Mark 4:26-34
26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
30 He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32 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.”
33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; 34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
Look at these giant seeds.
But look at these tiny mustard seeds. For the life of me, I can’t just pick up one!
It’s amazing Jesus uses this tiny example to emphasize faith and he uses it again in another story.
Matthew 17:18-20
18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith. 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.”
Luke 17:5-6
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 The Lord replied, “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.
I love stories. I grew up a United Methodist preacher’s kid and what I liked best of my dad’s sermons were his stories. So I’m going to tell you one of my stories. I’m the oldest of three and the only girl. We were senior, sophomore and freshman in high school and we’re super close. My mom went back to get her master’s in guidance when my youngest brother went to kindergarten. My parents emphasized to us that they are both equal heirs in the kingdom and have always lifted up the priesthood of all believers. My mom, even in retirement, is as much a minister as my dad. All my life, I’ve wanted to be a teacher. I was obsessed with Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth from Little Women and Anne with an “E” from Anne of Green Gables. I would create class rolls with names from books and mark them “absent” or “present.” I took Teacher Cadet my senior year of high school and went to Winthrop University to be a high school English teacher. It combined my love of reading, creativity, problem solving how I would get each student excited about Chaucer or King Lear. I didn’t care that much for grammar, but I loved teaching til they understood and the light bulb went off.
In college, I got involved in campus ministry at WNW – Wesley (UMC/Methodist) Newman (Catholic) Westminster (PCUSA/Presbyterian). Campus ministry opened my eyes to all of the many ways the Gospel can be lived out. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism had emphasized in his teachings: personal piety and social holiness. Personal piety – personal quiet times/devotions, prayer, studying the word individually and in groups, worship. Social holiness – we would do homeless sleep outs in boxes on Winthrop’s lawn, panhandling the next day on one of the busiest streets in Rock Hill, volunteering at CROP Walk raising money for the hungry all over the world in particular the young girls that walk on average 10 kilometers a day for clean water, writing letters to Amnesty International on behalf of prisoners.
Tuesday’s Child Learning Center was a ministry of WNW that was an afterschool care program for homeless and at-risk kids. My husband Mike and I were co-student coordinators and learned firsthand how we dealt with stress and parenting! When we went on my first international mission trip to Nicaragua, we were digging latrines because Hurricane Mitch had moved all of the people around Lake Managua to a cow pasture they called Nueva Vida, New Life. We saw lots of UN tarps and metal they had scavenged. We were divided up two by two to dig and I was paired with a girl from the University of South Carolina who spoke Spanish. That came in handy when on the first day, I puked in the family’s yard. The missionaries gave me a bucket and a peanut butter jar of electrolytes and sent me to the bunk room. The only book I had in my bag was one that my mom had suggested and given to me, it was Elisabeth Elliot’s These Strange Ashes about her first years as a missionary. I read that book cover to cover and you know what, the Bible she had created in that specific language of that tribe, all the hours of work she had poured into it, got washed away in a river, that made me feel better, because I knew the rest of her story. How she went on to minister and bring her 3 year old daughter Valerie to the very tribe in Ecuador that had killed her husband Jim Elliot. Fast forward at least 40 years and I’m reading this book feeling pretty down and out, but then I discover that one of my heroines in the faith felt down and out and discouraged too, I had hope that I could do this missionary thing after all. It was a mustard seed faith. One that blossomed over time like the first passage from Mark! When Mike Jeter made me get up off the bed and handed me some 7 Up, it settled my stomach (Have you ever drunk straight electrolytes???? Yuck!) and he kept me laughing with his antics and stories. I always treasured that first trip to Nicaragua and what it taught me and I continued as a student and as a campus minister helping my students have their own “ah ha” experiences.
Fast forward again to the summer between my junior year and senior year, I was going to England on a study abroad trip and Mike and I had just started dating. It was pre-9-11 so he walked me to the gate. As I was about to get on the plane, he told me he loved me for the first time. Our kids, don’t like to hear the lovey dovey kissy kissy stuff, so none of that!
I, being the international traveler that I am (twice to Nicaragua – hardly!), had the brilliant idea that I wanted to travel to Scotland the two weeks before I was due at school. Lo and behold, I get food poisoning from the airline food. When I land at Gatwick I bought a Eurorail pass and got some Burger King French fries that I proceeded to puke on the train. (I’ve mentioned puke twice already in this sermon. Don’t worry that’s not a frequent occurrence.) I turn around in Heathrow, go back to Gatwick, and make reservations for a hotel. I proceeded to find the hotel lugging my many bags through to the Paddington train stop. I have a scrapbook that documents this trip including the picture on the hotel wall that I looked at for days on end. My only life line was a red phone booth in front of the hotel. I drug my sick carcass out there to call my parents and Mike. Many, many, many times. I realized right away when I try to get some food that sprite is lemonade and our television channels and shows are WAY, WAY better than theirs. The hotel didn’t have air conditioning so I probably was hallucinating frequently. I had packed lots of cold weather clothes because I was traveling to Scotland and London was hot as blue blazes, so I ventured out and found a Gap. I tried on one skirt and passed out in the dressing room, so I thought I would take myself to the nearest hospital but couldn’t seem to hail a taxi. Much to my relief, a priest walked up to me and showed me how. I was standing on the wrong side of the road. Duh.
When I got to the emergency room I spent 6 and a half blissful hours in the air conditioning watching Wimbledon and seeing all the ins and outs of a London ER which was much more exciting than tv show! Wimbledon always brings a heatwave according to the announcers and that’s when John McEnroe breaks in and makes a crack it being July 4th and us gaining our independence, I was thinking let ME have my independence from this place. I’ve loved John McEnroe ever since!
Why am I telling you these stories? Because in that red phone booth my mom told me to read the book of Ezekiel. It’s a 48 chapter book. I’m thinking in my head, “Mom, you’re daughter has food poisoning from what feels like the other side of the world and you’re telling her to read the book of Ezekiel?” In that sweltering room, with nothing more to do, I flipped around in Ezekiel, reading passages here and there. Then I landed on Ezekiel 37, it reads, “The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” 7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone…. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”
It became so clear that I was called to this awesome and scary thing called ministry. I had been stripped away from all the “stuff” in my life, all of the busy-ness, and from my usual always whirling mind in my sickness, in a continent by myself, alone, afraid and crying out to God to draw near as only God can. I had only a mustard seed of faith and God was ever present and ever faithful. At the time, I was going more than full throttle, and in thinking about this over the past week, God had to make me pause so that I couldn’t stuff another thing in there. You know when you make yourself busy doing the Lord’s work? I was working multiple jobs, I was part of multiple organizations, my grandfathers had died the semester before, and I would have these brief, but critical Jesus injections, you know the ones that keep you running, but I had not actually stopped. And paused. And discerned. And processed. I had gone to Exploration the Fall before where Tex Sample said, “Accepting a call to the ministry is a lot like throwing up, when you do it, you’ll feel a lot better.” Well, I did it, and felt a lot better. I could use all of my love of stories, creativity, and teaching in ministry. I could use my love of personal piety balanced with social holiness for the glory of God. I could move the mountains if I had mustard seed faith and God will give me the words to speak to the dry bones in Christ who strengthens me.
Not only did my call to ministry happen in England, I found out that <Spoiler Alert> Mike and I were meant to be together. Remember when he said he loved me before I got on the plane, I meant it then when I answered him, but I really meant it in the days to come as God worked within my heart. You see my dad had always been the pastor. I believed very much in women in ministry, but I knew firsthand, what a call to ministry means for a family. How could the Mom be there for both her kids and her congregation? You have to have a willing companion and a true partner. We joked growing up that when my mom started playing Steven Curtis Chapman’s For the Sake of the Call or Michael W. Smith’s Friends are Friends Forever, we knew we were moving. God was giving me all sorts of nudges during my time there both within me and for all the world to see. The pinnacle was seeing a familiar episode of Friends that happened to be on Nick at Nite on Friday. You know how I said at the time British television was horrible, the only good thing, was the American re-runs. My family always likened me as Monica and Mike as Chandler, because I kept my room very neat and could always tell if my brothers had been in there and Mike was the sweet jokester and lo and behold, I remember sitting in a hotel room with my mom and grandmother watching the episode of Chandler asking Monica to marry him. I hadn’t had the mustard seed faith to trust that God could work things out both in my family life and in ministry life. I’m a natural control freak and doubter and I have to say honestly didn’t believe it could work out that I could have a call to ministry and my family. Mike says that’s crazy, but that’s what fear does to you – it says, you can’t do something and you believe it. Fear says you’re not enough when God says you are more than enough by God’s grace and mercy!
Fast forward over the past 17 years and we have been on the greatest mountaintops and walked the darkest valleys. Our faith has been tested, tried and pushed to the limit. Sometimes in reference to God will never give you more than you can handle, I wish God didn’t trust us so much. We found this in a store at Montreat on spring break.
It couldn’t have come at a better time. All things are possible. ALL things are possible. Do you hear that? ALL things are possible. If we say to a mountain move then it will move. If we say to a mulberry tree, go jump in the lake, it will. If we take the time to listen to what God is speaking for us today and if we tap into that Holy Spirit power, we can change the world. Who knows what we could do with just a little bit of faith? Faith moves mountains. In your deepest heart, in your relationships, in your work place, in your neighborhoods, in our world if we have a mustard seed faith, what would it mean? God could blow our minds. As we share together, you’ve heard some of my story, I want to know your stories of mustard seed faith. I want to know the battles you’re facing and the dragons your slaying. I want to know what brings you joy and hope. I want us to share together and be community with one another so that we can live out the faith for all the world to see and know the greatest story ever told – the Gospel of Jesus Christ – how the great God of the universe came to us Emmanuel and walked and lived among us and told these stories about common everyday things like mustard seeds.
Blessings on the Journey 