Mustard Seeds and Mountains

When i was little, I was enthralled with “The Parable of the Mustard Seed.” I knew what a mustard seed looked like, as my mother and grandmother spent many an hour each summer canning dill pickles; quite often I was allowed to sprinkle in the mustard seeds before adding the requisite stalk of dill. In my child’s mind, I wondered why we are called to have faith “the size of a mustard seed.” With faith this size, we are told in Matthew’s Gospel, we have the potential to move mountains. Why must faith be compared to something so tiny, so insignificant? At the time I reasoned that faith should be more like a bulldozer or a tractor if one was indeed to “move mountains.” It was not until I was in my late thirties that I realized the beauty, the joy, and the...