Finding Faith ... in learning to look to the mustard seed for our inspiration

EDITOR'S NOTE: On Oct. 23, 2021, I was ordained as a minister of word and sacrament in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and installed as pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. I also served the same church for four years from October 2017 to October 2021 a synodical authorized minister. The journey together these past seven years has been an amazing one, full of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on June 19, 2024.

Have you ever held a mustard seed, Faith Family?

If not, let me give you some context. 

Years ago, early in our marriage, Shelley knew that my favorite scripture passage is Matthew 17:20: “He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

And so she bought me a tie tack -- yes, this was back in the day when we still wore ties in the office! -- that held one single mustard seed in a plastic bubble.

And the seed was so small that folks who were curious about the tie tack and asked about what was in the bubble, would have to lean in to be able to see the mustard seed.

1 to 2 millimeters … That’s all the bigger they are. That’s a mustard seed. … That’s it.

And yet, preposterously in today’s gospel Jesus dares to convince us that that mustard seed … “when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs …”

Now, I know we have more than a few in the agriculture business here in our congregation, and this description of the mustard seed might come across as preposterous. …

I mean, after all, does mustard feed the world?

No, but I know of a whole lot of other crops grown here, and around the world that do. … Right?

“Preposterous” … I like that word. Don’t you? … It’s fun to say: “Preposterous!”

This is how one online dictionary defines it: “contrary to reason or common sense; utterly absurd or ridiculous.”

And I think that fairly describes Jesus’ assertion about the “mighty” mustard seed.

But then again, this IS Jesus talking, and there must be a reason for his parable. … He must want us to take something away from this story about this lowly seed being so important.

And so I think it is exactly the preposterousness of the mustard seed that Jesus wants us to concentrate on … because it is an analogy to God’s larger kingdom, which by all earthly calculations is just that: preposterous.

Think about where we are in the Gospel of Mark right now … in this section of the lectionary … Chapter 4 …

In last week’s gospel … which also was in Chapter 4 … Jesus told the Parable of the Sorrower, and then does a deep dive on the purpose of the parables.

Sandwiched in between last week and this week but we don’t read it is Jesus’ parable of hiding a lamp under a bushel basket.

And then we come to this week: The Parable of the growing seed and a second about the mustard seed. … All still in the Gospel of Mark … Chapter 4.

Faith Family … throughout this section, Jesus is utilizing very common earthly items … the work of growing and planting, and the very seeds themselves … to help us begin to grasp the ungraspable.

To help our limited imaginations come to some understanding of the vastness and infiniteness and incomparable nature of God’s kingdom.

And the only way that Jesus can think to do it is to use everyday, ordinary items to help give us just a little bit of insight.

But I ask tonight … how easy is it for us to understand something that is simply so preposterous … with our human understanding?

A mustard seed grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs … really, Jesus? … The “greatest?”

How absurd, right? … Preposterous!

Faith Family … I think we often take for granted the values of God’s Kingdom when we talk about them here … at church.

But out here … well know, out here in the so-called “real world” … it’s maybe a little easier to see how preposterous the Kingdom of Heaven is.

You don’t have to look far to see that the earthly kingdom lives by a whole set of other values. Most mighty, most powerful, most wealthy, most famous, most popular …

In this earthly kingdom … well, there just isn’t room for the mustard shrub … the lowly, no-account mustard shrub. We need pretty and big and fancy. … In fact, the prettier, bigger and fancier, the better!

And that certainly doesn’t describe the mustard seed, now does it?

But wait, what is it that mustard shrubs do?

Well, as Jesus tells us in the gospel, they grow large branches that ultimately provide an adequate place where birds can make nests in their shade.

And if we think about it for a minute … well, now that does sound like a perfectly divine purpose, doesn’t it? … All thanks to a lowly mustard seed.

Hmm, so … maybe that is Jesus’ very point all along.

God wastes nothing, and anything is possible in the heavenly kingdom, right? … And comically, even the mustard seed can be considered the “greatest” of all the shrubs.

I hope that that gives you some important food for thought tonight, Faith Family. … Because I think at times that it’s much easier to identify and comprehend God’s Kingdom here in church, where all the familiarity is comforting. … The liturgy, the hymns, the communion.

We can see the kingdom in those, can’t we?

But get us out here … in what we think of as the “real world” and it gets a lot messier, doesn’t it?

Where is the heavenly kingdom out here, among all of the poverty and the sickness and the violence and conflicts? … Huh Jesus? … Where is the kingdom out here?

And to that he says, “Well, why don’t you try looking to the mustard seed.”

And that is the Good News for this Fourth Week after Pentecost, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. Amen.