Mustard Seeds

Luke 17:5-10
October 3, 2010
What does it mean to have the faith of a mustard seed?
This story appeared in Sojourners more than 20 years ago. I’ve been thinking about it lately as I consider our own calling and opportunity to engage in ministries of hospitality and justice, of feeding and making peace right here in Clarendon.
A small group of peasants in Brazil lived on a piece of land that public and private interests wanted to develop. Laws were changed. Land was seized. Houses and crops were destroyed, and peasants removed to other lands.
Then someone wanted to develop those lands, so a few more laws were changed. And, all legally, more land was seized, houses and crops destroyed, and peasants moved on. Whenever the peasants tried to resist, the police came in. Poor people were arrested or shot.
So when the process seemed set to repeat itself again, the people despaired. One person asked, "Why should we resist? It will just mean that more of us will lose our lives." Another pointed out that even if they were not killed, they would die slowly of starvation. Without land, they had no way to live, no way to plant or grow food. Hopelessness was the prevailing mood. Then some of the women got an idea.
With a little research, they found out where the members of the Congress lived. While the government officials were at work in their offices, the poor women went with their children -- each to a different house -- and sat on the front lawns of the luxurious homes.
These were some of Brazil's most prestigious neighborhoods, and the sight of ragged women and their children on the lawns was an extraordinary and curious vision. After a while some of the wives of the Congress members went out with bread. The mothers told them, "We want no bread from you."
Others of the wealthy women came out with money. "We have not come here for money," said the mothers.
Eventually the wealthy women asked, "What do you want?"
The peasant women answered, "We are going to die. And since this is a nice place, we thought we would like to die here."
Then the wealthy women asked, "Why are you going to die?"
And the mothers told of how their land was about to be stolen again, how their children were going to starve, and how the Congress was voting to make their doom legal.
The phones at the Congress began buzzing. Every wife called her husband to plead with him not to vote for the bill in Congress. And in the end, the people kept their land and their future.
Maybe that’s what it means to have the faith of a mustard seed.
Do you know a story like that? Of course, you do. The entirety of the Jesus story is like that. Overwhelming odds. Creative, nonviolent, strategic response by powerless people.
And yet, we despair of ever making a difference, of ever seeing anything change. War seems endless. The gap between the wealthy and poor just keeps getting bigger. Simple changes supported by the majority of the people – ending don’t ask, don’t tell, for example – get lost in political maneuvering and just plain cowardice.
And we, who have been given so much, despair, of ever making a difference, of ever witnessing change much less of participating in it.
When I was a kid, in high school, my best friend and I got an issue placed on the ballot in our hometown of Chattanooga to change the way the city’s school board was chosen – no mean feat, that, requiring gathering thousands of signatures, presenting them to a skeptical city council, and then organizing a campaign to win the election in a city of about 170,000 people. We were 18 at the time, with no money, and mostly, I think, just too young and naïve to realize that what we were doing was impossible.
Maybe that’s what it means to have the faith of a mustard seed.
Almost a generation ago, now, right here in this room, a young gay couple walked into worship. I don’t know if Ron and James thought they were doing something impossible, and I don’t know if the members of the congregation at that time thought that, by extending hospitality, they were doing something impossible, either. But if you look back at what most churches looked like in the early 1990s, you realize that they were doing the impossible.
Maybe that’s what it means to have the faith of a mustard seed.
Ten years ago come January, I preached a sermon in another Presbyterian church calling the rights of same-gender couples a civil rights issue of great concern to the church and culture. I was no longer 18, and though I joke about having no money, the truth is, of course, that I was the married father of three kids, with a mortgage and a minivan, but still with enough naivety to “misunderestimate” the response, and, so, 10 years ago next February, I was on my way out of a job.
And maybe that’s what it means to have the faith of a mustard seed.
Almost 50 years ago, Peg True’s father and certain other men of this church decided that they would buy up all of the property on this block to build affordable housing for the elderly. They managed to get much of it, though never the whole thing, so the housing dream was never realized. However, we have the most creative playground in the neighborhood, an endowment, and an income stream to keep us going, and an array of possibilities for ministry as a result of those men’s dreams and visions.
Maybe that’s what it means to have the faith of a mustard seed.
We’ve got some hungry people in Arlington County these days, and, as Chuck reminded us, countless more at a further remove. We also have thousands of spiritually hungry people right out there in the Metro Corridor.
We have a story to share here: a story of hope that conquers despair; a story of light that outshines darkness; a story of love that drives out all fear.
We don’t have any guarantees. Maybe our dreams and visions will not be fully realized any more than were Peg’s dad’s. Maybe jobs will be lost – been there, done that, and lived to tell the tale. But maybe, just maybe, remarkable things will happen.
We have food to share with a hungry world.
To share it – that is what it means to have the faith of a mustard seed. Amen.