St. Paul's On-the-Hill Episcopal Church

The Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Rector

11 Pentecost; July 27, 2008

Matthew 13:31-24, 44-52

INSIGNIFICANT PEOPLE;

EXTRAORDINARY TREASURES

Look at your hands for a moment. Look at your hands. Into each of our hands will be put an extraordinary treasure – the body of Christ, in insignificant wafers of bread.

Touch your ears. Into your ears throughout the service, we put insignificant little words – but words about wonderful things like hope and love and joy; from Song and Scripture and Sermon.

Touch your mouth. Into that will come the blood of Christ, mediated by insignificant wine and water, and yet bringing with it the hope and joy and nurture of Christ, that keeps our souls alive.

And then from hand and heart and ear and mouth will come acts of love, listening hearts, words of care and comfort.

Be aware of your whole body. When you bring that, when you are present with another person – as Charlotte and I were privileged to be present on your behalf with Aileen and Bill yesterday, as each of us is privileged to be with anyone we know, and anyone we don't know – we can bring with us the joy and love and presence of Christ.

All mediated by insignificant people who have taken in insignificant seeming words and actions and food and song. All taken in. All processed and pondered. All given out again by insignificant disciples who have become significant apostles – no longer students who come but teachers who are sent, to others, to bless as we have been blessed.

All it takes is hearing the words and using them, speaking them; taking in the nourishment and being nourished by it, and using its strength for others and not just ourselves.

We become mediators of the body of Christ, spreaders of his word – his life-giving seeds.

But it does take something from us. It takes recognizing that these words, however insignificant, do work. And the hands, however humble, can help.

This mouth, however used to saying the wrong thing, can say the right thing. These ears, however used to listening to my own thoughts, can listen to someone else's thoughts too, so the mouth can say words of comfort, the hands can do acts of helpfulness and all together – part of the Body of Christ of which we are all a part – can heal that other person, that other disciple, that soon-to-be apostle.

Bless God who has blessed us in this way.

There was a man who took an insignificant mustard seed – this smallest of all seeds – and he planted it. He did not give up on it. He did not throw it away. He did not assume it would do no good at all. He did not put it aside and look hopefully for other, bigger, better seeds that he and everyone else knew would grow better and yield more.

He took the mustard seed and planted it. And it yielded, not much – a mighty mustard bush! The greatest of all shrubs. Not the greatest of all trees but of all shrubs. He had been right in his estimation. It wasn't much. But it would have been about 10 feet tall, a big shrub but a shrub nevertheless.

And it would have been big enough for all the birds of the air to nest in its branches – not all at once, mind you; but maybe one at a time, or a few at a time.

Like this parish. The whole world could not fit in here. But those who have need of an ear to hear, a hand to help, a word to heal – they could make it in, if they're a little swallow or a majestic eagle, looking for a place to rest for a bit.

So plant the seed. Plant the seed. It looks insignificant – that gospel word, that word remembered from the song, that thought that took root in your heart during communion; just your silent, awkward presence! Plant that in somebody else's heart. It may grow into something nurturing for them – but only if its planted.

At least it can't do any harm.

There is a Prayer that is making its way in Evangelical circles. Its called the Prayer of Jabez and its sort of guaranteed to help you out as it helped out Jabez in the Bible – at least it helped the way God wanted to help, not necessarily the way Jabez wanted to be helped.

It goes like this.

“O Lord, bless me indeed and expand my territory. Hold me in your hand and keep me from evil, that I might not cause anyone pain.”

“That I might not cause anyone pain.” I like that, because my biggest worry and it might be yours too, is that by saying the wrong thing, I might cause someone pain.

By spreading the Gospel in just the wrong way I might cause pain. I don't want to do that, so I don't spread the Gospel, so maybe I don't cause pain. I don't cause pleasure either, or love, or comfort, or help.

So maybe I ought to spread a few of those insignificant words of hope or love or help, trusting that God will keep me from being painful.

Insignificant people with extraordinary treasures. We are the kings in the kingdom of heaven. We are the ones with the extraordinary treasures in our treasure house, the scribes trained for the kingdom of heaven, the ones trained in what is new and what is old, what is new and old in our own life-experience of God and Gospel and Scripture and life; what is new and what is old in Scripture itself, both Old and New Testaments. And we are told that, like good kings, we can spread around this largesse and these resources of God to help so many others. We have that ability with our humble hands, humble mouths, humble hearts, humble selves.

We are not like, and we are not called to be like, the majestic kings of this world who keep things to themselves, and build up their power and their might, to help themselves.

We have the power and might of God, who spends his treasure, which comes in insignificant words, and bread, and action, and servants – like us – he spends his insignificant mustard seed words on others – if we plant them, and then let sheltering bushes grow.