27 LECTIONARY GLORIA DEI, ANCHORAGE
OCTOBER 23, 2007 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
HAB 1:1-4; 2:1-4; PSALM 37:1-9; 2 TIM 1:1-14; LUKE 17:5-10
Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we may believe and in believing we may obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I’ve never seen a Mulberry tree. I’m pretty sure that I’ve never even seen a picture of a Mulberry tree. I don’t know if you get mulberries from a Mulberry tree. Nor do I know if they would be edible, were we to find any.
I saw a reference from a former professor of
mine (David Tiede) who said that the root system of said Mulberry tree is
very extensive. So much so that Jewish law prohibited
planting them too close to a cistern or a well – for fear of
the damage that could be done to their precious water supply.
But the fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter to me one, tiny bit if the roots of the Mulberry tree sank only an inch into the ground. I’ve never been able to uproot any kind of plant…by faith.
So, I guess you know what that means…apparently, your pastor does not have a faith even the size of a mustard seed. And, though some of you seem to have a faith the size of a…peach pit, I’ve never seen you or anyone else uproot anything by faith, to say nothing of planting it by the same means in lake or lawn, sea or shore, pond or pot of Miraclegrow-saturated soil.
Can you tell that I’ve been wrestling with this jewel of a parable from Jesus? What does he mean by his reference to faith the size of a mustard seed and all that we could do if only we had this much of it?
Here’s the problem: If Jesus is trying to incite and inspire us, to motivate and move us, to encourage and enthuse us…then I don’t think it works so well…
My wife was out in the garden this week for one last session of weeding. She then asked me to help her replant a maple bush and a small blue spruce (which means that I would do the digging and she would do the directing!).
I told her I’d help…and, believe me, I tried. I did my best to exercise my mustard-seed faith to uproot those plants. Carolyn…misunderstood: she thought that I was just sitting in front of the t.v. watching games.
Alas, all my ethereal endeavors, my mystical musings, my extra-sensory efforts were to no avail: those plants did not move an inch. So I have proof that my faith is smaller-than-a-mustard-seed. I asked Carolyn if she might take pity on me and help me through my crisis of faith by letting me sit on the couch. But she smiled in a strange sort of way and said, I know what will help you feel better!...and she was right – it’s amazing what a shovel and some dirt, a little honest labor can do to clear the mind and soothe the spirit.
As I was digging up our bush, I was reminded of that children’s nursery rhyme:
Here
we go round the mulberry bush, The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush
Here we go round the mulberry bush, So early in the morning.
Did you know that there are seven more verses that song? I could sing them right now…but I’d hate to have you all call me in the middle of the night, unable to sleep with that tune stuck in your heads. But here are the themes:
This is the way we wash our clothes, So early Monday
morning
This is the way we iron our clothes, So early Tuesday morning
This is the way we mend our clothes, So early Wednesday morning
This is the way we sweep the floor, So early Thursday morning
This is the way we scrub the floor, So early Friday morning…
You get the picture. It kind of sounds like a prison sentence, doesn’t it?
And no surprise – wikipedia reveals that a likely source of this song is from a women’s prison of long ago. The inmates and their children, apparently, would hold hands, sing this song, and dance around the mulberry tree in the center of the prison yard endorsing this liturgy of their work week.
The emphasis of the song is on what we DO with our lives. The emphasis in Jesus’ parable seems to be on what we DO with our faith. And when the disciples hear Jesus describe the challenges of what it means to live in relationship, to serve our neighbors, to confess our sin and forgive each other over and over again, it scares them. They are sure that they do not have what it takes (i.e., faith) to make such a dream become a reality.
That’s when they cry to Jesus, Lord increase our faith…as if faith were a knowledge, a muscle, a bank account, a gas tank??? This all reminds me of the movie Star Wars and the idea of the force, that special mystical ability of a few to enhance their powers or even move objects just by willing them to do so. The force was a gift, but it had to be developed, exercised, trained.
Luke Skywalker goes to learn from Yoda how to become a Jedi Knight and use the force for good. Landing on a watery planet, his ship promptly sinks in the swamp. Yoda soon gives Luke the task of raising his ship simply by using the power of the force.
Who can tell us what happens? Yeah, he can’t do it – the little wise guy has to step in and, with his stronger sense of the force, raise Luke’s ship from its watery grave.
So is that the way faith works…like the force in Star Wars? We simply have to learn how to…what?...empty our minds, center our spirits, become one with the essence of God, flex our faith-muscles… and voila!...???
The truth is that I think Jesus is saying the opposite. Faith is not a thing to be possessed – but a gift that possesses us. Jesus is not saying if you have faith but look at the faith that has you firmly in its grasp. The tiniest speck of it, he continues, can make miracles happen.
So this mustard-seed story is not about the strength or volume of our faith. Instead it’s about the power of God’s Presence, God’s Living Spirit active and at work everywhere in the world. God promises to work the miracle of life and death, of captivity and freedom, of love and service and hope and joy…whether we’re exercising our faith or contemplating our navels.
The miracle, says Jesus, is that it’s God who does all these things – so don’t worry about it, don’t set yourself up for failure, don’t imagine that the quality of your faith depends on the strength of your effort. For then it becomes just one more work, one more law, one more commandment …and you know how good we are about keeping those.
No, I think that Jesus is simply saying, trust…trust that the God of all creation, the Holy Spirit of life, the all-accepting-and-loving Son is at work in your life and in mine, as well as in the lives of the people around us. We are invited to trust, simply trust…and then watch as miracles unfold.
I’m fairly sure that we won’t see any mulberry trees planted in the ocean, but I can assure you that we have and will see things much greater than that: In Christ we see barriers broken, hearts healed, the lost found, the dead in spirit reborn in love, the angry unburdened and the fearful filled with faith. Amen.