Like a mustard seed

The beginning of the Kingdom of heaven is likened to the growth of the mustard seed.

- 

The plant (Greek sinapi) is generally large, growing up to nine feet tall, but growing from proverbially small seed. The parable illustrates the theme of large growth from small beginnings. The man sowing the seed represents Jesus, and the plant is the Kingdom of God. The birds nestling on the plant's branches refers to the Old Testament texts which emphasize the universal reach of God’s Kingdom. Psalm 104:12 speaks of trees beside a stream where birds of heaven nest and sing among the branches. However, a real mustard plant is unlikely to attract nestling birds, and so Jesus is here using deliberate extravagance in his analogy of astonishing growth. Among those who refer to the “spiritual” sense of the parable, St. Jerome comments that the man who sows the seed is understood by most to be the Savior; by others the man himself who sows in his field, that is, in his own heart. Who indeed is the sower but our own mind and understanding, which receiving the grain of preaching, and nurturing it by the dew of faith, makes it to spring in the field of our own breast. In turn, St. Gregory the Great says that Christ himself is the grain of mustard seed who, planted in the garden of the sepulcher, grew up a great tree. He was a grain of seed when he died, and a tree when he rose again; grain of seed