Patrick Comerford
We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent. This week began with the Third Sunday before Advent yesterday, which was also Remembrance Sunday. The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Margery Kempe, Mystic (ca 1440). The calendar of the Orthodox Church today remembers Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis (1846-1920), one of the most revered modern saints in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Later this evening, I have a meeting of a local charity of which I am a trustee. But, before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 17: 1-6 (NRSVA):
1 Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! 2 It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. 4 And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, “I repent”, you must forgive.’
5 The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ 6 The Lord replied, ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you.’
Today’s reflections:
I often admit that I do not have green fingers.
For most of my life, I have had no interest in gardening. I like sitting in a garden, reading in the sunshine, listening to the sound of the birds or a small fountain, enjoying the shade of the trees, and in summertime, eating out in the open.
So, it is not that I do not enjoy the garden. It is just that I have always felt I am no good at it.
It is an attitude that may have been nurtured and cultured by heavy hay-fever in my early childhood, hay-fever that comes back to haunt me perennially at the beginning of each summer.
I once bought a willow tree, in the early 1980s, sat with it in the back of a small car all the way across Dublin, holding on to the tree as it stuck out the side window. By the time I got home, I was covered in rashes, and my eyes, ears and nose were in a deep state of irritation. It must have been related to the willow trees in the Psalms, because afterwards I sat down and wept.
For that reason alone, you could not call me a ‘tree hugger.’ But do not get me wrong … I really do like trees.
I relish spending time in the vast, expansive olive groves that stretch for miles and miles along the mountainsides in Crete, or in vineyards where the olive groves protect the vines.
But I cannot be trusted with trees. I was once given a present of a miniature orange tree … and it died within weeks. I have been given presents of not one, but two olive trees. One, sadly, died, the other grew but remained a tiny little thing.
Perhaps if I had just a little faith in my ability to help trees to grow, they would survive and mature.
Mulberries were introduced to England by the Romans and were commonly used for making mediaeval ‘murrey’ (sweet pottage) as well as for medicinal purposes. They were reintroduced in the early 17th century when King James I tried to establish native silk production in 1607-1609. Around 10,000 saplings were imported and distributed by William Stallenge and François Verton through local officials at six shillings for 100 plants, less for packets of seeds.
The commercial project failed because black mulberries (morus nigra) were brought in rather than the white mulberry (morus alba) that silkworms tend to favour. But one of these mulberry plantations gave its name to Mulberry Street, a short quiet back street in Whitechapel, with the tall bell-tower of Saint Boniface Church, the German Roman Catholic Church, at one end.
There was a second mulberry garden close by, across Whitechapel Road in Mile End New Town, north of what is now Old Montague Street and east of Greatorex (formerly Great Garden) Street. Land to the east of that and south of Old Montague Street appears to have been planted in a similar way. Spitalfields was already at the beginning of the 17th century a centre of silk throwing and weaving.
The mulberry garden in Whitechapel became a market garden and then a pleasure ground, and was used for a few weeks in 1764 as a temporary asylum for refugees. A tented camp was set up for around 400 deceived and destitute refugees from the Palatinate and Bohemia who had been abandoned on what they had thought was a journey to Nova Scotia. With local fundraising and charitable efforts, initiated primarily by local churches and clergy, the refugees eventually left and found homes in South Carolina.
Housing development in the area began in the 1780s and 1790s. The Mulberry Tree public house once stood on the north side of Little Holloway Street, while Union Row later became Mulberry Street.
You may wonder why Christ decides to talk about a mustard seed and a mulberry tree, rather than, say, an olive tree. After all, as he was talking in the incident in this morning’s Gospel reading, he must have been surrounded by grove after grove of olive trees.
But, I can imagine, he is also watching to see if those who are listening have switched off their humour mode, if they have withdrawn their sense of humour. He is talking here with a great sense of humour, using hyperbole to underline his point.
We all know a tiny grain of mustard is incapable of growing to a big tree. So, what is Christ talking about here? Because, he not only caught the disciples off-guard with his hyperbole and sense of humour … he even wrong-footed some of the Reformers and many Bible translators who make mistakes about what sort of trees he is talking about this morning.
Why did Christ refer to a mustard seed and a mulberry or sycamine tree, and not, say, an olive tree or an oak tree?
Christ first uses the example of a tiny, miniscule kernel or seed (κόκκος, kokkos), from which the small mustard plant (σίναπι, sinapi) grows. But mustard is an herb, not a tree. Not much of a miracle, you might say: tiny seed, tiny plant.
But he then mixes his metaphors and refers to another plant. Martin Luther, in his translation of the Bible, turned the tree (verse 6) into a mulberry tree. The mulberry tree – both the black mulberry and the white mulberry – is from the same family as the fig tree.
As children, some of us sang or played to the nursery rhyme or song, Here we go round the mulberry bush. Another version is Here we go gathering nuts in May. The same tune is used for the American rhyme Pop goes the weasel and for the Epiphany carol, I saw three ships. TS Eliot used the nursery rhyme in his poem The Hollow Men, replacing the mulberry bush with a prickly pear and ‘on a cold and frosty morning’ with ‘at five o’clock in the morning.’
Of course, mulberries do not grow on bushes, and they do not grow nuts that are gathered in May. Nor is the mulberry a very tall tree – it grows from tiny seeds but only reaches the height of an adult person. It is not a very big tree at all. It is more like a bush than a tree – and it is easy to uproot too.
However, the tree Christ names (Greek συκάμινος, sikámeenos) is the sycamine tree, which has the shape and leaves of a mulberry tree but fruit that tastes like the fig, or the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus). Others think the tree being referred to here is the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus), a tree we come across later in this Gospel as the big tree that little Zacchaeus climbs in Jericho to see Jesus (Luke 19: 1-10).
The sycamine tree is not naturally pollinated. The pollination process is initiated only when a wasp sticks its stinger right into the heart of the fruit. In other words, the tree and its fruit have to be stung in order to reproduce. There is a direct connection between suffering and growth, but also a lesson that everything in creation, including the wasp, has its place in the intricate balance of nature.
Whether it is a small seed like the mustard seed, a small, seemingly useless and annoying creature like the wasp, or a small and despised figure of fun like Zacchaeus, each has value in God’s eyes, and each has a role in the great harvest of gathering in for God’s Kingdom.
Put more simply, it is quality and not quantity that matters.
Here are six little vignettes about faith that I came across recently:
1, Once all the villagers decided to pray for rain. On the day of prayer, all the people gathered, but only one little boy came with an umbrella. That is faith.
2, When you throw babies in the air, they laugh because they know you will catch them. That is trust.
3, Every night we go to bed without any assurance of being alive the next morning, but still we set the alarm to wake up. That is hope.
4, We plan big things for tomorrow in spite of zero knowledge of the future. That is confidence.
5, We see the world suffering, but still people get married and have children. That is love.
6, There is an old man who wears a T-shirt with the slogan: ‘I am not 80 years old; I am sweet 16 with 64 years of experience.’ That is attitude.
This morning’s Gospel reading challenges us to pay attention to our attitude to, to the quality of, our faith, trust, hope, confidence, love and positivity. And if we do so, we will be surprised by the results.
Meanwhile, the refugees in the Mulberry Gardens in Whitechapel over 260 years ago are a reminder that people have always been the victims of traffickers and people smugglers and that refugees have been arriving from continental Europe on these islands without documentation for centuries. But the compassionate and practical response of the local churches and clergy shows that small actions by people of faith, no matter what size that faith may be, can bring about positive results and create justice.
Today’s Prayers (Monday 9 November 2026):
In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 8 to 14 November 2026 (pp 54-55), is ‘Pray for COP31’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a reflection by Sophia Jones, Interim Director of Communications, Engagement, and Fundraising, USPG:
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 9 November 2026) invites us to pray:
At the start of the UN Climate Summit, COP31, today in Antalya, Türkiye, we pray, Lord, that you will give the world’s leaders wisdom in their decision-making.
The Collect of the Day:
Almighty Father,
whose will is to restore all things
in your beloved Son, the King of all:
govern the hearts and minds of those in authority,
and bring the families of the nations,
divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin,
to be subject to his just and gentle rule;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God of peace,
whose Son Jesus Christ proclaimed the kingdom
and restored the broken to wholeness of life:
look with compassion on the anguish of the world,
and by your healing power
make whole both people and nations;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Additional Collect:
God, our refuge and strength,
bring near the day when wars shall cease
and poverty and pain shall end,
that earth may know the peace of heaven
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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