In an emphatic but unobtrusive way, St Luke's Gospel presents parallel passages featuring a man and a woman. Jesus raises both the son of the widow of Nain and the daughter of Jairus from the dead. In Chapter 15, Jesus tells the parable of a man who lost one of his hundred sheep and of a woman who lost a coin: both search until they find what they have lost and equally they rejoice. The two rather brief parables which we read today are a further example: a man sows a mustard seed and a woman uses yeast to leaven her bread. Both parables deal with increase or growth to emphasize an aspect of the kingdom.

Both parables use ordinary happenings to remind us that the Kingdom of God does not come in great events but in the ordinary happenings of daily life and so Luke gently reminds us that, in helping us to come to a greater understanding of the Kingdom, the ordinary lives of women and men are equally revealing. Hence the Kingdom of God is close at hand and so we should repent of our sins, our faults and failings and make our hearts ready for God's coming.