He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”– Mark 4, 30-32 New Revised Standard Version

I have an allotment in a community garden, and I love gardening. Because I avoid pesticides, herbicides and artificial fertiliser, I am not the best or most successful gardener when it comes to harvest, yet I still find joy in it.

I try to grow stuff to eat like carrots, beans, romaine, broccoli and other cabbages. Sometimes I like to experiment as well. So I had that “Asian Salad Mix” seed pouch, and I tried it. Basically I got a couple of different lettuces. One of them turned out to be a very spicy mustard green.

It was delicious and very productive. I gave away bags of it to friends and neighbours. After several weeks of giving me greens, it started to shoot, strong stems with lots of branches grew out of it, about six to eight feet high and it began blooming with bright yellow flowers. The bees were all over it.

Coming from Europe it reminded me of oilseed rape fields, and rape and broccoli are actually close relatives of the mustard plant. I had about 30 plants of it, and each one was bearing fruit.

The seeds are in pods, like beans or peas, just much smaller. It took them a while to ripen, and I learnt that I could tell by the stem whether they were ripe or still developing, because the stem is pale green or red and feels cooling to the touch as long as the seeds are developing, even in the heat of the Bermuda summer. Once the seeds are ripe, the stem is totally dried out so that it feels warm.

I began harvesting the seeds by cutting off the tops and putting them in a shopping bag and then crushing the pods. I got pounds of mustard seeds, but not the yellow ones we know from the pickle jar, but much smaller black or brown seeds.

The internet confirmed it was Asian mustard, the type that was used in Judah and Galilee in the times of Jesus. Back then it was the smallest seed used in farming or gardening, but the plant was much bigger than any other annual plant. It is also the spiciest mustard seed.

Since I had so many seeds, more than I would need for the next planting season, I looked for mustard recipes. Grinding the seeds in my coffee grinder, adding apple vinegar, water, salt, turmeric and honey, I got a fantastic and strong mustard to spice up my meals, much stronger than most shop-bought mustard. We call it Mighty Mustard at home, and who knows, I might market it one day as Bermudian-grown Mighty Mustard.

This came to mind when I was thinking about this week’s column. We are still at the beginning of the year, and also at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry in the church year. Tomorrow the Gospel will be about the Lord’s baptism in the Jordan river, which marked the beginning of his public ministry. Theologians believe he was about 30 years old at that point. We know little about his childhood.

His family had to flee to Egypt and live as refugees there. When Jesus was 12 he had been in the temple discussing theological issues with the teachers and priests there (Luke 2, 41-52). At the end of that story we read: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour.” That is all about the 18 years that past since then.

The Bible has a growing mindset. Things develop and evolve over time. Many of the parables speak about that as well. It teaches us to be patient with things, with others, and with ourselves.

Patience seems to be anti-cultural in a time of instant gratification. We don’t really like to wait. We want everything fast: the internet, our goods we order, and so many other things. However, anticipation can have its own joy. In German there is even a word for that: Vorfreude, literally meaning “advanced joy.”

Children have Vorfreude weeks before their birthday or before Christmas, many people have Vorfreude before they travel or when they have to wait to get something important to them. I remember a little story where the people at a dinner party were told: “Hold on to your fork, the best is still to come.”

It is like in my garden. I have to be patient. The carrots will not grow faster if I pull on them, just the opposite, they will get worse. “To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under Heaven”, The Byrds sang in their hit Turn, Turn Turn, based on Ecclesiastes, chapter 3.

Nature and our lives have seasons. Every season has its own phases and purpose to go through, just like spring, summer, fall and winter. While it may at first glance seem frustrating that we may have to wait and grow, it can be very satisfying as well.

I am a big supporter of letting children be children, as they are not little adults. They have their own magic in growing up, playing, learning, and developing. I believe the honeymoon phase is a great time for couples, however, the later phases can be fulfilling as well, when reality changes the relationship into maturity.

Three years ago my first grandchild was born. That got me into a new season as well, and I am loving it even though it meant I had to realise that I am getting older, things are changing in my life and I have to part with some of it.

My faith develops as well. The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, 11-12 (NRSV): “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

• Karsten Decker is a German theologian with a double degree equivalent to an MTheol and MDiv. He studied in Marburg (Germany), Knoxville (USA), and Toronto (Canada) and comes from a united church of Lutheran and Reformed Churches. He was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary Untied Methodist Church in Smith’s