all its might.

Other seeds have no effect on the growth of a healthy seed. Even if others wither, a healthy grain in fertile soil continues to grow. It is persistent and never gives up. I think this is the most important quality of the mustard seed and, therefore, the most important quality of our faith, i.e., to be persistent, to be rooted in the Word of God, never to give up, and to bear fruit.

Therefore, let us have faith like a grain of mustard seed, and “as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.” (Colossians 2:6-7)

Bishop Mesrop Parsamyan