Mustard and Mulberry

I was reading Fr. James Martin's Between Heaven and Mirth which so far is a wonderful read about joy, laughter, and humor in our spirituality.  One short passage from the book mentioned that some of the phrases and parables Jesus said may have been funny to the ancient Jewish audience hearing it at the time.  For example, pointing out the speck in your brother's eye when you have a wooden plank sticking out of yours.  Fr. Martin says that we hear the stories so often we cannot hear them with fresh ears and don't see the obvious humor in some of the Lord's teachings.

With that in mind I went to the Bible and found a passage that always intrigued me but I never deeply reflected on.  This is from Luke 17:5-6:

"And the apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith'.  The Lord replied, 'If you have fiath the size of a mustard seed you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.'"

Now I'm not sure if there's exactly anything funny about a Mulberry tree since I only know Mulberry from Dr. Seuss and Little Italy street signs in NYC.  What spoke to me about this passage was that the mustard seed is ridiculously small.  You may have been passed one at a retreat or confirmation class some time but for reference its only yea big (see below)

That's either a tiny tiny seed or a giant hand. The apostles ask the Lord to increase their faith because He just told them some stuff that is really hard for humans to do: to resist sin, to care for the poor, to preach against divorce.  Some themes we currently still are talking about in the Church.  And the apostles think that they need more faith to be able to accomplish this.

Jesus tells them that if they had even the smallest amount of faith they can do extraordinary things.  The image of the Mulberry tree is pretty cool once I looked up what they are: 

This is a mulberry tree which is pretty big.  Looking through the Catena Aurea many of the Church fathers point out that this tree's fruit begins with a white flower and then turns red.  Some say that tree represents the "Gospel of the cross" and the uprooting it into the sea is the Gospel being brought from just the Jews to the Gentiles.  Others make a point that the tree is a symbol of the devil because it starts out with angelic white flowers as Lucifer did and then the fruit grows red and eventually an irredimable black. 

I don't know what it really means.  The intriguing thing to me is that this metaphor comes on the heels of a series of difficult teachings.  Maybe Jesus is asking the apostles to uproot their own misinterpretations and hang ups about his teachings and cast them away.

The word for uprooted used here seems to be used mostly in the Bible for something being replaced by God or a human force acting for God because it's not according to His plan.  Most are about treacherous people or bad plants being torn up.  See the full list here.  The mulberry plant, possibly representing the devil or man's own sinful nature or hesitation to listen to Christ's Gospel, is uprooted and planted in the sea by the smallest of seeds, the mustard seed. 

The joyful message for today is, as deficient, small, and miniscule as our faith may be, God can do great things with it!  All it takes is the smallest faith in God and mountains will be moved (Mt17:20) and sin cast away from us.  Mustard is small but persistent.  It has a pungent and fervid flavor and once tasted it cannot be untasted.  Get yourself a mustard seed today because God will reward your faith and make it more fruitful than any tree you could imagine.

~OCG