Have you ever, with a taste for roast lamb maybe, planted mint in your garden and found it taking over? ‘Invasive habit’ is the polite word the gardening handbooks use. Mint spreads, it multiplies, it proliferates. Its roots run wild so pulling it out just makes it thrive. It seeds itself, too, if you ever let it flower. Tough, hardy, invasive: God help the good seed that falls among mint!
Take all that and double it for the mustard of the gospel. What is the kingdom of god like? What parable can we find for it? It is a weed—a hardy, invasive weed the world fights a losing battle to control.
This weed can survive a David—lust, adultery, deceit, and murder—after all who was Jesus’ twenty-six-times-great-grandmother but Bathsheba? This weed can survive a crucifixion—failure, betrayal, death, and burial—after all who else do we celebrate tonight? And this weed can survive you and me—with all our pride and shame, our fear and love—after all here we are, still praying, still hoping, still loving, still loved.