The Kingdom of God

Of all the teachings of Jesus, it is the kingdom parables that are, by far, the hardest to wrap my mind around.  If Jesus had said that the Kingdom of God would spread like the grain of the field or the mustard tree, well I get that, but my simple mind has a hard time understanding how the KoG is like a mustard seed or as if someone scattered seed upon the ground.

And so, I am grateful for 1) the Holy Spirit and 2) the great tradition of the Church that helps me make sense of such lofty words by Jesus; I am not a lofty thinker.  I am drawn again, as it happens so often to the Prayer for the Whole Church which in my tradition, Episcopal, gets used on Good Friday, The Great Vigil, and at ordinations (among other places, I think).

The Kingdom of God is like this prayer.

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were being cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

...Let the whole world see and know that things which were being cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfectoin by him through whom all things were made...

The KoG is something like that.