In saying that the kingdom comes like a mustard seed, or like yeast, Jesus is gently and somewhat indirectly inviting us to rest in the act that God works even through death. Not in spite of death, but with and through death.
As Jesus himself points out elsewhere, the only way a seed can fulfill it’s purpose is by dying. By being literally buried underground, then breaking apart and decomposing into the earth. A seed’s full seed-ness is reached in it’s death.
In the same way, yeast completely disappears when it is mixed—or, perhaps better, “buried”—into the flour. Not only that, but it gives its life during the baking process. It suffers under a heat which it cannot survive, yet which also solidifies the tiny pockets of air it has created in the risen dough. Yeast’s full yeast-ness is reached in its death.
There is no other pay for either a seed or yeast to accomplish their purposes. They must die.
This, too, is how the kingdom comes to accomplish God’s good purposes in the world. Death is necessary to bring forth new life. As it is in the natural world, so it is in the spiritual world.
Even the enemies of God are recruited for his good purposes.
Whatever dies in your life—whether literal or figurative—very well might be the seed of God’s kingdom that will one day flourish into a life-giving tree. It might very well be the yeast that expands your little batch of dough into something really worth passing around the dinner table.
