Sermon Tone Analysis

Scripture Reading

Introduction

Luke continues with his Gospel message, and includes for us at this point a particular section that speaks about kingdom expansion.

This brief section, which includes two one-liner parables, marks the end of a section or train of thought in Luke’s Gospel narrative.

Now, we've seen that religious leaders have not been responding appropriately to Christ and who he claimed to be.

The crowds have at least enjoyed the presence of Christ and the manner in which Christ was confronting the religious leaders.

But even with them, they didn’t have noble intentions in terms of their obedience to Christ.

For the most part, they had selfish intentions.

Their reasons for following Christ were in fact quite self-centered.

In fact, it’s true to say that most of them would end up deserting Jesus....

Certainly we cannot think that this applied to everyone (on either side of the opinions chart) but there was a very real sense in which Christ was not really being followed by the majority of the crowds in terms of His true character and nature… the very Son of God.

But note that for the most part, those with the power to direct the religious affairs of that day were in opposition to Jesus.

Nonetheless, the reality was that this kingdom of God, with Christ as the Messiah and King, would continue to radically expand, despite the opposition faced.

Despite the fact that the religious leaders were opposed to what was happening, and failed to respond appropriately to Jesus.

In this brief section, two parables are spoken by Jesus.

Each of them has to do with the growth of the kingdom of Christ.

There are some slightly different applications that we can take from each, but each is nonetheless important in terms of the expansion of the kingdom of Christ.

Each of these parables is introduced in a similar manner.

In verse 18...

And again in verse 20...

Christ poses this as a question to his audience in order to invite their consideration of the kingdom...

And what he really is going to do is to encourage them, as Luke seeks to encourage Theophilus to whom he wrote, with the fact that the kingdom is most certainly going to expand.

Let us then consider these two very short parables individually...

1.

The Parable of the Mustard Seed (v.18-19)

We are introduced to this parable in verse 18.

The very first word there in the NIV is “Then...” or in other translations, “therefore...” (ESV) or “So...” (NASB).

But the word used by Luke links what he is outlining here with the preceding paragraph.

In other words, there was something about the miracle that Jesus has just performed that led him to teach on the expansion of the kingdom.

And there are things that could be said in terms of the link of his teaching here with the buildup to this point in general, and the previous encounter in particular.

(The previous encounter was Christ’s healing of a woman bent over).

Firstly (more generally) Christ was responding to opposition.

It was the synagogue ruler that had opposed Jesus in light of him healing a woman on the Sabbath Day.

This opposition would be continuous.

This opposition is something that we’ve seen regularly as we’ve studied through Luke.

And so that is the first possible point of connection.

Another point of connection, a little more specific to the healing of the crippled woman, is that the healing of a woman may have appeared to be something rather insignificant in terms of establishing a kingdom rule.

If you’re going to establish a kingdom that is worth anything, especially in the day of the military power and might of Rome, it’s going to require a little more punch than healing individual people.

But either way, two things are clear.

Christ was teaching the people that the kingdom rule that he was coming to establish was going to take place.

And Luke is conveying a sense of hope and encouragement in the heart of Theophilus, and to all readers of the Gospel.

The question of Jesus in this verse is, “What is the Kingdom of God like?

What shall I compare it?

The first picture is in verse 19...

It is like a mustard seed...

Now, Luke doesn't specifically emphasize the smallness of the mustard seed.

If you had to read Matthew’s Gospel, or even Mark’s, you would note that they emphasize the fact that the mustard seed is smaller than all the other seeds.

Luke doesn’t include that in his account, but we must keep in mind that for the people of that day, the mustard seed was proverbially small.

So, the people of the day understood that it was that small.

But the more important point that is being made through the parable is the fact that when you plant a tree or something similar, the seed of that tree is extremely small when compared to what it will become.

Man threw into own garden...

According to the parable, Jesus portrays the action of a man who takes this mustard seed and throws it into the garden, to plant it.

One aspect to note about mustard is that it grew wild, and would itself spread extensively once planted.

Pliny the Elder lived between the years 23 and 79, and he wrote a natural history… a mammoth work detailing all kinds of things concerning nature, plants, their uses, etc.

He wrote concerning mustard:

“...it will grow without cultivation...on the other hand, it is extremely difficult to rid the soil of it when once sown there, the seed when it falls germinating immediately.

(Pliny the Elder.

(1855).

The Natural History (J.

Bostock, Ed.; p. 4197).

Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street.)

And so, apart from the contrast that will be brought across in terms of the size of the seed compared to the size of the tree that it produces, there may be another element in the back of the minds of the hearers in terms of how this plant could spread, particularly when Jesus combines the parable with the parable of the yeast which follows.

But the greater emphasis here is on the eventual size of the mustard tree in comparison to the seed.

Grew and became a tree...

Jesus says in the parable that this tiny seed, when planted, went through its transformation and became a tree.

What started out as something small, seemingly insignificant, ended up being that which was large and couldn’t be missed.

Now, just to ensure that our thinking is not taken too extreme… The tree itself usually (on average) didn’t grow much more than 2m high.

It could reach to a little over 3m, but it wasn’t a massive tree like an oak, or the cedars of Lebanon…

Nonetheless, it became sufficiently large so that...

the Birds of the air nested...

The tree became big enough to have a wonderful impact on the birds of the air.

They would be able to come and perch in the branches, and find shelter in the branches.

When Jesus speaks these words concerning the birds in the branches, he draws on similar pictures used elsewhere in Scripture.

In various different places kingdoms are pictured as trees in order to demonstrate the positive effects that these trees will have in sustaining life, and proving to be valuable and beneficial.

We read something like this in the book of Daniel… in reference to Babylon and its greatness... Nebuchadnezzar had a dream...

Essentially from that dream, Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar that he is the tree… by which he means the kingdom that is Babylon, represented by Nebuchadnezzar, is like this tree that provides cover, and provisions etc.

We find a similar idea in the book of Ezekiel...

And agan, in Ezekiel 31:6, God speaks about the Assyrian nation and its greatness, and speaking about this, we read...

The picture is clear from these various passages, that a great kingdom such as these - Babylon or Assyria - would provide a form of shelter, protection, and supply of needed resources for those that come under it’s protection.

Now, coming back to the words of Christ, we must note that the emphasis on Christ’s teaching here is that the kingdom of Christ, while presently small and seemingly insignificant, would expand to be of significant size and prove to be a great blessing to people.

Again, the important emphasis by Jesus in this parable is on the contrast of the present insignificance of the kingdom, as opposed to what it would eventually become.

With that in mind let us consider the second parable…

2. The Parable of the Leaven (vv.20-21)

The second parable reinforces the first, but adds some additional considerations.

Jesus begins in verse 20...

That is simply a restatement in contracted form of how he introduced the first parable.

But in verse 21 we read...

It is like yeast...

The yeast that is spoken of here is not what we typically think of when yeast is mentioned.

For us, yeast is something that is bought in little packets, and we pour a bit of this powder into our bread in order to make it rise.

In the day of Jesus, this was actually old, fermented dough.

The new dough that the people would use for baking bread etc. was brought into contact with the old fermenting dough (also called sourdough) which would then initiate the fermentation process in this new dough.

Importantly, this fermentation process could not be seen.

It was not a visible thing, but it was extremely effective at getting the job done that needed to be done.

In fact, once the fermentation process had begun, it would not be able to be stopped.

Christ says that this kingdom of heaven is like this yeast / leaven...

“...which a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough...”

The NIV is a little vague here in terms of the volume.

Luke’s original says that Jesus gave a measure here - 3 pecks.

The unit of measure in that day - a peck - is equivalent to our 13 litres.

So here would have been about 40 litres worth of flour, which the NIV simply says was a “large amount.”

Indeed it was!