Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

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Sermons

July 2002 (click here to return to "July 2002 Sermons" page)

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (July 28, 2002)

“Pass the Mustard” Julie Adkins

Text: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

SERMON

Nine years ago –

in September of 1993 –

I was in England … on my honeymoon (but let’s not go there!)

Riding around with our BritRail passes,

we spent a day in Plymouth, in the southwest of England.

It was a beautiful town,

but a cloudy, windy, chilly day,

so at noontime we were glad to pop into a local burger joint

to fill up and warm up.

We got our burgers, and found a table,

and while I began to eat,

Tom proceeded to adorn his burger with

various of the condiments that were offering themselves on the table.

I was probably about five bites ahead of him

when I heard him start to cough,

and I looked up, and his eyes were watering,

and he was reaching frantically for his Coke for some reason …

For a moment I thought he was choking on something,

but it wasn’t a bit of food that had done him in …

it was the Colman’s English Mustard.

Trust me: If you ever need your sinuses cleared out instantly,

that stuff will do it.

If the only mustard you’ve ever known is the yellow mustard that’s common here,

you can have no idea what the real stuff is like.

And I have nothing against French’s per se;

it’s quite good on a lot of things,

but it has a lot of other flavors in it in addition to the mustard itself,

that tone it down a whole lot.

The real stuff is pungent;

the closest thing I can compare it to is horseradish

in terms of its power.

It gets your attention!

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed …

a mustard shrub … even, a jar of mustard.

Incidentally, if you ever doubt that Jesus enjoyed exaggerating in order to make a point,

please note that not even in ancient times

did mustard grow on trees.

Mustard seeds do not now and did not then

grow up to become large trees

with lots of bird nests in their branches.

But the point behind the exaggeration is a valid one:

Mustard seeds are tiny –

much smaller than a peach pit, for example –

and they do grow into something substantial,

larger than you would expect from the tiny size of the seed.

Even in seed form, they pack a wallop.

There’s more to them than meets the eye.

The kingdom of heaven is like that, says Jesus.

Like something small …

something hidden, even, like a seed buried in the ground.

Yet from its small beginnings,

it can blossom forth into something truly impressive.

Something you might not have expected.

Which ought to be a tremendous source of hope to us,

individually and corporately.

Most of us have lived long enough to have learned

that anything we can do for the good of the world, or even of our community,

is fairly small.

We’re not a Bill Gates or a Ross Perot with lots of money to give,

to try to make the world a better place.

We’re not elected officials or corporate bigwigs with lots of power

to make changes that would affect lots of people’s lives.

We are like mustard seeds:

small, but with big potential.

Here’s an important distinction:

If you have lots of money or power,

you can affect people’s lives no matter whose side you’re on.

You can decide to engage in dishonest accounting,

and bring down a whole business,

costing thousands of people their jobs, and retirees their pensions,

and stockholders their savings.

You can do that.

You’re a big ol’ seed,

and you can plant and reap big ol’ destruction.

Fortunately, there are some big seeds

that choose to try to do good,

although that is difficult,

because it seems that it only takes one act of evil

to wipe out the effect of hundreds of acts of good.

But if you’re a small seed,

as most of us are,

you can only do big things if you’ve got a kingdom-of-heaven agenda.

Only if God blesses our efforts,

will they grow and bear fruit, or branches, or more seeds.

Otherwise, we’ll be weak and sickly and stunted.

As if a seed were to say, “I’m going to grow here!”

but have no sun, or water.

Unless we’re on board with God’s kingdom of heaven plans,

we cannot and will not become all that we could.

Obviously, what is true for us as individuals in this case

is also true for us as a congregation.

We are small.

Actually, for a Presbyterian congregation,

we’re about average …

but when we compare ourselves to “olden days,”

or when we look at larger churches in affluent suburbs,

we feel small.

And whether we’re going to be a mustard seed,

that will put forth pretty impressive growth,

or some other kind of seed,

and remain fairly small and puny,

depends entirely on whether our agenda is the kingdom of heaven

or something else altogether.

We are not powerful or influential on our own:

A historic, stable, mainline, traditional, mainly older congregation

has nothing to offer a changed and constantly changing world around it

except the kingdom of heaven,

and whatever that motivates us to be and to do.

The way we have always done things matters some,

but not nearly as much as we pretend it does.

Whether we are comfortable with how things are matters a little,

but not nearly as much as we try to let it.

What matters is whether we are about kingdom work:

telling the good news to our neighbors –

all of them, not just the ones who look and talk like us –

feeding the hungry, clothing the naked,

visiting those who are sick and in prison,

letting justice roll down like waters.

If we’re not about those things,

it’s no surprise that we haven’t become the greatest of shrubs

that we would like to become.

If the kingdom of heaven is not what we’re about,

then we are like a seed that might say “Help me grow! I want to grow!”

but then also says, “Too much light! It hurts my eyes!”

or, “I don’t like that water from down south; give me some clean water.”

A seed doesn’t get to set the terms for its growth.

And we don’t get to set the terms for ours.

If it’s going to come at all –

and there’s no guarantee of that,

because we are on rocky soil for a mainline Protestant church –

but if it’s going to come at all,

it will be because we have given up our need to control

what God wants to do with us.

I personally think it would be great fun for us to be mustard seeds,

and then mustard itself.

Not French’s, the real stuff.

Imagine if we could have the same kind of effect in Oak Cliff

that that wild English mustard had on my poor ex-spouse.

Imagine if we could get that kind of attention.

If we were that noticeable.

If we had that powerful an effect on people.

A little bit of mustard goes a long way.

So that, even if we remain fairly small and shrub-like,

if we are really mustard seeds,

we can have an effect that’s all out of proportion to our actual size.

If what we’re about is really God’s work,

trying to make our little corner of the world

look more like the kingdom of heaven,

then we will be powerful more than we have ever imagined.

Like that tiny bit of mustard

that just about takes the top of your head off!

When we get on board with what God has in mind …

when that vision of the kingdom of heaven is what drives us above all else …

when we pray “Thy will be done” and really mean it …

friends, we will be huge.

Not necessarily in terms of numbers or size,

but in terms of impact.

If we choose to be mustard seeds,

we will be noticed.

We will get people’s attention.

Of course, not everyone likes mustard.

Not everyone likes mustard seeds, either.

If we work seriously at shaping our corner of Oak Cliff

to look more like the kingdom of heaven,

there will be those who say “You’re too spicy!”

You’re not to our taste!

We’ve never tasted mustard like this before!

The kingdom of heaven is too much for some people.

God does a new thing,

but we like our old thing.

Folks, we can’t be mustard and be bland.

The kingdom of God is not boring.

It’s spicy. It gets our attention.

It’s not always to our taste.

It’s often not like anything we’ve ever done before.

At times it may make our eyes water and our noses run.

After all, people were never indifferent to Jesus –

they either loved him or they hated him,

but everyone had an opinion.

He was spicy. He drew attention to himself.

Sometimes people choked on him, but they noticed.

It’s not the job of mustard to make food more “agreeable” …

it’s to make it more interesting.

It’s not our job to make the world or the church more comfortable,

for ourselves or anyone else …

it’s to show how wildly generous and inclusive and spicy

the kingdom of heaven really is.

There are folks out there

who would like to come make their nests in our branches.

There are folks out there

whose lives need the spice of Jesus Christ and God’s kingdom.

There are, in fact, even folks in here

whose lives need the spice of Jesus Christ and God’s kingdom.

Somebody, please,

pass the mustard.

Amen.