—–I have a gift for you… can you see it? Lemme show you a little closer up….
Can you tell what it is? A mustard seed. As far as gifts go, this one kinda sucks and I guarantee that as soon as I set it down it’s gonna roll away and I will lose it. But for now, as you squint to see the wee seed in my hand, I have it and remind you that it is this little bit that the kingdom of God is like.
This little seed… easily missed or more to the point easily dismissed, and quite honestly not the smallest seed out there, is at the center of our story today. This famous parable is found in all three of the synoptic gospels (the fancy church word for Matthew, Mark and Luke) and each one of the renditions of the story tells the reader that the wee little mustard seed grows into the grandest of shrubs. Not tree, shrub. Tree or shrub neither of which is a reflection of the reality of yellow mustard plants, but that isn’t the point of the parable. We KNOW the point of parable, right? We Know the story… we’ve heard the mustard seed sermon a thousand times and it usually has the small things can grow into big things theme to it. That what matters isn’t the beginning but the end. Maybe you’re the type to lean into how the kingdom of God is more like a weed than anything else. How it’ll survive in the most unlikely of places. How it’ll break free despite our feeble attempts to keep it under control. That the kingdom can and will, like a weed, flourish even when the environment around it is hostile and unwelcoming to its presence. Classic, and reliable, sermon material. You cannot go wrong with it.
Jewish theologian Amy Jill Levine, however, noted in her book “Short Stories by Jesus,” that while all these interpretations are to be considered correct, acceptable, important, we must resist when they start to feel predictable. Because if we’ve learned anything about Jesus it’s that he was never predictable. Never banal, never trite, his stories were rarely boring, and they always pointed to something beyond us.
At their core, parables are meant to provoke – that’s the cool thing about them. They are meant to push the boundaries; force us to open our hearts and minds to something we maybe haven’t given much thought to before. The danger with them of course is that after two thousand years, we’re pretty sure we already know what they mean. Which as a preacher, it presents a challenge because when it comes to a story like this, I have no delusion that I will of you anything today that you haven’t already thought of. Which is when I started thinking about the birds. I’m one of those people who is easily distracted by birds.
assume you have seen some of the devastating images coming from the countries hit by Hurricane Melissa this past week. The loss of life, property and the total collapse of health care systems is heart breaking… it is going to take years to recover from. And I know you join me in holding them, and this groaning planet, in our prayers. But one of the many images that has stuck with me was taken from inside the eye of the storm before it made landfall, before it destroyed Jamaica.
It was a video that captured the stadium effect of the storm, how massive it was. Along with the image came a report of a flock of birds who had gotten trapped inside. With nowhere to go, no way to get out, all they could do was circle around and around. They had no safe place to land. To be clear, I by no means intend to put the lives of these birds ahead of the lives of the people this storm has impacted. It’s simply that I read about them at the same time as I read about the birds in Jesus’s parable. The ones who found shelter in the branches of the mustard shrub and it made me think of the ways we ourselves get caught up in the storms of life.
Sometimes those storms are nothing more than a snow squall, something that comes up fast, pass quickly, no big consequences to life. Other times, storms hit so hard that they knock us off our feet. With no clear way to break free, all we can do is circle around and around, with no safe landing place, no shelter.
When Jesus was telling his parables the people were, as not doubt we would be, desperate to hear what he had to say. “Tell us what the kingdom of God is like!” they’d demand. Rev. Stacy Swain points to the irony here, “that it is Jesus they are asking this question. There right before them in flesh and blood is the manifestation of what the kingdom of heaven looks like. It is Jesus – living in the fullness of God’s love; feeding those who are hungry; healing those who are sick; befriending those who are lonely, touching their pain and awakening them to God’s promise of abundant [and everlasting] life.” The kingdom of God, it was right there in front of their eyes, but all they could do was circle around and around. Maybe their storms were, like ours often are, just too big.
And so, he told them stories that have become our stories of faith, words of hope that point to the kingdom of God. A kingdom that is, as it always has been, right in front of our eyes. And perhaps we see it most clearly at this table. For here we are reminded that God’s kingdom is meant to be experienced right now. The kingdom of heaven is meant to be felt, tasted, shared… not in some distant faraway place or time, but right here, right now, And this place, this community of faith, this table, this moment in the church year where we celebrate All Saints. This is our safe place to land. Here we are given a moment to catch our breath in the middle of the storm. And even though no words, no stories, no parable will ever come close to fully capturing or explaining what it is we find or feel free, that should never stop us from trying to.
So once again, and I warned you two weeks ago that we’d be doing this again, we are going to take a few minutes to practice putting our faith into words. On the screen you will find this week’s question… 5 mins or so.
What makes a place feel like home?
Has church ever felt like home to you? In what way?
Today as we honour our loved ones, our faith ancestors, who are you holding in your
heart? Was faith a part of their life? How did they impact/transform your life of faith?
Ann Lamott wrote “most of the people I know who are doing well psychologically, who seem conscious, who do not drive me crazy with their endlessly unhappy dramas; the only people I know who feel safe, who have what I want – connection, gratitude, joy – are people with a deep sense of spirituality. They are people in community, who pray, and who practice their faith. They follow a brighter light than the glimmer of their own little candle; and they are part of something beautiful… When I was at the end of my rope, the people at my church tied a knot in it for me and helped me hold on.” (Ann Lamott, “Almost Everything”) This place, this church my friends, this faith that we share, it is the knot in our rope. And this table, it is the mustard seed grown big enough to shelter us all no matter how big the storm.
Gathered here, we see the beginning and the end of our story, we get a glimpse of what it all means, we hold fast to those who walked this road ahead of us. And guided by their love, we meet them here.
