9th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 12A – George Yandell
Mustard. How many of you really love mustard? And just to give you a definition, to be a mustard lover means you have at least three types of mustard in your refrigerator or your cupboard/ raise your hand. There is something just so good about mustard-even French’s yellow mustard. It isn’t just an elixir, it’s a remarkable condiment. Jesus’ words about mustard contain the only times the word mustard is used in the Bible. He too could have been a mustard lover. But when Jesus talks today of mustard seeds he is making an allusion, he is not talking of the condiment, but he is imaging humans and the way that the kingdom of God grows in and amongst us, as if we were mustard plants. And he is saying that God’s home is good.
The mustard seed is a tiny seed. A handful of mustard seeds might number in the hundreds. The mustard plant or bush can grow to large proportions. In Jesus’ day the mustard plant was a fairly common annual large shrub. It was also cultivated as it is in our day. Interesting is the comment that it can grow so large that the birds of the air, many different varieties, make homes in its branches, when in actuality it doesn’t grow quite that large- maybe an exaggeration to bring home the point that the kingdom of God is much larger than we can imagine.
For humans, this allusion is about how the Kingdom of God, or I’ll say, the home of God, is planted within us. It can be the tiniest of nudges, it can be the slightest of contacts that causes us, over time, to have the kind of growth that Jesus says is the remarkable legacy of the tiny mustard seed. Like the saying from Jesus about the small amount of leaven concealed in 50 lbs of flour- the home of God grows from small beginnings, then transforms the whole into yeasty fullness. For us the hallmark of the growth of God’s home within us is different from individual to individual. For one it can be the gradual acceptance of a vocation that one had never dreamed of. I know of a successful businessman who felt a call to the ordained ministry. He forsook his vocation, moved his family to Washington, DC where he finished seminary in three years and now in later life has found his true vocation as a priest.
You and I often overlook the slight nudges or the tiny seeds implanted within us. It is one of legacies of our day that we are “out there” so much that the subtle, small glimmerings of God’s light are lost on us. I have found e-mailing, texting to be remarkable and wonderful gifts. I have also been amazed at the amount of time that using those tools takes. The trick is to make the tool work for me and not me work for the tool. I think that is the way with many of those “time-saving” devices that we now employ.
And so it is with the way our lives become cluttered. Johannes Metz in his book Poverty of Spirit talked of those things that keep us from turning to God and living a more spiritual life as attachments. Those things to which we become strongly attached, like the internet or television or eating or compulsive working, almost always divert us from discovering the spirit’s potential within us.
That might be a subtle clue in the parable- those birds in the trees. So many different kinds. It might be very easy for us to overlook the miracle of the mustard seed’s quick growth each year into a large plant because it’s distracting to see all the different varieties of birds that flutter in its branches. And so is the case with many of us. Usually our attention is split in so many ways that we forget that the primary attachment we are to nourish is that small, secret, quietly growing home of God within us.
The birds that flutter in my own mental branches can be distracting as well as beautiful. But the way of the spirit’s growth makes us attentive past the fluttering wings and into to the heart, the core of love that Christ offers us.
In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky counsels: “Love all creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day.” Jesus must have lived with something of this kind of love for God’s creation. He saw “the divine mystery in things,” to quote Dostoevsky. His close relationship to the ordinary enabled Jesus to speak of the extraordinary Kingdom of God through images of nature and of everyday living.
It is our vocation as Christians to respect the creation God has made, both around us and within us. To seek the small growth of positive relationships with our peers, the less fortunate, the distressed, and any who can benefit from our companionship. And to allow the growth of a healthy, respectful relationship with one’s self. Any of you who has a garden knows that it requires almost daily attention to flourish.
So it is with the home of God within and among us. While God plants the seed and gives the growth, to flourish, we must be partners with God in raising up the healthiest, well-tended home for God within us and in our world. It means we need to pay attention. To see the sunrises and pause before them in awe. To love what and who God has given us. To yield to our hearts and take time to talk to our neighbors. To pray quietly each day. To work hard at our tasks and take time for refreshment. And to enjoy what we are given. God has made us to flourish and be joyful companions to God and one another. When we have nourished the home of God within us, then we find that celebration is God’s intent- not just hard work, pain, and seriousness. But joy, wonder, and awe at the mystery of life, the birds fluttering in the branches, and the lushness of growing things.
A close friend of mine died 26 years ago. He was a priest and colleague of mine at Holy Communion Church in Memphis. Above his desk, Murray Lancaster had a needle-pointed saying framed, so that he had to look at it every time he was on the phone or glancing up from his work. It said, in flowing script, “Avoid seriousness.”// Murray did. He experienced life as a gift, and was always attentive to the fluttering of bird’s wings, not as distraction, but as evidence of God’s presence.
Once Murray came in my office, grinning, and said, “I’ve just spoiled a squirrel’s thievery.” I said, “What?” Murray said he had just installed a bird feeder that allowed all his feathered friends to feed, but every time a squirrel got on the feeder, the bar that supported the bird’s light weight, but it closed the feeder door under the squirrel’s heavier weight, and no feed would dispense to the squirrel. Murray said he had sat for hours the day before watching the squirrels be frustrated and the birds take delight in their uninterrupted feeding. Actually, he said, the squirrels got plenty of spilled seed on the ground from what the birds scatter. I think we can take instruction from Murray’s example. I know I did- we’ve had an identical bird feeder in our front yard, and I always delighted in frustrating the squirrels who try to steal into the feeder. We too can delight and flourish in this life as God means us to.