Please Pass the Mustard

I was cleaning up from breakfast in the kitchen of our church. Yes, our church serves a free breakfast to our community every Sunday morning. Not just some doughnuts and coffee, mind you; pancakes, bacon, sausage, and whatever other sweet treats "someone" bakes and provides. It was that very someone who walked into the kitchen that morning and began helping me tackle some dishes. We talked as we worked, and she shared with me about something she'd seen on Instagram: 

When Jesus spoke about having faith like a mustard seed, He wasn't pointing to the size (a popular, time-honored interpretation); He was referencing the nature of the mustard seed. It's invasive. 

Oh my, I thought. That answers so many questions! 

When I got home later that day, I wondered if I could find the post. I Googled "Instagram mustard seed invasive". I was completely unprepared for what I saw. Post after post mentioned "invasive mustard seed plants." Some featured pictures of enormous fields ...a beautiful sight if it weren't for the fact that the plant is actually invasive black mustard. And helpful instructions ...garlic mustard is a harmful invasive species that can take over your woodlands and yard, preventing native plants from growing. Here's what to do: One post called it aggressive and pointed to its centuries-long presence in our country. Another described it as "stubborn." Another celebrated the receiving of a grant to remove the species on the basis of its effects on native plants and --Get this! --its flammability! This stuff is not only beautiful and savory; it not only transforms the landscape; it's not only next to impossible to eradicate; it's not only historically embedded ...it is incendiary! You can imagine the kind of damage that occurs when field after field of mustard begins to dry out, something ignites it, and the wind begins to blow. Hundreds of acres impacted by one tiny seed. 

I did find the post my sister saw; I'm sharing it here: Instagram. What's been swirling around in my head, pinging from lobe to lobe to lobe is all the times I've quit -- or wanted to. Things "got really difficult." The temptation to do it my way was "just too great." I was afraid. But isn't that what faith is? Doing what God commands even though it doesn't make sense to the world, even though it's hard, even though it hurts, even though it seems like the wrong thing to do? Had I watered that seed, had I warmed the soil of my heart with the Word of God, had I fed it with the testimonies of those who have great faith, what sort of yield would my faith have produced? Our faith --my faith is to be such that the once that seed is planted and tended, the likelihood of its survival is downright threatening! Other plants around me don't stand a chance because my faith will gobble up every square inch of ground and choke to death those things that are contrary to the will and Word of God. Now, I'm not talking about an abrasive, look-at-me sort of faith; one that takes Scriptures out of context and "decrees and declares" to get God's cooperation. That's probably more along the lines of hubris than faith. I'm talking about a faith so powerful in nature, so strongly rooted, so stubborn that dahlias of doubt, forsythia of fear, tulips of temptation, daisies of despair, wisteria of weariness --well, you get the picture --that no other thing can shake it. Unshakeable, un-uproot-able faith. 

And then there's the wildfire. In those days when our faith is tested, and may truly be all we have, as leaves begin to curl and we wonder, How long? --so long as we are held fast by those strong roots and standing day after day in the presence of the Son, the Holy Spirit breathes His life into us, igniting our faith to an even greater thing. The landscape of our hearts, our neighborhoods, our world is changed by its flame; swaths of ground are burned and reformed to make room for new growth. All because of one tiny seed, falling to the ground, and taking root. 

Is my faith set ablaze and stoked by the breath of God's Holy Spirit? Are others being impacted by the steadfastness of my faith? When my time has passed, will fields of faith remain because I chose --just this once --to stand in faith?