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Mystery, Joy and Hope Romans 8. 26-39 Matthew 13. 1-33, 44-52 Jesus said: “Have you understood all this?” We know that physical activity is good for us. Well, I accept this but it is not my main focus. Physical Instructors tell me to ‘tighten my abs', or ‘engage on my gluts'. ‘Engage your gluts, now move your leg straight up towards the sky, now rotate the leg outwards in a circular motion'. It takes me ages to translate what the Physical instructor is telling me. The reality is that this is not my main focus. The same is true for our Gospel today. Jesus tells the crowds and the disciple's parables but, have they adjusted their thinking to understand? We all have our own priorities and perceptions of what we think is important. Jesus comes into our prepared ways of thinking and says ‘think differently', but do we understand. Of course the disciples say yes. Just like I tell the physical instructor I'm doing what he is asking (I hope so anyway). But just like the disciples we know they never really got it, the Holy Spirit continued to guide them and us into all truth. I want to focus in the Gospel today on two different sets of parables. The first set is for the crowd. The second set is for the disciples. The first set encourages people to see that God’s reign may seem small but it transforms everything. The mustard seed is small but becomes the greatest shrub, a tree. The yeast is a very small fraction of the flour mix yet it transforms the whole. These first parables are taken from everyday life they’re common knowledge. But what is amazing is that Jesus compares the reign of God with something small that becomes huge. This