The Gorgonians of the Costa Brava

“If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’, and it would obey you. (Luke 17:6)

The sea conceals many beautiful natural treasures growing in its depths and among its submarine slopes and ridges.

These organisms are not only flora, however, but also include whole colonies of tiny marine animals, like these lovely red gorgonians that I photographed in the Ullastres de Tamariu (Girona).

Though our current knowledge enables us to find great beauty in the depths of the sea, for the Jews of Jesus’ time they symbolised many negative, destructive forces, especially the pagan beliefs of the gentile nations that surrounded them.

Obviously we must not interpret literally these words of the Master. The purpose of faith is not to carry out demonstrations of magic or absurd experiments like trying to plant trees in the sea. Jesus himself never performed such a ridiculous feat.

He might rather have been aiming his words at the Hebrew conscience of his disciples, suggesting to them that, just as the mulberry tree had very deep roots, so the dogmatism of the Jewish religious leaders sent its roots deep into the mind-set of their compatriots, preventing them from welcoming the kingdom of God that the Master was proclaiming.

What had to be rooted out was this dogmatic mentality, so that the kingdom of God could be planted and take root in pagan regions, and the gospel could flourish and bring salvation to the whole world. Jesus assured them that if they would assume as their own the values and principles of the kingdom, that tree would obey them.

What are these words saying to us today? Exactly the same, in fact. If we accept the priorities of the kingdom and take them to places where human beings are suffering, the evil and oppressive systems of this world will fall.