Ezekiel 17:22-24; Mark 4: 26-34

There is an old German proverb that says, “Begin to weave, and God will provide the thread.”[1] In speaking of the realm of heaven, Jesus portrays a farmer who scatters seeds which sprout and grow, without the farmer’s understanding how. The earth, says Jesus, produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. The farmer, unclear as to how this comes about, has only a bit part to play in the cycle of seed time and harvest – he sows the seed, and at the time of harvest, goes in with his sickle.

One of the lessons we might take from this parable is that the Christian faith is not about optimism. You’ve probably heard the definition of an optimist as “…a father who let his teenage son drive the family car. A pessimist is one who won’t, and a cynic is one who did.”[2] Many folk I know have traveled this cycle from optimist to pessimist to cynic as regards their faith. I encounter them everyday as they approach me and relate to me their various journeys and injuries at the hands of church folk, or through the vagaries of life itself. Yet, I tell them, Christianity is not about having a rosy outlook on life. It’s simply a hope that whatever life or other people foist upon us, God is in the midst of our concerns, even if we don’t know how.

That’s an important lesson for us to take to heart. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said that “All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, until they take root in our personal experience.”[3] There is a sense, then, in which the German proverb, “…begin to sew and God will provide the thread,” is the heart of our Christian statement of faith, yet, in order to make this faith truly ours, we must be willing to risk those moments when we risk looking foolish, or feeling foolish, because we don’t really understand exactly how what God has said will come to pass – we merely remember and accept that God has promised good to us and begin to act and continue to act in accordance with our faith.

Yes, there are times when we find ourselves in the midst of things that we’re not sure how we’re going to come out of. The truth is, there are times that we won’t come out of the things that beset us in this lifetime. Yet, the power of Christ’s resurrection still assures us that hope is not lost. This is not optimism, that says everything going to be fine. It is Hope, which says, “Though God slay me, yet will I trust in God” (Job 13:15), or “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble…we will not fear, though the earth be removed, and the mountains fall into the sea” (Psalm 46:1-2).

Sometimes people become discouraged in the midst of life, and for good reasons. Discouragement can paralyze us, cause us to question our worth, and cause us to question our God. It often acts in such a way as to block out the light of God’s realm from our natural vision. Consider that “The difference between the size of the sun and the size of a quarter is a difference of a few millimeters and millions of miles. Yet, we can hold that tiny quarter so close to our eyes that we can’t see the sun. It’s the same with our problems. Though God is so much greater than any problem we’ll ever face, we can look so closely at our problems that we allow them to block our vision of God’s presence in our lives.”[4]

Again, I emphasize, this isn’t optimism. Christianity is not about wearing rose colored glasses. Neither is it a platitude (an empty saying that we mouth to make sense of things we can’t truly comprehend). No, we don’t suggest that God puts us to the test to teach us anything from our trials, unless, as the author of Hebrews states, it is to learn obedience in suffering (Hebrews 5:8), and what is that obedience to which the author alludes – it is the willingness to maintain faith in God’s willingness to be with us even when everything around us suggests that God has left us, forgotten us, or even abandoned us. This is the essence of our hope in God’s perfect love.

“Nick Thomas found himself at the age of forty-seven unemployed and under tremendous financial pressure. Though he had a successful career in the Air Force and the insurance business, some reversals had set him back and left him with no place to go. His wife, Liz, made their situation a matter of prayer. She was in church one morning, praying about their dilemma, when she though she could almost hear the words, “Make the mustard.” Her family had a mustard recipe from Russia, and every Christmas she made gift jars of mustard for her friends. Nick and Liz decided to listen to the voice. She prepared a substantial amount of mustard. They packaged it and then called on a local cheese shop. The manager tasted it and immediately bought out their inventory. Within three months they had cracked the highly competitive New York major deli market. Because the Thomases committed their troubles to prayer and looked expectantly to God for guidance, God gave them direction.”[5]

A holy man once said that “a mustard seed is very plain, and of little value; but if it is bruised or crushed it shows forth its power. So faith first seems a simple thing; but if it is bruised by its enemies it gives forth proof of its power, so as to fill others who hear of it with the odor of its sweetness.”[6]

“Howard Thurman was Dean of Marsh Chapel, Boston University. He was a grand preacher, poet and prophet. He was also the grandson of a slave. He wrote about his grandmother who was a slave on a plantation and the effect of the church that slaves attended. The owner of the plantation apparently thought that it would do the slaves no harm if the preacher went down and told the slaves about Jesus on Sunday afternoons. (Niel Fisher quotes Bishop Leontine Kelly – African American Bishop of the United Methodist Church – who says, “If you want people to stay where they are put, don’t tell them about Jesus.”)

Thurman’s grandmother said of this old preacher that, “He hardly ever preached a sermon without going by Calvary.” The slave congregation related well to a story of a man who was treated like dirt, abused, beaten down, and killed. But Thurman’s grandmother said that the old preacher, “When he went by Calvary,” always was moved to shout, “But God raised him again! And he is seated at the right hand of God in heaven!” Then the preacher would take off his glasses, look straight into the eyes of those slaves, lean over the pulpit, and say to them, “But slaves, you are not any man’s property. You are children of God Almighty! Never forget it!”[7]

The task of preaching, as I’ve discovered after some twenty-three years of attempting it, is the job of saying over and over again what folk really don’t want to hear – that we’re unfaithful in our lifestyles to the God that has adopted us as children, and yet, God remains faithful to us and to the creation, the work of God’s heart and hands. I can’t imagine (and don’t pretend to comprehend) what it might have felt like to be a slave, the property of another human being. I can’t imagine how the painful laboring of seven days a week for nothing, without being accorded the simplest rights of humanity, could be overturned by an old preacher. I wonder, in fact, if that old parson had any idea of whether or not his preaching would one day assist the slaves in deciding to stand with dignity in the midst of undignified circumstances, and to profess their freedom while they remained in chains.

A farmer went out to sow; the seeds he scattered began to grow. He slept and woke, uncertain how, but in due time came the harvest. God is at work in your lives and mine – even if we don’t see it; even if we don’t feel it, God is at work in your lives and mine in the smallest of things. Whatever our circumstances, whatever our condition, whatever our problems and concerns, let us commit ourselves to prayer and entrust our lives to God. This is the pattern of Christ’s life – both in the life he lived upon the earth and the life he now lives in us. Let us learn to hope in the smallest of things.