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The Mustard Seed

The kingdom of heaven begins smaller than you can see — and grows into a tree where the birds find shelter.

Read Matthew 13:31–32 in the reader

Awaiting theological review

Before you read

Who Jesus was speaking to

Scripture

Matthew gathers several of Jesus' parables of the kingdom in chapter 13, told by the Sea of Galilee to a crowd so large that Jesus spoke from a boat. The mustard seed comes right after the wheat and the cockle, and just before the leaven.

Interpretation

Jesus' listeners expected God's kingdom to arrive in power. He describes it beginning almost invisibly, in a small group of disciples in Galilee.

Matthew 13:31–32

Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition · Public Domain

The least of all seeds31Another parable he proposed unto them, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. 32Which is the least indeed of all seeds; but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come, and dwell in the branches thereof.

A tiny seed, a great tree

The sower and the birds

Took and sowed

The man who sowed

He takes something tiny and puts it in his own field, trusting it to grow.

  1. 13:31 — Which a man took and sowed in his field

Interpretation

The growth is not his doing: once sown, the seed grows by itself. Jesus says the same in the parable of the seed growing secretly (Mark 4:26–29).

Think about it

What small thing could you plant this week and leave to God to grow?

Dwell in the branches

The birds of the air

They come from outside and find a home in what has grown.

  1. 13:32 — The birds of the air come, and dwell in the branches thereof

Interpretation

Many readers see in the birds the peoples of the world finding shelter in God's kingdom — a hint that the kingdom is for everyone.

Think about it

Who could find shelter in what God is growing in your life?

What first hearers would have noticed

Context

The least of all seeds

History & scholarship

A black mustard seed is only a millimetre or two across, and it was proverbial for smallness. Jesus is using everyday speech, not giving a botany lesson: some seeds are smaller still.

A tree from a garden plant

History & scholarship

Mustard grown by the Sea of Galilee can reach two or three metres in a single season — remarkable for a herb, though not a forest tree. The exaggeration is part of the surprise.

Scripture

The image of birds nesting in a great tree recalls the prophets, where it stands for a kingdom that shelters the nations (Ezekiel 17:22–24; 31:6).

Look closer

Symbols

The mustard seedMatthew 13:32

Interpretation

God often begins with what is small: a child in Bethlehem, twelve ordinary men, a little faith. Jesus elsewhere says that faith as a grain of mustard seed can move mountains (Matthew 17:19).
The treeMatthew 13:32

Tradition & devotion

Christian writers have often seen the growth of the Church in this parable: from a handful of disciples to a community spread across the world.
The leavenMatthew 13:33

Scripture

The very next parable makes the same point from the kitchen: a little leaven hidden in three measures of meal, “until the whole was leavened.”

Remember

Quiz me

Question 1 of 4beginner

What does Jesus compare the kingdom of heaven to in this parable?

The next question

The leaven hidden in the mealFaith as a grain of mustard seedHow did the Church grow from twelve men?The first Christians