Let's Get Out of The Way

Many of us pray every day, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus says the kingdom of God is as if a man scattered seed on the ground and then would sleep and rise night and day and see it grow into a bountiful harvest. Again, Jesus says we can compare the kingdom to a mustard seed. The smallest of seeds, when sown in your garden or field it grows to be “the greatest of all shrubs” able to provide shelter and a nesting place for birds. [Mark 4:26-34]

Mustard seeds. Not actually the smallest of all seeds. That honor goes to orchid and cypress seeds, but the seed of black mustard is small enough to make a point: from small things, small gestures, simply scattered on the ground, we can see wondrous and marvelous results! Life lived with God is like this! These are parables of encouragement for anyone who, like the early disciples, find life to be tough going, or challenging at the very least. For the mustard seed does not grow into the greatest of all anything, but still, there is room for shelter among its leaves and branches.

Amy Jill Levine, in her book Short Stories By Jesus (Harper One, San Francisco, 2014), tells us that Pliny the Elder, who lived around the time of Jesus, wrote, “It (black mustard) grows entirely wildly, though it is improved by being transplanted; but on the other hand, when it has once been sown it is scarcely possible to get rid of it, as the seed when it falls germinates at once.” Pliny also points out that mustard is especially beneficial for the health, and helpful in the treatment of “snake and scorpion bites, toothache, indigestion, epilepsy, constipation, dropsy, lethargy, tetanus, leprous sores,” jumpy legs, and other illnesses, not to mention its pungent taste for seasoning all kinds of dishes, thus being a just the kind of crop one would like to have around: a crop that provides seasoning, shelter and healing – all dimensions of Jesus’s life among us. [Levine, The Mustard Seed, pp. 165-182]

A seed looked at by itself might seem insignificant, but contains within it endless possibilities. Jesus appears to agree with Pliny: no seed, no small gesture, no small action on behalf of others, no small gathering of the faithful is to be seen as insignificant, as all seeds, actions and gatherings contain life within. And life seasoned with abundance is what Jesus is forever talking about as the essence of his Father’s kingdom!

There is potential in even the smallest of things – potential that needs to be actualized. Like seeds need to be scattered or sown, even the smallest actions, or hidden actions, have the potential to produce kingdom living. It is like the first parable in which a man scatters some seed, and then leaves it alone for the sun and the rain from heaven to work its magic. Some things, suggests Jesus, are best left alone. The kingdom is not about us. It is not about me. As Levine observes, “We are part of a larger process, and although we may start an action, once started, it can often do quite well on its own.” [Ibid]

Sometimes we just need to get out of the way. Sometimes we are simply the facilitator for something greater so that others can carry on the life of the kingdom. The man who scatters the seed is much less important than the harvest of full grain that results from his action. He sleeps and rises day after day and watches the seeds grow. We are told, “he knows not how”!

Further, suggests Levine, these parables appear to take place in a domestic setting, a garden or a field, suggesting that the kingdom of heaven is to be found in what we might call “our own backyard” through the generosity of nature and in the day to day working of men and women. These parables challenge all those who ask when the kingdom will come, or where it is. “The ‘when’ is in its own good time – as long as it takes for seed to sprout…The ‘where’ is that it is already present when humanity and nature work together, and we do what we were put here to do – to go out on a limb to provide for others” – to provide places of shelter, places of healing, places of encouragement, and kingdom seasoning for an often bland and tasteless world. [Ibid]

Later on, Jesus, who often chides his disciples for not having enough faith, will turn his message on its head by declaring, “If you only had faith as small as a mustard seed you could say to this mountain move from here to there.” [Matthew 17:20] Or, “If you had faith as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea!’” [Luke 17:6]

As we promise in our baptism, everything we say and do has eternal consequences if all we say and do proclaims the Good News of Jesus! Kingdom consequences. If only we can let our own will get out of the way and allow God’s will to guide and direct even our smallest gestures and everything we say to ourselves and others – the consequences will be greater than we can ever possibly imagine!

This is what we learned from Meister Eckhart at Noonday Prayer this week: like the man who scatters the seed, we only need to get out of the way. “Where the creature ends, God begins. God asks only that [we] get out of his way…Ah, beloved people, why don’t you let God be God in you? What are you afraid of?... When both God and you have forsaken self, what remains is an indivisible union. It is in this unity that the Father begets the Son in the secret spring of your nature. Then the Holy Spirit blooms, and out of God springs a will which belongs to the soul!” The kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom is already here, in our backyard! In our soul!

“Your kingdom come, your will be done.” That we may all get out of God’s way, that we may know this Divine and indivisible union without anything getting between God and us, may God help us! Amen.  

If you have faith as small as a Mustard Seed