FAITH SMALL AS A MUSTARD SEED
The Rev’d Fr Richard Schaper
The 30th of July 2017, the 7th Sunday after Trinity
Based on Matthew 13. 31 – 52

Earlier this summer in London my friend Ken came down to the breakfast table wearing a tee shirt that had printed across the front of it: THE GOOD THING ABOUT SCIENCE IS THAT IT IS TRUE WHETHER YOU BELIEVE IT OR NOT. I like this sentiment, and I thought how much this is like God’s love for us: God’s love for us is true, whether we believe it or not. And God’s love is true for everyone—whether they believe it or not.

This seems to the theme of this morning’s portion of the gospel according to St. Matthew: Jesus tells his listeners the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, like yeast, like a hidden treasure, like one pearl of inestimable value. A mustard seed: You walk among majestic redwood trees with their crowns lifted into the foggy heavens, and stoop down to pick up a tiny redwood pine cone, a seed pod no bigger than a pea, then pry out a seed that is about the size of a mustard seed that you put in your salad dressing. Then you crane your neck to stare again at the lofty trees overhead… then back down at the tiny seed held between your fingers… and you can’t help but think how unlikely it is… that something as mighty and massive as this cathedral column of a trunk could grow from so tiny a seed.

How unlikely the kingdom of God is; yet we put our faith in it. Or yeast — a thimbleful of yellow dust in a peck of white flour to yield a half-dozen fragrant loaves? What are the chances? But it happens every day. Or the pearl of great price: have you yet found in life that for which you would be willing to give everything else? Are you still searching for it — I mean the core of your life, the center of your being? The treasure hidden in your field? Your Buddha face, your soul, really. The kingdom of God, Jesus tells us, is like this.

In your experience, what would you say the kingdom of God is like? A hot meal to a hungry soul? My friend Marilyn asked me if I would visit her brother who was dying in San Francisco General Hospital. I knocked quietly on the door, then tentatively pushed it open. I saw a very weak man lying in a bed that was surrounded by a helter-skelter circle of people of all ages. Marilyn introduced me to them, one by one: This is Jerry’s wife and their son. This is Jerry’s first wife and their two children. This is Jerry’s girlfriend with whom he has been living for four years. This is Jerry’s friend Ron who worked with him at the company. And this is our mom. All these people quietly surrounding the bed of the terminally ill man who was now barely conscious.

I could only imagine the antagonisms that must have played themselves out through the years of Jerry’s adult life among all these competitors for his affections and loyalty. Yet here they all were, holding vigil together around this man who had brought them together. In their hushed conversations with one another they paid tribute and honored their dying friend, and their common debt to him. Despite what must have been their latent mutual hostilities, hey did not hesitate a moment, when invited, to take one another’s hands-- and Jerry’s--as we bowed our heads and joined in prayer.

I have often thought back to this improbable scene. Surely the kingdom of God is like this — formerly warring tribes, reconciled if only for a moment at the threshold of eternity. Or perhaps the kingdom of God could even be like Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, post-diagnosis, rising in the well of the US Senate to deliver a clarion call to statesmanship, dignity, compassion, bipartisan public service — values so conspicuously lacking in the highest levels of our national public life.

Perhaps if you were here on campus at St. Stephens a week ago to see the rainbow dance of Camp Create, you might have wondered: could the kingdom of God be like this? Or perhaps you wondered this when you’re behind the wheel of your car waiting seemly in vain to pull onto a busy street with an endless line of traffic, and looking for an opening. You look at your watch and you wait, so frustrated. Will your whole day be like this? Will your whole life be like this? When suddenly an approaching car slows and waves you in ahead of them. You acknowledge with a quick wave of your hand, and their smile meets your wonder. Could the kingdom of God be like this? Could you help bring it about?

Earlier this week, when Anita and I were hosting two coeds from my college at Oxford, I drove them after dinner to the ocean at Muir Beach and then — as is my custom — for a pint of English ale at the Pelican pub nearby, where we took our drinks out to a bench in the garden to behold the sunset clouds coloring purple and rose. There was a young tow-headed knee-biter there — a child who was frolicking filling a paper cup with water from the cooler and delivering to two spaniel dogs who were leashed at the margin of the lawn. This young fellow was having a jolly good time and seemed to enjoy having an audience. The girls who were with me could no longer suppress their giggling at the sight and remarks of the astonishing verbal and out-going tyke. When at last the young boy’s mother came and hoisted him onto her shoulders to take him away, he wriggled free, ran back to us, took my hand in his two little hands, lifted it to his mouth and kissed it, then ran back to his mother by the inn.

The kingdom of God is like that — a knapsack of invisible keepsakes that will never perish, an eternal treasure to be taken out on cold, baffling days.  And to be cherished when facing death—which of course we do every day. No one on their death bed laments: “I wish I had made more money, or done one more deal….” No, what gets remembered—and what gets cherished by our survivors—are the invisible keepsakes of the kingdom… the kiss, the holding of the hand, the endearing gaze, the smile. This is what we reference when we pray together as we did this morning in the Collect of the day: that “we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not the things that are eternal.” And: “that among all the chances and changes of this earthly life our hearts may ever be fixed where true joy is to be found.” All this, as I say, is highly unlikely. Yet we stake our lives upon it. 

I have to remind myself that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, yeast, a pearl, a hidden treasure. I need to remember this in order to keep my head above the rising waters. If I forget these reminders of God’s rule then I am apt to be overwhelmed by despair when I read something like I read last week in the New York Times — an article with the title: “Biological Annihilation Said to be Underway,” reporting a National Academy of Science study that incontestably demonstrated that “From the common barn swallow to the exotic giraffe, thousands of animal species are in precipitous decline, a sign that an irreversible era of mass extinction is underway.” This is due to habitat loss driven by human population growth and increasing consumption among the rich.

The Lord God, the Creator in the beginning gave us humans “dominion” over the birds of the air and all the creatures of the earth — but “dominion” is not domination; rather dominion is stewardship, care. How are we doing? I suppose that I am the more susceptible to entertaining, rather than immediately dismissing this report of environmental cataclysm because I have just returned from the habitat of my youth, Great South Bay on Long Island, NY, where, as my sister put it, “there are no more fish in the bay.” What makes me want to ignore or belittle such “inconvenient truths” as the undeniable degradation of the biosphere is the fear that if I accept them, then I will be crushed by despair that there is nothing that we can do to change the situation. 

We certainly will NOT do anything to change these facts — whether scientific or political — if we simply ignore them. We MUST look reality in the eye even when it is harsh and deal with it and do whatever we can to effect the outcome. We must hold on to hope. What keeps me from despairing in such fraught circumstances, is remembering… that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed — easily overlooked but ultimately irresistible. Like yeast.

The great 20th century theologian Karl Barth quipped that we should approach life with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  Maybe this is what he had in mind: If we put down the newspaper (or turn off the news) then we risk losing touch with what is going on; but if we put down the Bible, then we risk losing hope. And we remember the powerful words of St. Paul in this morning’s reading, that: “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words — and God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

These parables of the kingdom are not meant as an escape from scientific and political reality. Instead they are Christian koans that help us to keep our balance and participate in creative ways to make the world a better and more promising place for all the creatures of the earth. We are to keep our eyes on the prize — as Sojourner Truth kept hers on the North Star that leads to freedom. But I cannot do this alone. I am not capable of it on my own. My faith is too weak. I cannot hold on to God’s love without you, without my gathering here with you each week, without knowing that you are praying for me as I am praying for you. 

There is no Christianity apart from the Communion of Saints. For one another, we are the flesh and blood embodiment of the communion of saints. The good thing about God’s eternal love for us is that it is true — whether you believe it or not. The same is true of God’s love for our world. If God is not ready to give up on the world, how could we even think of doing so??? To despair would be blasphemy.

The kingdom of God is like … like gathering around this Table to receive a tiny piece of bread and take a tiny sip of wine … together. One loaf. One cup. Just a tiny bit — but what a difference it can make. It is enough to help us to hold on for another week, until “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Amen.