Mustard Seed

Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds.

“The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed

that a person took and sowed in a field.

It is the smallest of all the seeds,

yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants.

It becomes a large bush,

and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.”

Matthew 13:31-32

Come sow in me your mustard seed;
I have no room for more.
My little field is full of weeds
and clogged and choked with thorns.

Send down your sunlight and your rain,
your healing darkness, too:
Perhaps, though I had killed the grain,
this seed will grow for you.

If it should sprout, then make a way
among the tangled vines
for shoots to here unfurl by day
and safely rest by night.

Clear out the weeds; tear deadwood down
that will bear fruit no more,
and let new branches test the bounds
I had set long before.

So day by day and week by week,
by season and by year,
Lord, grow in me the good I seek
in spaces you have cleared.

Send branches up to greet the sky;
let brand-new leaves unfold,
that birds may see me and alight
to shelter in my soul.