Kudzu and Mustard Seeds

About 130 years ago, someone in the United States got a bright idea, to import into our country a vine that had use both as a decorative ground cover, something like ivy, and also for controlling soil erosion, particularly in the South. The vine is known as kudzu, and it came to us from Japan.

It was not long before the kudzu, particularly when it was left unattended when used for erosion control, got out of control.In my home state of Georgia it literally covers everything. It overgrows telephone poles and trees. It grows incredibly quickly. It is a constant effort to keep it trimmed back along interstate highways. It is generally considered a terrible nuisance and people in Georgia rue that day that it was introduced to our state. It may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but most anyone I know would tell you that kudzu, was a terrible mistake.

And that it is why it is startling to me that Jesus said the kingdom of God is like another noxious botanical monster, the mustard plant. The mustard plant and kudzu have a lot in common. They are both considered weeds. They both grow rapidly. They are both considered by farmers to be damaging. They are both almost impossible to control.

And that is why it is so surprising to me that Jesus, going about the rural country of Galilee as he was, speaking to farmers and those who depended on the land to earn a living, seeking to proclaim the good news among those who would have more than a passing acquaintance with mustard plants and for whom mustard plants would have had a very negative connotation, would look precisely there for a way to describe the coming kingdom.

The kingdom, he said, “is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade." What Jesus is saying is that the kingdom, mustard plants, and kudzu are very much alike. They start benignly and that grow uncontrollably until they take over everything around, in the case of kudu until it covers the telephone poles as if they weren’t there, and in the case of mustard plants, until they grow so large that the birds of the air make nests in their shade. That is what the kingdom of God is like, first and foremost, completely out of control.

Peace,