Mustard Seeds, Cedar Trees, and LGBTQ+ Catholics

Today’s reflection is from Brian Flanagan (he/him), a theologian and Senior Fellow at New Ways Ministry. He is the Past President of the College Theology and most recently Associate Professor at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia. His research focuses on ecclesiology and ecumenism, and his most recent book is “Stumbling in Holiness: Sin and Sanctity in the Church.”  He is a married gay man and a parishioner at Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown, D.C.

The liturgical readings for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time can be found here.

In today’s liturgical readings we get a tale of two plants, and with that two different visions of the coming reign of God. And these two trees – a majestic cedar tree and a lowly mustard bush – might provide two ways in which we as LGBTQ+ can envision how justice, freedom, and equality are coming to be realized for us in our church and in our world.

In the reading from Ezekiel 17, the redemption of the people of Israel is symbolized by God restoring or elevating the natural environment. This symbolization also appears in  Isaiah 2, where we  we hear that “In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills.” Similarly, in Isaiah 27, Israel is compared to a vineyard and we hear that “In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall sprout and blossom, covering all the world with fruit.” In today’s Ezekiel text from Ezekiel, we get an image of a cedar tree planted in Israel, that “shall put forth branches and bear fruit” where “birds of every kind shall dwell beneath it, every winged thing in the shade of its boughs.”

These images point us to two realities in the expected redemption of Israel: first, that a restored Israel will be a place of flourishing life, giving shelter to birds, as in today’s example, or a holy mountain where the lion and the lamb shall graze together without violence. Secondly, these images also emphasize the visibility and clarity of this redemption: all of the nations of the world shall see God’s mountain and stream towards it; in today’s story, the cedar is planted “on a high and lofty mountain,” so that “all the trees of the field shall know that I, the LORD, bring low the high tree, [and] lift high the lowly tree.” 

That is why the image Jesus uses in his parable of the mustard bush would have been challenging, even shocking, to many of Jesus’ first hearers. Unlike the noble, tall cedar, Jesus gives his listeners an image of the reign of God as an overgrown bush. As scholar Mariam Kamell comments, “While his audience may look for the kingdom to come in ways that are recognizable and familiar (branch to cedar tree), a kingdom they can take pride in as noble and lofty, they are given a seed and a kitchen-garden shrub.” 

Kamellwrites that for listeners hoping that God’s reign would come in clear, noble, visible, cedar-like ways, Jesus’ imagery here would have been “shocking.” In Jesus’ telling, the reign of God will not just be different, but arrive differently – with the smallest of beginnings, in small, secret growth, more like a weed than a noble tree, and yet still a place of flourishing and of shelter. Like the grain of wheat that dies and produces much fruit (John 12), the reign of God, sneaking in through a tiny seed, looks very different than what some of his followers were expecting.

For LGBTQ+ Catholics, this might be a hopeful reminder that the reign of God is more like a mustard bush than like a majestic cedar. We often long for a clear, decisive, visible victory, a welcoming of LGBTQ+ people without any ambiguity, a direct and radical change in church teaching, the moment in which God’s justice wins clearly and decisively. But today’s parable tells us that the reign of God, which will include all of us flourishing, comes in mustard-seed ways: through small, almost hidden acts of honesty and integrity, like coming out; through quiet fidelity to our siblings in Christ in the church, even when they frustrate us or actively discourage us; through continuing to show up, week after week, as members of the Body of Christ gathered in communion and sent to the world in service. 

And just as the parables ask for ears to hear, the reign of God requires eyes to see moments of justice and renewed life, for LGBTQ+ people and for all of God’s people and creation, arriving slowly, quietly, and yet unstoppably, until we all find shelter and flourishing in the world God is preparing for and with us.

—Brian Flanagan, Senior Fellow, New Ways Ministry, June 16, 2024