Bears and Mustard Seeds

Transcribed from the sermon preached April 23, 2006

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

St. John’s Presbyterian Church

2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705

Scripture Readings:  Matthew 17:14-23; Song of Songs 2:8-13

As we drove out to Good Friday worship at Lawrence Livermore labs I thought how hopeless this little effort of ours was.  How realistic is it to expect governments to get rid of nuclear weapons.  To tell you the truth I don’t think I want my government to get rid of all our nukes if our enemy still has them.  But there is no question in my mind that nuclear weapons are the supreme example of human ingenuity gone wrong.  Building nuclear weapons is a sin.  By obtaining more God like power we further distance ourselves from our Creator.  Splitting the atom may not have been a sin, but it certainly is analogous to picking the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  It was like escaping a bear, only to meet a lion.  We have to remember that.  Even if we acknowledge the reasoning of deterrence, we must remember that nuclear weapons are not God’s will for humanity or the planet earth. 

            Nuclear weapons are only one threat we face today.  Global warming, resource depletion and pollution, wars over water, oil and other resources.  Heck the problems of those we love are big enough without all the rest.  How in the world can we have an impact?  As we were driving back from the worship in Livermore, via a communion run to Bob and Alexa Kubick, it was hard not to take joy in the beauty of the hills.  Green will lush grass and bright yellow with mustard, springtime was alive and well.  I thought, "I need to go on a hike with my wife. " I also thought of Jesus parable of the mustard seed.  If you have faith of a mustard seed, you can move a mountain.

            The mustard seed is tiny.  We are not talking about a lot of faith.  I remember as sixth grader I decided I did not want to be confirmed as a member.  I thought, well, I’m not sure I believe in God.  I want to have faith, perhaps more than anything, but I’m not sure that I do.  My youth director did a great job of affirming the power of my little faith and here I am.  That little affirming act by my youth director may have changed the course of my entire life.  I talked to her years later and she had little recollection of the incident.  Later, as Youth Director of the same church I took a group of kids to see the newly freed Nelson Mandela.  A couple of years later a mother of one of the boys who went said that the trip changed his son's life.  Before Mandela the boy was kind of a wondering lost soul.  After that his grades improved, he got into a great school to study political science and had taken an internship with a wonderful senator in Washington.  Sometimes that one little loving, one small resilient person, is what makes the big difference.  And then it keeps making a difference as new seed springs forth into new plants with more seeds.  Pretty soon you have a beautiful yellow hill.

            It is hard to have faith in the power of God living in today’s world.  It may be even harder to express and share that faith.  But there is faith here, and slowly but surely it has an impact on life in our community and world. 

            Jesus had just come down from the hills when he told this parable.  Who is to say that the mustard plant didn’t have a part in his transfiguration?  Have you ever been so profoundly touched by God that it changed the way you looked?  I mean experienced something so beautiful and powerful that you felt like God was, in that very moment giving you a great big hug from the inside and out?  Perhaps through music, or worship, in the mountains or near the sea.  It changes the way you look. 

            I have seen that happen to youth on a backpacking trip.  They start the trip with some fear and anxiety.  I remember one particular girl who thought she wasn’t quite pretty enough.  She felt she needed to use all the primping and makeup she could to keep up with the competition.  She was terrified of not being able to have a bathroom mirror and a blow dryer.  The other girls echoed her concern.  The first day they all complained like they were being tortured.  By the third day complaining gave way to resignation.  They started to make fun of themselves for how bad they looked.  Then on the fourth day, after a wonderful hike to the ridge top and a bath in the alpine lake this girl came back into camp with a look of joy.  She had forgotten to worry about what she looked like and it looked beautiful on her.  Quite literally God had given her rosy cheeks and blown dry her hair.  I mentioned how great she looked and everyone agreed.  Then she said with unrestrained glee, “I feel so good, so free.”  And she was.  I guarantee you, she found the confidence of knowing she is a child of God, and it will stay with her the rest of her life.  You can think what you want, but I know those kids went up that mountain and came down looking like they had met God.  And they had.  You may not be a cedar or a rose, but if we are open to the possibility, maybe a mustard plant is just perfect.  That, of course applies to churches as well.  We don’t have to be the biggest or have some ideal beauty and faith to have just the beauty and faith God wants. 

I have fallen in love with the Song of Songs.  What a powerful affirmation of the sensual.  It appears from the perspective of these two lovers that the springtime was made by God just so they could enjoy their love.  How romantic.  First we have the image of a young beautiful young man racing toward his lover, bounding over mountains and hills like a gazelle or a young stag to reach her.  Then he is there, looking through the windows, staring at her through lattice.  They are almost together, close, but not quite.  Finally they are together.

            He has something in mind.  He has a plan.  “Come on, get up, let's go.  Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me.  Where? Yo Disneyland, or a club, to Vegas?  No, outside.  “See, the winter is past; the rains are over and gone.  Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.  The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.  Arise, come my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.” 

            I love the anticipation and playfulness of this poetry.  It is full of insinuation and double meaning.  Unlike pornography this love story gets better with time and imagination.  It also expands our minds to what is sensual, to what is to be included in the act of love.  As if the Earth itself is taking part in this game of love.  All we have to do is to open up to it, to drink it in.  There is no necessity to force this erotic love poetry into a theological box, but our hearts may spring from this art toward our relationship with God.

            So we can also hear the call to drink in the joy of the resurrection, the springtime of faith.  Christ as lover or groom has not been a popular image in recent years.  Aware of the dangers of patriarchy and fearing sexuality, we have been cautious about such a masculine and sexual image.  But certainly there is a place for the God who lures us with the joy of love and life, who springs to us as a gazelle, bounding over mountains to reach us, full of anticipation for good things to come.

            Perhaps we ought to keep such an image to balance the images of judge and warrior.  There is nothing ominous about the arrival of the lover.  On the contrary, it is hard to sleep because of the excitement of anticipation.

            Is there not also a place for a God who is ready and waiting for us?  As we see in chapter three the girl cannot sleep and cannot wait.  She gets up and goes out searching for her love.  Again, finally, they meet and embrace.  Certainly this is a beautiful image for our relationship with God. She can't wait and comes out after us. The beautiful lover who desires us, who wants us to experience the glee and joys of love and springtime. 

            We tend to lose glee as we grow older.  Demonstration of glee is childlike.  It reveals vulnerability.  If we show what we really want it can be taken from us.  We can be made fun of.  We learn to limit our range of emotion.  We wouldn’t want to be seen as silly, as childlike, as lower class, as fanatical.  And we certainly wouldn’t want people to think we are gloating over what we have when so many go without.  Maybe we are not allowed to feel joy when there is so much trouble around us.

            Surely there is room for call for justice and for glee and joy in God’s perfect love for us.  God is running toward you with joyous anticipation of meeting you.  And the Earth itself is in cahoots.  God the Creator is coming toward you from the Earth, in a thousand different forms and ways, saying Gloria, my beloved, John my beloved, Carla my darling, Charlie my love, come on lets go live, lets go love.  Let us take a moment and enjoy the time we have together.  Come with me.  The rains have come and gone, springtime is here.  God desires to love you.  Let yourself give into the joy and freedom.  Give thanks and praise.