MUSTARD GRAIN AND A LITTLE LEAVEN
Jesus said: “What is the kingdom of God like? To what can I compare it? It is like a mustard seed […] It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed [in] with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch of dough was leavened.” (Lk 13: 18-21). The parable of the mustard grain and the leavencan also be found in Matthew (Mt 13: 31-35) and the first of it also in Mark (Mk 4:30-32). In both cases, however, these parables are part of Jesus' larger discourse in the parables.
Luke places it in a different context and introduces with a phrase that apparently links these parables to the words: “he said * (Greek: Elege de; Latin: dicebat ergo). Clearly, in Luke's version, the parable of the grain and leaven becomes a commentary on what just happened.
What happened? Well, Jesus healed a woman in the synagogue "who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit; she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect” (Lk 13:11). As he did it on the Sabbath, it provoked a protest and rebuke from the synagogue leader. Jesus in the form of a parable reveals the "other side" of this protest. It is not only about violating the law, but also about the cause of it.
For whom did Jesus break the holy prohibition? For some woman, whose name we do not even know. We can only imagine the way she has been treated for the past eighteen years.Humpbacked woman! An object of mockery or pity at best. But basically "nobody", "zero". Someone the size of a mustard grain. The act of Jesus also has such a meaning in the eyes of the synagogue superior - it is like a mustard grain. Actually, " who Jesus became interested in, what and why He is doing this for her?" "for what is all this scandal?"
Jesus tells his adversary (and all of us) that the actual development of the kingdom of God - it growth up to the size of a great tree depends on the performance of such an act, the discovery of such persons. If we want to know to what extent our Church is really the Kingdom of God on earth, let us not ask about our attitude towards bishops and cardinals; let us ask what is our attitude towards the poor, the sick, the wronged, the marginalized - in various dimensions of this term: "little ones".
It is through the right relationship to them "the Church makes herself grow". Love for them, mindfulness and sensitivity to them, the good just done for them is “a little yeast leavens all the dough” (1 Cor 5:6; Gal 5:9). Why? Because it is a body and grows as a body. And in the body - as St. Paul said "Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts of the body that we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, (...,) so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another" (1 Cor 12: 22-25)
Francis of Assisi showed his respect for man and for God, not when he knelt before the Pope, but when he knelt before a beggar and a leper. The discipline of noticing the "mustard grain" is the principle of the growth of the Church-Body; being sensitive only to “pumpkin-sized” members reduces us only to an " institution of this world".
Until Tomorrow
fr. george