6-9-21 - The Power In Small

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

I know two people who started a school in a challenging inner-city neighborhood. They wove Christian principles into its operation, delighted in diversity, and had a huge commitment to helping the under-served, often under-privileged children of that city learn and thrive. They called it The Mustard Seed School, because they knew that things - and people - that look too small, too poor, too shabby to amount to much, can achieve greatness. That is how things work in the realm of God.

Jesus also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

This is one of many ways in which the values of God’s realm run counter to the values of our culture. We often think big is better, strong is mightier, talent prevails. There is nothing wrong with big, strong or talented, but those labels don’t tell the whole story about a person or a community – or a church. Some people are big because they come from large stock; some are gifted because they’ve been treated to a great education. These are not the values by which we are to measure one another, and certainly not the values by which we are to measure the effectiveness of our churches. But it takes a lot of prayer and reordering our values to truly look for the power and greatness in what appears small or weak.

When have you seen greatness in something that appeared small or less than desirable?
When has someone seen greatness in you at a time when you felt you had little to offer?
Where do you appreciate “small" and "unimpressive?”

There is a realm in which our culture has come to appreciate the small: technology. The smaller the item, the more we prize it – as long as it can pack a huge amount of data and deliver it at lightning speed. So maybe if Jesus were telling this parable today, it would sound like this:

“With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a processor chip, which, when implanted in a device, is the smallest of all the components; yet when it is activated, it becomes the most powerful of all operating systems, and powers many apps and puts forth many gigs of data, so that whole networks can benefit from its bandwidth.”

Does that work for you? If not, try this:

“With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a person of faith who seems pretty ordinary, who, when rooted into a community of other ordinary people, is the smallest contributor; yet when s/he is filled with the Holy Spirit, becomes the most powerful of all ministers and reaches out so lovingly, whole communities are blessed in ways they cannot number.”

Yeah. You and me. On our worst days. At our weakest. We provide shade and branches for whole communities. THAT’s how the kingdom of God works!

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