These two parables are quite like the seeds that they're about.
They're very short, but they have borne much fruit in the history of Christian reflection on the Gospels. For example, that first parable about the blade and the ear, and the full grain in the ear, has often been used as a parable for the history of salvation, for God's dealings with the people over time, dealing with them first in one way, then in a more developed way, in a further way, through the prophets, through the apostles, of course with the coming of Christ, and on towards the Last Judgement. It can also be used as a parable for individual spiritual journeys, people looking back across time, and seeing, hopefully, some development in their understanding of Christ, and their participation in the life of the Church, seeing how grace works in the soul, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
The second parable about the mustard seed is even more famous, and has been used more. The mustard tree is the Church, that shrub that sends its branches out, large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade. Often this is how it has been understood as referring to the Church, the community of those who believe in Christ, who are to be found in all parts of the world.
That life which continues to flow, which continues to build up the Kingdom of God in those who believe, takes its origin from the beginnings with Christ, and his teaching and his life with the apostles. And we know what a substantial tree it has become, how it has reached out to find its way to every place and to every time. Or the seed is faith.
The seed is faith, just as the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds. The gift of faith can seem like a very fragile thing, something that might easily be overwhelmed, something that might easily be crushed. And yet the paradox, as many of the fathers of the Church point out, is that precisely when it is crushed, it becomes powerful.
When it is bruised, the seed grows. The seed becomes the bush, the tree, sending out its branches, becoming shelter and food and shade for the birds of the air, welcoming all people to itself. Or the seed is Christ.
The seed is Christ himself, crushed. But in being crushed, coming to life, bringing new life, seasoning the earth, seasoning humanity, preserving human life, doing all those things that a mustard seed will do, bringing a flavour, bringing a challenge, bringing preservation, bringing new life. So, these little seeds of parables, which are dropped for us by the Church today, have themselves turned into substantial trees, substantial shrubs, and they continue to inform the reflection and the understanding of Christians, thinking about Christ as the seed, or faith as the seed, or the Church as the mustard tree, or the history of God's dealings with his people, as a community and as individuals, and how grace grows slowly, quietly, in hidden ways, bringing, please God, bringing a maturity in faith and hope and charity.
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