Biblical scholars have pointed out that the words I just read from Luke’s gospel are a combination of the Q source image of mustard seed faith and the fig tree image in Mark’s gospel which Luke changes into the largess of the mulberry tree. So I’m going to take Luke’s freeing spirit of literary license to explode that image of the mustard seed faith Jesus gives us into the theme of Jesus calling us to a mustard seed life.
A mustard seed life entails an understanding that small things matter, small actions matter; small, small details of our daily life matter….so much depends on these little things as Christ’s spirit shapes the loving and caring world which nurtures all of creation.
So much depends….that, of course, is a line from William Carlos William’s poem…”So much depends upon the red wheelbarrow splashed with rain beside the white chickens”…meaning details are important, small things matter…
There’s a humorous poem by Tom Chandler about small things mattering: (I’ll read it w/o the Benedictine pause…)
“So much depends…
on the blonde woman who drops a potato
in the supermarket parking lot where it rolls
beneath the 1989 Dodge Ram with rust patches
near the left rear fender from contact with
too much road salt during the winter of 1991
which was actually one of the mildest on record
though the driver tends to remember it
as the season he was fired from his job
at the aluminum window factory where
he had worked for nearly sixteen years
without promotion as he shifts into reverse
and backs over the potato which squishes
as softly as a dream’s last breath and leaves
slick asphalt for the lot boy to slip on
as he pushes a train of shopping carts
and sprains his lumbar vertebrae just
days before he is scheduled to leave
for basic training to become the cool
killing machine he’s always craved
but will now have to settle for someday
making assistant produce manager
and marrying a girl he almost loves just
as the blonde woman finds herself
one potato short with dinner guests
ringing the doorbell.”
So much depends….on living a mustard seed life filled with seemingly inconsequential things making huge impacts. In mid-August I was waiting to board a plane for Chicago at an Alaska Air gate at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport. There was a PA announcement from another gate nearby saying the door was about to close with one passenger still missing. ‘Mr. (don’t remember the name…) I hope you are close because we truly don’t want to leave without you!’ Mr. ‘whomever’ may not have heard those words, but there were lots of people who did and they may have thought (as I did): ‘This airline cares about people.’ A mustard-seed statement with an oak-tree impact!!
Jesus is so consistent in pounding away about how those often-seen-as-insignificant things matter…a lost coin, a lost sheep, a lost child, a gentle touch, a caring word, a kind look. For me, that’s so inspiring and hopeful in these times of incredible tension, contention, and dissention.
Jesus’ image of the mustard-seed which calls us to live a mustard-seed life means the small things we do can have a huge impact on the world. Our phone calls and our letters to our legislators matter as we encourage them to see all people in our country, in our world, as being worthy of respect and give them the support they need to live well. Our post-cards on behalf of political candidates who share our values make a difference. Deborah Shields, a Sunday Assembly member, and her husband Bob have an interesting hobby: they write & have mailed hundreds of post-cards supporting people & issues all over the country…from Georgia to California. They write positive, encouraging notes about voting, about exercising our basic right of citizenship, and about supporting political candidates who value the rights of all people. Wow! Deborah will be glad to tell you how you too can be involved in doing that!
We, oh mustard seed friends, are empowered to do these miniscule but mighty acts by the Christ energy in us, flowing to us & through us. Paul encouraging Timothy in today’s second reading wrote: ‘God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.’ That energy comes from the Christ Spirit in us…. The presence of Christ in, with & under the tiny piece of bread, and maybe a teensy sip of wine, is consequential & life-changing. One of our amazing communion ministers, when giving the bit of bread, always says: ‘You are the body of Christ!’ I am the body of Christ, you are the body of Christ, we are the body of Christ! We are not a paltry few, but we are an oak tree-sized crew who can make a difference through our mustard seed thoughts, words and deeds! So much depends…so many, so many refugees, hungry, imprisoned, addicted, hopeless people depend on our Christ-energy empowered & unfettered responses. What was the headline for the amazing New York Times article about Holy Wisdom??: ‘They’re Small But Mighty!!… Healing the Land.’ May we follow the fine example of our beloved sisters and do our part in healing the world!! Amen!
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I am seeking a church community that is unafraid to take on Trump and our current political climate that threatens the very fabric of our democracy, our morality, and our Christianity, which they wrongly define through the lens of self-righteousness, self-aggrandizement, and the hated other. In the above message, you approached this topic like a lamb. Are you also able to approach it with a roar? No other time in my 73-year-old life have I felt the need to commune with like-minded souls through prayer and collectively through deed, as the time that is now before us. For some time we have not been one nation under God, but under Trump. My fervent hope is that the ‘church’ will be unafraid and will don the lion’s mane. That it will offer prayer groups, discussion groups, sermons, with a shared vision of healing our nation’s humanity. Can, and will, the collective ‘church’ lead?