It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to your Name, O most high; to tell of your loving-kindness early in the morning and of your faithfulness in the night season. Amen.
Years ago, my mother gave me a pendant she had had as a girl. Some of you may have seen this, or may have one yourself, perhaps from your mother. It’s a small glass sphere set in gold, and in the center is a very tiny, and not particularly beautiful object, brownish in color – a mustard seed.
The mustard seed is mentioned at least four times in the Gospel, in different ways. In
Matthew and Luke, the mustard seed represents the power of faith. This is the image of the mustard seed that inspires jewelry like the pendant that my mother gave me, for instance, in Matthew:
Jesus says: “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’” (Matthew 17:20)
and in Luke, Jesus says: “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” (Luke 17:6)
…a reminder that our faith, no matter how small we feel, no matter how weak our faith seems, faith can be powerful.
This encouragement to value the faith of a mustard seed, to believe in the work of the Holy Spirit, in the grace and goodness of God no matter how difficult our circumstances, no matter how discouraging the world is – that’s one way that Jesus used this everyday image in his teachings.
But in today’s reading, from Mark, and also in the 13th chapter of Luke, the mustard seed holds a different meaning – it represents a somewhat different theological truth. I might suggest a change of only one word, one preposition. In a sense, today’s reading is not about the faith of a mustard seed, but our faith in a mustard seed. Perhaps as much about personal faith, but also our faith in the world and our place in it.
With what can we compare the kingdom of God? Jesus asks.If you were asked what the kingdom of God looks like, how would you describe it? As a tiny seed? As something grand?
Jesus surprises us.
He does compare the kingdom of God to a tiny, seemingly insignificant object. You plant it in the ground, you bury it in soil, you give it water, and then you wait. And hope. You do not know what is happening in that seed, what energy is set in motion, what new birth is moving in that tiny kernel – and so you wait, and wonder, and maybe even doubt – but it germinates. And what comes bursting out of the seed, and out of the soil, is a plant that provides home, safety for living things – branches for birds to land on and build their nests on, shade for other plants to grow in and
people to rest under, seeds to flavor the food of living beings, and to be planted in the soil in turn, to grow new branches and new shade and new seeds. The mustard seed holds in itself entire worlds, entire lives, entire sanctuaries for fragile and vulnerable life to be protected.
The kingdom of God is a seed – a tall, expanding shrub, a home in the wild for those who might otherwise have none.
What is the kingdom of God for us? What are our mustard seeds?
Some of my summer reading this year is Song in a Weary Throat, a memoir by Pauli Murray. Has anyone here heard her name? I didn’t know too much about her until a few years ago.
She was ordained in 1977 as the first African-American woman to be a priest in the
Episcopal Church.
She was 67 years old when she was ordained.
And before she ever became a priest, she was a lawyer, and a teacher, and an activist. She grew up during the days of segregation, and over and over she faced rejection because of both her race and her gender. She was turned down by Harvard Law School – but she eventually got degrees from schools including Howard and Yale. She dedicated her work to the civil rights movement two decades before the civil rights movement as we know it.
She was helping organize lunch counter sit-ins with other Howard University students in the 1940s.
She wrote letters to politicians and newspapers, pointing out the injustices of segregation, especially in education, looking at Plessy vs. Ferguson, which established that “separate but equal” approach to education, which was anything but equal.
She wrote and published powerful poetry.
She became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt, and by turns sometimes they supported one another and sometimes they disagreed with one another, but they had a lively friendship and correspondence over the years until Eleanor Roosevelt’s death.
She spent hours sitting over books, doing research for her studies and her work.
In fact, her research on the inequality of education between black and white American citizens became the foundation for Thurgood Marshall’s argument that overturned “separate but equal” in Brown vs. the Board of Education in 1954.
She taught students in California, and in New England and and in Africa. She worked to bring together people of all races to work on the problem of racism together, determined that everyone should have equal rights.
She planted and nurtured seeds that grew into plants that became safe sanctuary for those who did not have safe sanctuary. Pauli Murray, as an activist, and a lawyer, and a teacher and a priest, worked on planting the Kingdom of God, right here on earth. She saw where change for the better was possible and necessary, and she followed the call of her own passions and gifts to help make that change happen. Pauli Murray saw pain, and suffering and and injustice, but she also saw hope, and saw how she could be part of that hope.
Where is and what is the kingdom of God for us? What are our mustard seeds? What are the gifts we bring and plant and nurture?
So I’ve just come back from Shrine Mont, where Trinity held its second annual parish retreat this weekend – some of you may have been there for part of the weekend – and please keep an eye out for next year’s dates and mark your calendars – it was a good time of fellowship and also some time for some contemplation and quiet.
In the spirit of retreat, I’d like to invite you into a space of prayer for a few minutes, into some contemplation about this idea of the mustard seed and the kingdom of God. You’ll find in your pews index cards and pens – thank you, Kenzie and Nathan, for distributing those! And what I invite you to do is take a few minutes and write on that card, what does your Kingdom of God look like? Is it a seed? Is it a feast at a table where everyone is welcome? Is it a church where everyone of every possible faith worships together? Perhaps it is a tree that provides shelter for all of those that need shelter.
Where do you see pain in the world, but where do you also see hope?
I invite you – if you could envision a Kingdom of God, what would that look like? And put those words on the index card.
[time to write]
In the coming week, I encourage you to hold onto these cards and pray over them
– incorporate them into your prayer practices and see where the Spirit speaks to you. Is there a letter you can write, or there simply a prayer you can be saying, in conversation with God, every day holding it up in intention – there’s great power in that. Hold them close to your heart. See where you might be called to plant a seed.
Let us pray.
Creator God, you made this earth and all who live in it. In the life and teachings of your Son Jesus Christ, you have pointed the way to your kingdom. Our world holds suffering and hope, injustice and love, all together; help us hold in our hearts a vision of that kingdom, and inspire us through your Holy Spirit to plant the seeds that will grow into it. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.
Sermon preached by The Rev. Cara Ellen Modisett at Trinity Episcopal Church, Staunton, Virginia, on the June 16, 2024, the fourth Sunday after Pentecost.
