Full disclosure – I wrote a reflection on today’s reading from Matthew on July 27, 2011.  The first reading in 2011 recounted the return of Moses from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments.  My reflection from 2011 on the Gospel built on my thoughts from that passage and was as follows:

Surely Moses must have felt a sense of what the kingdom of heaven will be like.  Jesus tells us how valuable it is, in practical terms that we can relate to in our earthly lives.  It is worth all we have in this life – it is worth sacrificing all we have and possess in order to obtain it.  As Ignatius prayed “Take, Lord, receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my entire will.  You have given all these things to me – to you O Lord, I restore them.  All are yours.  Dispose of them all according to your will.  Give me only your love and your grace, for that is enough for me.”

There is a difficult jump from where we are and where Moses is – as Jesus reminds us, we are burdened with the things of life.  If we truly value heaven, we would trade all of these things for life in the kingdom of heaven.  Perhaps my difficulty in being radiant like Moses is because I am too attached to my life.  The things, the people, the relationships, the power, the emotions, the sensation of living – all these are distractions from the kingdom.  And so, as Ignatius reminds us, as Jesus teaches us – we need to let go to be free.  We need to let go to be radiant.

When I revisited the Matthew passages this time, I felt pulled in a different direction.  I kept returning to language from other sources of “the Kingdom of God on earth.”  It is from this perspective that I spent time with this passage.

Jesus here equates the appreciation for the value of heaven as worth all a person owns.  But elsewhere He also refers to the kingdom as like a mustard seed – the tiniest of seeds that grows into a tree-like shrub in a garden.  The tiny seed, implanted in the right conditions, grows enormously in reference to its size.

What if, instead of focusing on heaven as something that we will experience in the future, we think of it as a process we can experience and help create now, the result of our planting little mustard seeds with our daily lives?  My earlier thoughts about being detached and letting go of what binds us to our current life reminds us of the difficulty in following Jesus, but if we think of the consequences of what we do in each moment, we can perhaps see a positive forward movement not just for ourselves but for our sisters and brothers.

I recall the lyrics of the song “Everybody Talkin’ ‘Bout Heaven Ain’t Goin’ There.”  They remind us of the admonition from Jesus at the end of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:21 – 27) – it isn’t enough to talk the talk, we must WALK the talk.  Jesus tells us to put His teachings into action.

So, what are the mustard seeds that we can put into action – obviously we do the important ones Jesus calls out – feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, consoling the grieving, burying the dead.  But we also plant seeds when we act with others using simple common courtesy (good manners), such as opening a door, saying thank you sincerely, listening before talking, making eye contact.  We plant mustard seeds when do not judge the actions of someone else (either with our words or our silent thoughts).  We scatter mustard seeds when we refuse to pass along the latest office gossip or neighborhood scandal.  We plant seeds for our children and grandchildren by living a simpler, more sustainable life.  We probably store up big points in St. Peter’s ledger if we generously allow someone to merge into traffic in front of us, and do not grumble (or worse!) or share fun little gestures with someone who speeds up in the hope they will be allowed to enter the lane farther up the road.

If we are thoughtfully aware of even the tiniest of our actions, and appreciate them as mustard seeds, we can make choices to advance or hinder the growth of the kingdom of God on earth.  If we do these things – if we plant these seeds – with the spirit of generosity and compassion that Jesus models for us, we will be making our lives, and more importantly those of our sisters in brothers with whom we share this planet, more like the vision that Jesus has for us.  In other words, while we are aware and appreciate the heaven that is to come at the end of our earthly existence, we live today as if we already are there.

And so, my prayer today is for the grace to plant as many mustard seeds as I can.