The Mustard Seed

Medora Gordon, Assistant for Pastoral Care

It is easy to say that we are followers of Jesus as long as we remain in that little world where we choose to live. But what happens when we get out into the great world of facts, the noisy world, where people are absolutely indifferent to us? Where our message is nothing more than a crazy tale belonging to a bygone age? Can we follow Jesus there? The apostles said to Jesus, "increase our faith." And Jesus said, "if you had faith no larger than a mustard seed, you could tell this mulberry tree, 'uproot yourself and plant yourself in the sea,' and it would obey you."

I consider it a great privilege to get to preach about the mustard seed. I can remember my great aunt Ruth, who was my chief religious educator early in life. She gave me one of those mustard seeds in a little glass ball, on a bracelet. You remember those mustard seeds. I know that it dates us. Waaaaaaaaaaaay back in the dark ages. But surely you do remember those mustard seeds?

Anyway, I can remember being intrigued by how something so very small could have so much significance. What in the world was a mustard seed good for?

We tend to remember this morning's gospel lesson more as a "mountains into the sea" sort of saying because the object of faith, the mustard seed, is supposed to be able to move mountains rather than a tree. People in the ancient world thought that the sky was held up by the mountains-- the mountains that served as pillars at the edge of their world. And it is thought that talking about moving mountains actually is Jesus talking about how he and his followers could change the contours of the world as they knew it.

Just as an aside, Luke's substitution of a tree for a mountain appears to be a purely arbitrary decision on Luke's part. This saying is recorded six different times in four different gospels. And each time it is in a somewhat modified version and a different context. It is an understatement to say that the transmission of this saying down through the years was "obviously unstable!" The Jesus fellows think that this might echo something that Jesus actually said. But likely the proverb of the mustard seed was floating around in the first century world, and was generalized enough to suit any number of situations. The good news about this "unstable" little proverb is that we can shape it for our own use this morning.

I did not really understand about mustard seeds until Richard and I traveled to Israel. The hills are covered with mustard bushes--not just a few, but a ton. There are mustard bushes-- shrubs, plants-- everywhere. I am certain zealous gardeners have to pull mustard out by the handful to keep it from attacking the tulips and the daisies. It is no wonder that the controlling interests in the first century were worried about this little upstart band of zealots. Christians were soon everywhere and there was no weeding them out. Paul took Christianity across the sea to Ephesus and the Gentiles. And in the Third Century, Constantine made Christianity a state religion because it was so pervasive in the villages and countryside of the continent of what we now call Europe. Like the mustard bushes, Christianity covered the hillsides.

To bring it closer to home, have you driven to the wine country recently? The newest, hottest rage is to plant mustard seeds at the base of the all of the vineyards-- row after row of mustard plants at the base of row after row of grapes. It keeps the bugs away, they say. There is even a mustard festival in Napa. Mustard seeds are everywhere.

And have you tasted mustard recently? Not only does it pervade everything you spread it on, but you can have 500 different choices. There is mustard with basil, mustard with honey, mustard with jalapenos, mustard with garlic. And on, and on, and on. All because of the lowly mustard seed.

Well, you might ask, what does that have to do with me? So mustard is a common weed that grows everywhere. So what? I would argue that mustard seeds have everything to do with us because we are followers of Jesus. We are people who live in a faith that began with one charismatic leader and twelve followers in a dusty, dry, backwater little country, whose main claim to fame was that it was a trade route between Asia and Egypt. If that is not a mustard seed on the face of the world, I do not know what is.

George Bernard Shaw said that " the brilliance of Christianity is its insistence on community." wherever you find us, you find two or three or sixty-five or five thousand gathered together. The mustard seeds of Christianity grew throughout the world to every land and nation and people. We are everywhere, even here in funny old Marin, where only 4 percent of us go to church. Christianity moves mountains. Christianity changes the contours of the world. Christians pushed the city council to seek agreement with St. Vincent's dining room. Christianity helps support homeless shelters. Christians spruced up Ritter House. Christians go to death row at San Quentin. We worship one God, and we love one another, and while it is not always easy, we try.

All of this "Christian stuff" began as a foreign concept in a self-centered Roman world that let the poor and the sick die. A world that had many gods, and was socially stratified in ways we cannot begin to imagine. The world in which Jesus planted the mustard seed of Christianity had no concept of equality. It had no concept of belonging to God or to each other and no particular love for one another. Look at us now. Have we not moved mountains indeed?

On a more personal level, I find that there are days, when all I can manage is about a ½ to 1/100th percent mustard seed size of faith. We all have them. Those dark days when we wonder what God wants from us. Why there are massacres in Serbia? Why do we loose our children? How are we going to live when we have lost someone dear to us? Why are we sick? And most importantly, why do we fight and hurt one another? There are days when it looks like there is not a mustard seed to be found anywhere. And then, usually off in a corner of our hearts somewhere, there is this little, itty-bitty stirring, and gradually, there is a green sprout of faith. And we are off and running.

The good news is that is all it takes! Faith sprouts up all over, and the vineyards of Napa with their fields of mustard plants have nothing on us. We get together and make a beautiful quilt. We love to eat-- so we have the fabulous international dinner to raise money to help out. We sing. We pray for one another. We take communion to people who cannot join us. We make soup and have deep discussions about the meaning of life. We love one another in a one by one deep down and personal sort of way. And it spills over into the world. We even care about people who do not care for us! What a novel concept. Mustard seeds are not particular about where we grow. We will grow anywhere.

It does not take a giant basketful of faith to do this. It only takes a mustard seed. Moving mountains, changing the contours of our world, sprouting up on the hillsides and in the towns of Marin. We are at Autodesk. We are at a title company. We are at Marin General. We are at a photographer's studio. We are at Fair, Isaac. We are in Ross. We are stockbrokers. We drive taxis. We play golf. We work at St. Vincent's. The beauty of this is that we are followers of Jesus. We truly do grow. Anywhere.

It is easy to say that we are followers of Jesus as long as we remain in that little world where we choose to live. But what happens when we get out into the great world of facts, the noisy world, where people are absolutely indifferent to us? Where our message is nothing more than a crazy tale belonging to a bygone age? Can we follow Jesus there? The apostles said to Jesus, "increase our faith." and Jesus said, " if you had faith no larger than a mustard seed, you could tell this mulberry tree, 'uproot yourself and plant yourself in the sea,' and it would obey you."

AMEN.