July 27, 2014
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
I was speaking to someone from our church recently who expressed a disappointment that we only had 8 people on the mission team to Thailand this year instead of the 18 we had last year. I was quick to respond by saying that 8 people were ideal and a small group is a better size group to travel around in the hill country of Northern Thailand than a large one.
We live in a culture in which “small” is synonymous with “insignificant.” The Lanna Coffee Team has been in ministry for the past 7 years is still composed of 7 people but since they have started this life-changing mission project, thousands of dollars have been sent to Thailand to support the New Life Center and the House of Love including helping to build a new dormitory for children. And every little cup of coffee you drink eventually helps sustain the livelihood of coffee growers to support their families. There are only 7 people on this team.
Have you ever noticed how we prefer not to use the words “little or small” in our language. The little candy bars that we get at Halloween are not labeled “little” but “fun size.” You can’t buy a “small” coffee at Starbucks, but it’s called “tall.” When it comes to ordering at a restaurant, it’s never a small portion but it’s “half” of the regular portion. If something is really small, then we describe it with a word that doesn’t say “small.” For us, bigger is always better.
Parables
Today’s lesson is a string of short parables from Matthew 13. C.H. Dodd’s classic definition of a parable is: “At its simplest the parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” Are you teased to understand what these parables mean?
Jesus says in this Sunday’s parable that the kingdom of heaven, that which he is bringing near to us, that which is calling people to join, is a reality that is small—very, very small, as small as a tiny mustard seed. What does it mean for Jesus to point to the smallness of the kingdom?
Jesus says that this tiny seed, when it germinates, becomes a “shrub,” and then a “tree.” Now let’s be honest here, mustard seeds do become a shrub but never a tree. We suspect that Matthew may have exaggerated here to make his point. It’s like us not wanting to call something small. So Matthew called a shrub a tree! But the growth of a plant from a very tiny seed into a small shrub is still impressive. Mustard shrubs are very short and low to the ground.
I wonder why Jesus tells this parable. We believe that now that we are deep into Matthew’s Gospel, were the disciples discouraged? Jesus has preached his beautiful sermon on the mount. He has performed some amazing signs and wonders. He has spoken about the kingdom of heaven. His disciples have left everything and have ventured forth to follow him.
And yet, a long way into the journey, things do not feel like an outbreak of the kingdom of heaven. If the disciples were discouraged, I wouldn’t blame them. From time to time, Jesus has attracted some impressive crowds, but one has the impression that by this point in Matthew the crowds are starting to dwindle. How can it be that the kingdom of heaven consists of this unimpressive little band of disciples gathered here?
Kingdom of Heaven
I think it was precisely at this time that Jesus tells us his parable about the mustard seed.
When we think about the kingdom of heaven, that is, the work that God is doing to bring the world into line with God’s intentions for the world, we make a big mistake to think about the kingdom of heaven using the categories gathered from the kingdoms of this world. The kingdom of heaven is the fulfillment of God’s purposes for the world. Most of Jesus’ parables are about the kingdom of heaven. He is patiently teaching us that the kingdom of heaven is qualitatively different than our worldly kingdoms.
Our kingdoms have great, impressive palaces, fortresses, big parades, grand victory celebrations, impressive architecture and impressive human achievements. Recent examples of this would be the fireworks we see on the 4th of July or the tens of thousands of fans watching the World Cup soccer matches in Brazil or on the big-screen TVs. It’s building those new skyscrapers in San Francisco. The kingdoms of this world are based on patriotism and national pride.
But God’s kingdom is like a seed growing secretly, or a seed thrown on soil where most of the seed fails to take root and germinate and only a few seeds eventually flourishes.
In the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus teaches us that God’s kingdom is not only qualitatively different from our kingdoms, but quantitatively different as well. The world looks at what Jesus has done and is unimpressed. He has healed some people, but not millions of people. He has preached a couple of memorable sermons, but not dozens of sermons recorded by history. He has called people to join his movement, but by this point only 12 have stepped forward, and frankly, none of them are very impressive.
And Jesus tells them not to be discouraged. He tells his disciples not to look at God’s work among them through the eyes of the world. What the world considers to be small and inconsequential, God sees through the eyes of love. God is doing a mighty work among us, but God’s mighty work does not appear mighty in the world’s eyes.
Game Changer
In the rest of the lesson that we read for today, Jesus tells us in a rapid-succession a number of parables, each beginning with “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…” The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field, is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into large amounts of flour, is like a treasure hidden in a field, is like a merchant looking for fine pearls, is like a net let down into a lake. In addition to the truth that the kingdom of heaven comes in small packages and works in hidden ways, it also calls us to transformative change in how we participate in life.
The kingdom of heaven is a game changer and we are motivated to seek it above all else. Instead of being driven and pressured to play the world’s game of big and successful, we become committed to helping God love this world and all the world’s people. The kingdom of heaven changes everything.
It changes a seed into a tree, and flour into dough. It sells all for the treasure and the pearl. It changes us to become disciples of Christ in new life. It changes the church from being like-minded people who agree on most everything into being Christ-minded people who are called to discover what we do not already know, to be startled by God’s grace which is new everyday. In the process we are changed by the movement of this kingdom of heaven and become highly motivated to seek it above all else.
There’s a story about a pastor who was going through some tough times with his congregation. He had pushed his congregation to initiate a new building program to provide more space for their worship and programs. But the church ran into trouble. The job cost much more than was originally planned. A group in the church challenged the pastor’s leadership and charged that the debt incurred by the congregation would be their undoing.
The pastor said when supported by another pastoral colleague, “I think I’m going to make it. But if God doesn’t send me about four or five people—just four or five are all I need—people who will step up and say that I am sincerely trying to give this church a future, then I think I will have to leave the church.”
I suppose, if the truth were told, all of us pastors are only about four or five laypeople away from disaster! Thank God for those four or five people!
As I stand here today, I am thankful for how God led the four or five families from the South Bay to join FCBC after their new church development project completed its ministry. They joined this faithful congregation and our church has become a game changer.
I am thankful for the 4 or 5 people led by Joe Chan after we completed our most recent church building retrofit project in 1999 and for the past 15 years, they have cracked hundreds of eggs and fed hundreds of people in our church’s hospitality ministry. It only took a few people to be a game changer.
I think about the new Reception Ministry that was started by Pastor Peter and now being spearheaded by Min Ling and others. There are only a few people, 5-7 people on the first Sunday of each month who are willing to stay at church longer and open up our sanctuary for people to pray and to meet a friendly face in Chinatown. The Reception Ministry is changing the way we see our neighbors and how our neighbors see us.
Today you heard from our new friends from Bacone College that it only takes a few people to become committed to the vision that they have to educate Native-American Indian and Burmese American students so that they might have a chance to become productive people in our society. You can be a game changer when you give.
The kingdom of heaven is small but never insignificant. It’s changing the world just like a seed becomes a shrub, yeast added to flour becomes dough for bread. The kingdom of heaven is like finding a hidden treasure or the finest pearl and all else doesn’t matter that much anymore.
Church Today
You have heard me say that we are a good and faithful church and perhaps one of the most resourceful in Chinatown. But we are certainly not the biggest; there are many other churches that have more people than we have. We don’t have the largest church building when there are more impressive church facilities that we have visited.
The biggest building in town, in most towns these days, is usually the hospital, or the bank, or corporate headquarters of some big company. Look at the building boom that San Francisco is currently experiencing—all corporate world headquarters vying for the few empty lots left on Market Street.
There was a day in North America when a majority of the people were Christians. A large percentage of the people in the city attended church. But not anymore. Now forgive me for saying this but if you look around the room, we don’t represent the “movers and the shakers” by the world’s standards in this city. There are not many powerful and prominent people among us. We are not people who would lead a revolution to overturn the downward course of the world.
But remember the parable of the mustard seed. From this tiny seed there grows a great plant. Now maybe the movement from a tiny seed to a large plant doesn’t seem very impressive to hear. But maybe the parables are a way of getting us to look at things as God looks at things. God’s ways are not our ways.
When we place into the offering plates our tiny, small donations, we actually believe that God blesses our offering, multiplies it for good and uses it to bless others.
When we receive the Lord’s Supper by taking a bit of bread and a sip of wine, we claim that this holy meal is as close as we get to the risen Christ. We are taught to pay attention to that which the world regards as small and inconsequential. In this faith we move forward toward the great, awesome, and majestic God—through seemingly small gestures.
This may always be the way God does things. God chooses to answer the world, and to save the world, through Jesus, a Jew from a little out-of-the-way village in Judea.
God chooses to be present in the world, and blesses the world, through sometimes faithful, and sometimes foolish, thoroughly human organizations called the church.
God has chosen, we believe, to bless our corner of the world through this congregation. From the small, great numbers are blessed. From one little nation, Israel, God blesses the world. From this small church situated in this big world-famous city of San Francisco, God has big plans for us in the kingdom of heaven.
Thanks be to God!
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, we do the best we can to be your church. Despite our faith, we become discouraged at times. Our efforts don’t seem to yield many results. Help us not to lose heart. Keep us focused upon the work you are doing among us to bring your kingdom into reality. Remind us that your big kingdom of heaven only requires a small group of witnesses to accomplish great things. Enable us to see things, not the world looks at things, but as you see things. Amen.