4 Pentecost

June 17, 2018

Ezekiel 17.22-24; 2 Corinthians 5.6-17; Mark 4.26-34

I hope you don’t get too upset with me this morning.  But I’m going to start out today with, of all things, a poem. Actually, it’s only a fragment of a poem. And no, you can relax: it’s not one of my poem either.

No, this poem is a poem from, of all people, a Communist. A Communist from Chile.  It’s one I definitely love. It is called “Oda al átamo” or “Ode to the Atom.” (I think I’ve shared this poem before)

Infinitesimal

star,

you seemed

forever

buried

in metal, hidden,

your diabolic

fire.

One day

someone knocked

at your tiny

door:

it was man.

With one

explosion

he unchained you,

you saw the world,

you came out

into the daylight,

you traveled through

cities,

your great brilliance

illuminating lives,

you were a

terrible fruit

of electric beauty…

[Then] came

the warrior

and seduced you:

sleep,

he told you,

curl up,

atom, you resemble

a Greek god…

in springtime,

lie down here

on my fingernail,

climb into this little box,

and then the warrior

put you in his jacket

as if you were nothing but

a North American

pill,

and traveled through the world

and dropped you

on Hiroshima.

This poem was written by one of my all-time favorite poets—a poet you’ve heard me quote before and, trust me, you will hear me quote again and again—Pablo Neruda.  And this fragment of the poem we just heard just touches a bit on what something as small as an atom can do.

An atom—that smallest of all things—can, when it is unleashed, do such horrendous damage.  It truly can be

“a

terrible fruit

of electric beauty…”

And look at what it could do.

If the people of Jesus’ day knew what atoms where, he would no doubt have used the atom as a symbol of the Kingdom of God,

But rather, what we find today in our Gospel reading is Jesus comparing the Kingdom of God to the smallest thing they could’ve understood.

A mustard seed.

A small, simple mustard seed.

Something they no doubt knew. And something they no doubt gave little thought to.  But it was with this simple image—this simple symbol—that Jesus makes clear to those listening that little things do matter.

This past Monday—on the feast of St. Barnabas—I celebrated my fourteenth anniversary of ordination to the priesthood.  What can I even say about fourteen years in the priesthood?  At fourteen years, one is definitely not the new kid on the block. Fourteen years is a long time.  Those hopes, those dreams one had for what one was going to do in the ministry have either been realized or dashed.

At fourteen years, you are a grizzled old veteran.  You’ve been through a few things, you’ve seen a few things.

More importantly, one definitely knows if one is bearing fruit or not by fourteen years. One knows if the seeds one has sown have been planted in fertile ground or are, instead, being thrown to the wind and to infertile ground.

What we all recognize is the fact that in one’s life as a Christian there are going to be moments when it seems as though one’s ministry is flourishing and wonderful. And there will be moments when our ministry seems to be producing nothing.

Our ministry, in many ways, reflects our lives.There will be feasts and there will be fasts. And all are equally productive.

Jesus’ use of the mustard seed is particular apt way of approaching ministry.  The mustard seed is the smallest of the seeds and yet look at what it produces. This is what ministry is all about as well.

The smallest thing we do in our ministry can produce some of the greatest fruit.  And that’s real point. All of us—certainly all of who profess our faith as Christians, who come to church on Sundays—are called to ministry.

Ministry is simply part and parcel of being a Christian.  If we are baptized, if we live out that baptism in the world, we are doing ministry.  Ministry is not nor has it ever been the exclusive claim of those of us who have been ordained, who wear funny collars and crisp black clothes.

Ministry has always been the work of all of us. That is why Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to these images of seeds. The Kingdom of God doesn’t just happen when priests and bishops get up and preach and make legislation in the Church.

In a few short weeks beginning on July 5^th, the Episcopal Church’s General Convention will meet in Austin Texas.  Let’s face it, the Kingdom doesn’t’ happen just when we as a Church send out deputies off to places like Austin where they make decisions about what direction the Church might go.

And I can tell you right now: the Kingdom of God definitely doesn’t happen when we hide behind Scripture or manipulate and use scripture to promote evil, blatantly unchristian acts such as separated children from their parents.  In fact, in those instances, we are uprooting the Kingdom of God in our midst.

The Kingdom happens when we—each and every single one of us—do, in even some small way, what we profess to do, when we go out from this church on Sundays and try to live out in whatever way we can what we have learned and professed here.

To bring about the Kingdom of God in this world, we don’t need to be grandiose. We don’t need to shout or scream or strut about, full of ourselves.  We don’t need to use the Bible as a sword to cut people down.  We don’t even have to say a simple word.  When it comes to the Kingdom, when it comes to true ministry, little things do truly mean quite a lot.

That sprig that the Prophet Ezekiel talks about in today’s reading from the Hebrew scriptures is another example of what the Kingdom of God is like.  From a sprig form the topmost part of the cedar tree, can come a canopy under which we all live and serve.

Ezekiel’s sprig and Jesus’ mustard seed remind me of Neruda’s atom.  Just as the small good things in the world can produce such beautiful and wonderful things such as the Kingdom of God in our very midst, so do those small seeds of discontent flourish into ugly and life-threatening weeds.  

Sometimes the little things we do, do much harm as well. A quick, harsh word of criticism, a glance, a gesture of anger at a fellow motorist on the highway—all of these don’t do anything to bring about the Kingdom of God in our midst. They only sow discontent and anger and frustration.  And where discontent and anger and frustration flourish, the Kingdom of God is stifled.

We have all known what it feels like to be on the receiving end of those seeds of discontent. We have all known people who have been driven from the church by what those seeds have produced.  We ourselves have no doubt been close to leaving the church over those weeds that clog our lives and cause us such pain.

But it does draw us back to the mustard seed once again.  It reminds us that despite all the weeds that can grow, that mustard seed can produce something even greater than weeds.

Those small, good things we do can truly bring about more good than we can hope to produce.  Simple things like a hug, an ear to listen, a smile, an attempt to soothe, to comfort, to help—all these things and so many more go a long way in helping to crowd out the weeds of negativity in the world.  Over and over again in our lives, we have no doubt seen the Kingdom of God blossom in people’s lives and in the world from the smallest seeds of goodness.

So, let us be seeds of absolute and total goodness!  Let us hold before ourselves that image of the mustard seed. Let it be an icon for us in our ministries. Let it be for us a symbol of the ministry we have been called to do by our baptism, by our membership in the Church of God. Let the mustard seed be for us a doorway through which the Kingdom of God breaks through into our world. Let it be the positive atom which, when unleashed, creates an explosion of goodness and beauty and grace in this world.

Let it be the “fruit/of electric beauty” that will transform this world into the Kingdom in which God reigns completed and fully through us.  

Let it be, as Neruda begged the atom to be at the end of his poem:

“…instead of the fatal

ashes

of your mask,

instead of unleashed infernos

of your wrath,

instead of the menace

of your terrible light, deliver to us

your amazing

rebelliousness

for our grain,

your unchained magnetism

to found peace among men,

and then your dazzling light

will be happiness,

not hell,

hope of morning,

gift to earth.”

Let our dazzling light be happiness not hell.

Let us be hope of morning.

Let us be gift of earth.