Wednesday,
August 2, 2023
As a tourist or resident, walking the busy streets of New York isn’t a complete experience unless you get a hot dog from a street vendor. And, of course, you must have mustard! (If you eat it plain the STREET-EATS POLICE will get ya’).
As a former New Yorker who has eaten many of those
“tube-steaks” I can attest to the oft-mused answer to the question about what gives
those doggies their special flavor. The
answer is threefold simple…ambiance of the great city, a fair amount of soot,
and taxicab tailpipe exhaust in the air[1].
Now, It's something of a leap from street-vendors selling New York hot dogs, to Jesus talking about mustard in Jerusalem; but there is a connection. You do know there isn’t a person in the entirety of humanity who hasn’t tasted a hot dog. In the same way everyone in the crowd to which Jesus spoke in that agrarian community knew mustard seeds as a “must” for the garden. The image of the tiny seed, growing into a huge, tree-like bush, and how mustard’s pungent taste can enhance many foods, is common in any culture you care to name. When you bite into anything coated with mustard, you know it’s there. And that may be a hint of why Jesus used such a common image to help people understand God’s Kingdom.
The rapid growth of a tiny seed, coupled with its unmistakeable
presence when matured, is an appropriate characterization of what God is able
to do with us. Consider the magnificent
presence of Mother Teresa…as tiny a human being (physically) as you could ever meet,
and quiet enough, personally, that you’d never expect a mustard kind of effect
out of that little package. But she drew
the attention of the entire world to change the way children are treated.
Much as a mustard plant can double as a shade tree for
a hot, weary bird or two, any tiny human being, whether isolated in the
mountains of Cambodia, or living on the busy streets of Mubai, India, another face
in the crowd of 21-million other people, God can grow some evidence of His
Kingdom-presence to feed a leper, or put clothes on a street kid. Small, common seeds…big, holy results!
For You Today
From the antiquities of the first century church we
have what Paul told the belivers at Colossae:
Work
willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather
than for people. Colossians 3:23
You chew on that as you
hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!
There are about 2,600 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.
Title Image: via Pixabay.com Images without citation are in public domain. Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT©
[1] With humble apologies to my New York friends and relatives…tongue in cheek; it’s really da mustard
