Sunday, June 17, 2012

Mustard Seed Ministries: Tiny Christ-like Acts


Sermon preached at St. John's Glenbrook, Nevada, Sunday, June 17, 2012

Jesus is not trying to make a botanical statement of fact when he said the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.  He is using proverbial and metaphorical language common in the parables of the New Testament.  When we hear Jesus say the mustard seed is like, I underscore like, we know he is trying to make a point but not a fact.  The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that is small and becomes something much bigger then we would expect.  Today I want to reflect on the way we are mustard seeds that build up the earthly kingdom of God.

Let’s begin with evaluation of the success of God’s kingdom on earth.  In a recent report by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life it was reported that the number of Christians has quadrupled in the last 100 years from about 600 million in 1910 to 2 billion. The major shift that has taken place is from Europe and the Americas being the center of Christianity in 1910 to Africa and Asia now as the center.  Though Christianity began in the Middle East and North Africa, today that region has the lowest concentration of Christians.  90% of Christians live in countries where Christians are in the majority. Only about 10% of Christians worldwide live as minorities.  The Kingdom of God has grown far and wide with proportionality changes along the way.

With the Pew Forum’s statistical analysis we are easily misled to exclusively associate God’s kingdom with the number of Christians in the world.  At one point in our Anglican history we were exclusively about making the entire world Christian.  The kingdom of God was equivalent to the British Empire and the Church of England who through its missionary efforts brought their religion to the entire empire in Britain’s foreign parts including America.

In our postcolonial society the kingdom of God is not exclusively equivalent to the size of the Christian Church.  The Church is a part of the kingdom of God, but it is not the kingdom.  Some theologians would disagree with me.  Roman Catholic theologians, particularly, the more orthodox, Vatican centered ones understand the church as the fulfillment of the kingdom of God.  They see equivalence between church and kingdom. 

Anglicans of which we participate through our Episcopal tradition tend to see the church more often as a means but not as an exclusive end.  Anglicans have an incarnational theology.  Incarnational is the way we participate in the life of Christ in our day-to-day life in the world in real, fleshy and earthy ways.  It is lovely that we all have roles in the worship life of The Episcopal Church as priest, deacon, acolyte, lector and more.  Our incarnational roles do not stop with our service in the church but reach out through our working lives in the world.

It is in this sense that I want to explore with you the way we are each a reflection of the kingdom of God.  Each of us are in some sense the tiny mustard seeds.  How do we live as Christ centered seeds in the world and reflect the love of the kingdom of God in our lives?

As I thought and prayed over this question this past week I began to think of mind maps.  A mind map is a tool to help people draw on paper their big ideas into smaller elements.  Through mind mapping people write words, draw symbols and pictures on a page in a random way.  The graphics are meant to flow freely in a non-narrative manner, so that thinkers visualize the abundance of ideas in their mind to make connections to see the bigger picture.  I have seen scholars write huge mind maps that literally cover an entire lecture hall.

I see value in the use of a mind map to reflect on the impact of our Christian lives.  In baptism we come into the Christian life, blessed with a Christian vocation and invited to sprout into new forms of life.  If any one of us drew a mind map of all the people and places where we have ever touched people with a Christian sense of love we would literally run out of paper. 

So often I hear people tell me in spiritual direction that they cannot find their ministry.  Once a man with two adopted retarded children told me he was looking for his ministry.  I was like seriously?  Don’t you see your role as a father to these children as your ministry?  Is not every father and mother a minister to their own household and family?

Who are the ministers of the Church?  Open your prayer book to page 855 for the answer.  The ministers of the Church are laypersons, bishops, priests and deacons.  The order in the Prayer Book answer is very intentional.  If you were to read the same question in the Roman Catholic catechism bishops and priests would be listed first. Laypersons are ministers in God’s Church. 

If you continue to read the answers to the ministry of the laity, bishop, priest and deacon, you will see we all share a common ministry. Our primary ministry the Prayer Book instructs us is “to represent Christ and God’s Church” in that order.  We represent when we embody and our Christ-like to others.

It is through our representation of Christ that we minister in the world.  We represent Christ even when we are not sure what specific ministry we are called to. The way we live in the world is the way we represent Christ and minister on a deeply human level through our everyday encounters.  I will never forget one of my first dates with Stefani, my dearly beloved.  We went to one of my favorite restaurants in Pasadena, California.  The owner of the restaurant could not wait to meet Stefani.  Finally the big day arrived.  It was New Years’s eve and there was a lot of glassware on the table.  Our lovely big crystal goblets were just filled with fresh cold water!  The owner came over to the table to joyously greet Stefani and his French cuff just did not quite clear the water goblet.  The cold water dumped right into Stefani’s lap soaking her and her beautiful dress. 

Stefani laughed!  She laughed! 

Stefani’s spontaneous response still brings tears to my eyes.  Stefani did not swear at the owner or call him some nasty name.  She laughed! In that instance, just two months after we had first met, I immediately knew that one day I was going to ask Stefani to marry me.  I was like wow this woman is truly full of grace. In that moment I knew she was different from all the other women I had ever dated. 

I have observed that same grace of Stefani’s in an affluent Boston parish, working class Manchester, England and now here in Reno.  Stefani is the same loving, gracious person with even people who would annoy most of us.  Her way of being is her particular gift, her unique way that she represents Christ in the world.  Jesus laughed! 

We all have unique gifts that help us represent Christ in the world.

What is your unique gift and how do you use that gift to represent Christ in the world? 

I told Damian, your senior warden this past week that I can’t wait to learn about the history of St. John’s Church Glenbrook.  I know that when I read your parish’s history I will see the ways this little church has reached far and wide, well beyond the Lake Tahoe shores. Our worship in this gem of a building is just the tiny seed that nurtures our being Christ’s hands in the world to incarnate Christ’s love to all.  It might be fun one day to draw your own map of the impact of the people of this parish on the world!

If you are like most Christians you miss or diminish the good you do. The Good News of today’s Gospel is that through the tiny seeds of what we each bring to the world we are able to leave Christ’s loving mark on the world.  We leave our Christ mark in many ways including a loving countenance and compassionate touch on all people in this world, especially the poor and marginalized. 

The world often forgets the poor and the marginalized but Jesus’ ministry always begins with the poor, marginalized and other outcasts of our society. Each of our Christ marks are left everywhere we go.  In this way our ministries reach far and wide with an abundance of fruit that few of us will ever have the privilege to harvest all of it. The Christian Church is the community of all of us who represent Christ in the world.  Tiny seeds produce an amazing abundance of fruit. 

The kingdom of God within each of us is like the tiny mustard that produces abundant life throughout the whole earth.  Even if we were never to travel beyond Glenbrook, the people we touch in a Christ-like manner will reach out like the wild, far-reaching branches of the mustard tree shrub.  In this way the kingdom of God is more widespread than the Pew report described the expansion of global Christianity. The earthly kingdom of God, Christian love cannot be quantified. Christ’s love is deeply felt, remembered in ways that transform our world into the earthly kingdom that Jesus envisioned.

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