In many ways, parables are brain-teasers. Jesus states that the reign of God is like seed that takes root and grows and produces in secret places within human reality. In fact it is usually found in places where one would least expect to find it – among the poor and despised, in the hearts of those who suffer, in the lives of the persecuted. The potential of the reign of God is often contained in what appears to be inconsequential. Yet it thrives in its own mysterious ways. The parables of Jesus forced his hearers to stretch their imaginations and to make connections that they might not ordinarily make. The presumption was that those who followed Jesus were always willing or able to do this.