I lived last year in a neighborhood known by people outside of the community, and even by some inside, for its drugs, gangs, poverty, and violence. In fact, the house that we resided in used to be a boarding house – which was a veiled way of talking about a transitory location for those looking for some kind of comfort in drugs, sex, or just a roof over their heads. There is a lot next to our house that is long, skinny and weed covered – the neighborhood association is not sure what to do with it – and it is exactly the kind of lot that you would tell your kids to stay away from and that would necessarily bring down adjacent property value. A friend of ours from the neighborhood buried a dead cat that was found on our sidewalk there. In the process, he discovered, or was reminded, that even feet down in the dirt it was filled with broken glass, cigarette butts, old tires, bottles, candy wrappers and even the occasional appliance. The lot was a mess.

One of my roommates decided to build a garden right there on that lot that we did not own. He spent a week filtering the dirt through the wires of an abandoned shopping cart to make it safe to grow seeds in. The plot was maybe 3 feet by 2 feet and framed by discarded white boards. Thanks to the labor of our housemate, near the end of spring our house was able to enjoy salad greens that were grown in the lot. It was an unlikely little ray of hope in the midst of abused and trashed land.

I see what my roommate did with that tiny garden plot as embodying the aspects of the kingdom that Jesus describes in two parables: the first parable is of a farmer scattering seed on the ground. The parable says “he does not know how” the seed grows. However, what I suspect the parable is saying is what the farmer actually does know: that he can do only so much in the growth of the seed. It is the work of the earth, sun and rain to produce and bear the fruit of good wheat. The second parable is of the mustard seed and is meant to be read right in line with the first. In it a tiny seed, contrary to our notions of relative input and output, produces one of the most lush and helpful plants in the garden. The wheat is not so different; like the mustard shrub and most other plants, it comes from a relatively small beginning. The mustard seed is the same as the wheat because, like the wheat, it grows not on its own but because of reasons not completely understood even by the most learned farmer: the richness of the earth, the heat of the sun, the work of the animals, and the biological inner workings of the seed. Three aspects of the Kingdom of Heaven are illustrated by these parables: faith, hope, and patience. The last one, patience, is probably the hardest one for us to get, as it rests upon hope and faith.

The farmer in the first parable does a completely unremarkable thing. He sows some seeds. The farmer plants the seeds, knowing he is not responsible for yielding the whole product and that there are things that he cannot control. This is faith. Faith is to know that ultimately someone or something else is in control of the outcome, or omnipotent. We have a part to play – to plant the seeds. The farmer should plant the seeds well, deeply, with sufficient room to grow and in soil that has been properly rotated, lain fallow for a year perhaps, and is respectful of the many systems around it that sustain it. Still, ultimately, no matter what the farmer does the seeds will grow or not grow.

Faith is freeing. It relieves us from an impossible burden – saving the world. Faith in God means that we believe that God’s plans have already been accomplished through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Faith means that, guided well in how to plant our seeds, take care of the land we are given and graciously care for our plots we are not burdened with the tasks of causing the inner workings of the seed to grow.

However–even the demons believe in God; how is Christianity different? The mustard seed provides a response to that – hope. Hope seems to be a dangerous word these days–what do we really have to hope in? When one quarter of this county in poverty, women and men scour want ads for work, and violence ravages many nations across the globe, we have to ask: is hope naïve?

One type of hope is–it will tell us, given an apparently “bad” situation, that those bad things will magically get better. This type of hope offers shallow words of comfort to victims of suffering and insists that there is always some solution. I like to call this type of hope “optimism.”

God is not optimistic, God is sure.

God’s is the hope of sitting with people who are brokenhearted even if we cannot do a single thing for them. This is the hope that gives when asked, not knowing what really may come of it. It is a hope of certainty, a hope that when we act faithfully a shrub will emerge. Not any shrub, either, but a beautiful, lush, sheltering shrub that we may not know how it will grow. Hope is to not only know that you do not have control over the outcome but to delight in it! The outcome belongs to the most gracious, loving and just being that exists: God.

It may be difficult to justify spending time with people, being with others without a particular task at hand. We have an inclination to only do things that see immediate results. We want to give five dollars to the girl in the grocery line instead of befriending her to wonder why she is struggling financially. We form committees with those “less fortunate” in order to empower and help them, or send the homeless off to shelters. But the church, in the words of Mother Theresa, is not called to be successful, but to be faithful. Success will come at some point as a result of being faithful, but it is not that for which we ought to strive. To choose to be with others instead of doing for them plants mustard seeds that are solely based on strong hope and sure faith. They allow us to witness in the most important way: to live so that, were there not a God, our lives would not make sense at all.

This is why I see my roommate’s garden as a pretty good in-breaking of the kingdom. The garden was not planted to feed the entire community, or give teenagers something to do in the afternoon – both very good things – but instead did something beautiful, time consuming and good. He transformed a small part of a dirty lot, in some sense against the rules of the neighborhood association, but with the hope that it would be used for good. He had faith that it would grow something, hope that it would come into something good and is still sitting with the patience of what will come of that tiny garden plot, in a week, a year or ten years. One of our Latino brothers uses the phrase “Paciencia Ardiente,” or “ardent patience.” This is an eager patience that realizes our integral and loving part in the kingdom, but a kingdom that is ultimately brought about not through our work but through the infinite love, patience, healing and justice of a relational God. This means planting your garden now and loving the garden, the earth, and the people who surround it instead of holding your own expectations. God is not optimistic, God is sure, and God’s wisdom is not human wisdom.

You may be used to hearing faith and hope used with the word love. Love is supreme, but often misunderstood. God loves us with a love that does not expect specific outcomes, but enjoys imagining fruit of goodness. It endures things that do not make sense, and lives with hope even when hope seems completely undeserved. That is why I leave love out, not because it is unimportant but because if you embody faith the size of a mustard seed, patience that humbly endures while still hoping a hope that refuses to shut off the possibility of good, you may be pretty darn close to love. You may be pretty darn close to the kingdom of God.