The social channels are littered with stories of quick wins and taking meager resources and turning them into riches overnight. Seems like that's the equation for a book deal and speaking gigs - win big but start with nothing.
Jesus had a different twist on how we should see business growth. He gave us stories, mostly from the daily life of the time, to tell us how His Kingdom would work. That's how he made the intangible easy for us to grasp.
Two of those parables take us to that same place of staring at something new and getting big results. You've read them- the parable of the mustard seed and yeast. found in Matthew 13.
The point of these stories is not exactly what you might have been taught. Yes, these are some of the smallest things that the ordinary person might handle - mustard seeds and yeast. So the starting small part is right.
Jesus was illustrating how the Kingdom starts out in ways that seem insignificant, even hidden, and then becomes something that has a huge impact.
But there is something else going on in this story. Both mustard seeds and yeast had specific religious regulations that controlled their use. Mustard seeds were not supposed to be planted in small mixed gardens, and yeast had to be completely cleansed from the home at least once per year. Both of these unique elements have a characteristic in common.
The reason for the concern about Mustard Seeds and yeast is their invasive power. Both of them can spread far beyond where they are planted. Mustard seeds were practically an invasive species at that time, and yeast could get into every bit of flour in your kitchen and multiply quickly (ever see sourdough starter overflow?).
When Jesus is telling the story of the Mustard Seed, it was a real scenario in which a farmer might plant mustard in his field, but there's something tongue-in-cheek hidden in this story, too. That little mustard seed is one of the most pervasive and even invasive species known at that time.
And Jesus took it a little further. We think of having birds take shelter in your crop a nice thing. But that's not how farmers see it. Having birds in your field wasn't something you wanted- those were a hazard to your crops. Jesus was teaching about just how the Kingdom of God turns things upside down.
Here's an example from this era. When Darious III of Persia began confronting Alexander, he sent him sesame seeds to depict the vast numbers of his army- a military flex. Alexander responded with mustard seeds because they were well known to take over in an aggressive and almost irresistible way.
The farmers would have all known that they needed to be careful with planting mustard because of what it might do to all of the surrounding fields.
So Jesus wasn't just doing an illustration of how something small can become big. His kingdom is a takeover agent. It might start small, but it wasn going to disrupt things.
The lesson of this parable is that Jesus' Kingdom has an ordinary and even modest appearance, but it is something with immense power to spread, attract wild animals, and become invasive. His ministry attracted people that others tried to avoid - lepers, sinners, Samaritans.
When we think about the small start that we might have with a new venture, He's inviting us to have the same characteristics in our business as mustard seeds and yeast- disruptive and powerful to change the way things operate.
If you want a Jesus that kind of impact, then we start a venture, we need to start with something that has the seeds of the Kingdom in it. Not just the seeds of our good idea, or something we got from a clever social influencer. That means that beyond our great idea, we need to embed the values, the truth, the ways of the Kingdom in the fabric of our work. We can sow those things in the middle of whatever venture we are launching.
Jesus is teaching that the real impact of a venture doesn't come from the greatness of the idea, but from the power of its potential in His Kingdom. Building a business as a Kingdom Venture by including Kingdom values and purposes injects something into the business that may seem insignificant at the beginning - but just watch.
Here's the invitation: Plant mustard seeds of the Kingdom in the field of your venture and see just how powerful it will become.