A Mustard Sized Seed of Faith

Homily for Sunday, June 16, 2024
The Fourth Sunday After Pentecost
Mark 4:26-34

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When I was taught

  the parable of the mustard seed in Sunday school

the point of the story

  was that big things can come from small things.

That even small acts of kindness and compassion

  even small deeds of bravery and justice

    can have impacts

  far greater than we could ever know.

That the things we do for God’s kingdom

  don’t have to be big to be important

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And I do believe that’s true.

But I don’t believe

  that that’s what Jesus is saying in this story.

It’s a good message,

  but it’s not this parable’s message.

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This parable, in fact, is ridiculous.

  It’s a joke.

I mean, have you seen a mustard plant?

  It does not have large branches

    It does not have small branches

It does not have any branches,

  and only a very, very small bird

could make a nest in its shade.

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To put it in modern terms,

  imagine Jesus had said something like

“The Kingdom of God is like

    the greatest city in the world,

  the crowning jewel of New England…

    Framingham.”

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Or maybe

“The Kingdom of God is like that mighty bird,

  the majestic symbol of America.

    The pigeon.”

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If you were here last week,

  you heard Todd remind us

    that like Aslan the lion,

  Jesus is very dangerous and very good.

I would add

  Jesus is also very funny.

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The tree that you think Jesus is going to talk about

  the greatest of plants,

    with large branches that shelter many birds.

is the Cedar of Lebanon.

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Cedars of Lebanon appear throughout the Hebrew Bible.

Today we hear it in Ezekiel:

I will plant it,

  in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit,
  and become a noble cedar.

Under it every kind of bird will live;
  in the shade of its branches will nest
winged creatures of every kind.

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Moses used bark from Cedars of Lebanon

  to cure leprosy.

Solomon used lumber from Cedars of Lebanon

  to build the temple in Jerusalem.

Cedars of Lebanon appear as symbols of strength and majesty

  in the psalms,

    and in Isaiah,

  and even in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

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The cedar tree is featured

  on the national flag of Lebanon.

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Do you know how many nations

  put a mustard shrub on their flag?

Yeah, exactly zero.

  Because a mustard shrub is not majestic

    or strong

  or glorious in any way.

It’s a weed.

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And that is the lesson of this funny parable.

The kingdom of God

  is like a weed.

And over and over

  throughout the Bible

God chooses to makes God’s self known

  through the small things

the silly things

  the weak things

the things least sought and least honored.

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Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph

  were all the youngest, weakest sons.

King Saul came from the smallest clan

  of the smallest tribe of Israel.

The kingdom of Israel itself

  was a small regional people

  who were constantly overrun by their powerful neighbors.

And when God became flesh and dwelt among us,

  it was as Jesus

    born into a peasant family

  in a poor village

    of a poor province

  in an unimportant corner of the Roman Empire.

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The Kingdom of God is like a mustard shrub.

  And to the rest of the world,

    it will seem like a joke.

  It will seem silly,

It will seem weak.

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And if anyone has ever called you foolish

  or silly

    or weak

when you have followed your heart

  when you have followed your values

then you may have been living into the kingdom.

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For me, it happened quite a few times

  when we were creating Creche.

It began as a collaboration between 

  three parishes, two chaplaincies, and the crossing,

to create a network of intentional communities

  rooted in monastic spirituality

    and the disciplines of common life.

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And getting the necessary funding and permission

  was really, really hard.

The objections to our vision were legion:

  we were too city-focused,

    we were too focused on young adults

  the liabilities associated with residential community were too great

housing requires too many resources,

  the list went on.

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But I have a very fond memory

  of my friend and mentor, Rev Leslie Sterling,

    saying to our diocesan consultant,

“If I’m going to be a fool,

  at least I’m a fool for Christ.”

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And I am so, so grateful that Trinity Parish of Newton Centre

  stood by us in those early years.

Understanding the vision of creating an urban abbey

  a dispersed lay order of young adults

committing themselves to the gospel.

I am so grateful

  that you were willing to take a risk on us.

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Because now, eight years later,

  we’ve become something of a poster child for the Episcopal church.

With four intentional communities

  affiliated with four congregational partners,

we get national-level attention,

  and the diocesan profile sent to bishop candidates

featured us very prominently.

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I find it so funny

  when I hear the institutional church

    take such pride in us.

In eight years, the tiniest of seeds

  has grown to the greatest of trees.

Or, to be more honest,

  in eight years we’ve grown into a small shrubby weed.

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But the Kingdom of God is like a mustard shrub.

The Kingdom of God is like Framingham.

  The Kingdom of God is like the Trinity House

The Kingdom of God is like each of us.

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It’s so good to be reminded of that

  as we imagine what our witness and ministry

    will look like in the future.

How we will proclaim the Kingdom of God

  in a rapidly changing world.

What the diocese will look like

  with a new bishop.

What our church will look like

  in an era of church decline.

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We can’t set a course

  by following the wisdom of the world.

If we follow our hearts,

  if we follow our values,

    if we follow Jesus,

we will be called foolish

  and silly and weak.

But the riskiest thing we could do

  would be to take no risks at all.

And I look forward to many more years

  of building the Kingdom of God together

in all of its mustardy, shrubby glory,

  right here in Newton Centre.

May God be with us

  every step of the way.

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