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Sunday July 24, 2005 - Proper 12, Year A

There’s a song
sung by an Aboriginal singer in Australia
that tells the story
of the beginning of the land rights movement in Australia.
Back in 1788, when Captain Cook landed in Sydney Cove,
it was assumed that the land mass of Australia
was empty,
terra nullius
they called it.

Of course, they were wrong. The Australian aborigines
had been living on the land
for at least 50,000 years, some say as long as 100,000 years. But just as in other places colonized by Europeans,
many Australian aborigines soon fell victim to disease, war, and perhaps most of all, the loss of their land and as a result, of their traditional way of life.

Fast forward a century or a half.
Aborigines were living in missions — kind of like reservations — or cities or out in the bush or on properties, ranches you would call them here.
And the ones working on those properties, were paid only their rations,
salt, beef, bread and tobacco,
for the healthy years of their lives
on land that was rightly their own.
Finally one of them, Vincent Lingiari of the Gurindji people,
decided he had had enough, enough of working on land that had belonged to his people, just to make money for someone who had no right to that land.
“Vincent was lean and spoke very little
He had no bank balance, hard dirt was his floor”

He packed up their belongings and led the other workers
off the job,
a strike,
demanding better pay and conditions, and above all else, the right to return to their own land.

Fifty years and a number of court cases later,
Australia has a Native Title Act,
and many Aborigines have won the right to control of their ancestral land.
And the story of Vincent Lingiari
and the Gudjuri strike
has been immortalized in a song.

And the chorus of the song
goes like this:
“From little things
big things grow.
From little things
big things
grow.”

It’s a simple enough chorus, but one that contains
an enormous
truth.
Huge things
often have tiny
beginnings.

We’ve all heard of great success stories, people who began
with just a few dollars and a great idea
and ended up owning
a multi-million dollar conglomerate. People like Bill Gates, who began life as an ordinary kid with a passion for computers, and has ended up
with a huge company and influence over computer users throughout the world. He’s the epitome of the great American dream — the idea that anyone
can become anything
that they want.

But of course
we also know the reality.
For each person who has begun with a few dollars and a great idea, and ended up a major business success,
there are a thousand others
who failed.
For every person like Vincent Lingiari
with a passion for seeing justive done
there are thousands discouraged
along the way.

Which is why, when we hear a parable like Jesus’s one about the mustard seed,
we tend to view it with a bit of healthy skepticism.

“You have a mustard seed? You think that if you plant it, it’ll grow into a huge tree? Well think again.
Most likely
the birds will come and get the seed, before it even gets a chance to sprout. And if they don’t, then the bugs will eat the leaves, and if they don’t get it, the rabbits will, and there will be too much sun and too little rain or too much rain and too little sun,
and that mustard seed
won’t have a chance.
At the very least, plant a couple of dozen, or even better, seeing how small a mustard seed is, about the size of the head of a pin, a couple of hundred,
and maybe, just maybe,
you’ll get a plant or two. You’ve got to waste a fiar bit of seed
to be sure of a plant.”

But that’s not the way
Jesus tells it.
His version
is far more positive. His mustard seed
is going to grow
not just into a regular old mustard plant, a few feet high but nothing compared to the trees around, his mustard seed
is going to become like the Salem Oak, grand beyond measure, shading generations of people who have met under its branches, and offering a safe haven for birds and wildlife of all types.
All that
from a mustard seed.

From little things
big things grow.

And the way Jesus sees it,
this is what the kingdom of God is like.
It begins small — as small as a group of twelve men
following their leader
through the middle eastern countryside,
stopping now and then
to dispense a word of wisdom
or place healing hands on a needy person.
But nothing you would expect
to change the world.

That’s what the religious leaders thought, not long after Jesus’s death,
that this was just a fad, a short lived movement
that would quickly die a natural death.
And so when the early Christians were brought before the religious leaders, charged with making trouble, a teacher called Gamaliel stood up and said, “Don’t you remember? Not so long ago, Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him; but he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and disappeared.
And then Judas the Galilean rose up at the time of the census and got people to follow him; he also died, and everyone who followed him were scattered. So now, leave these men alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail — but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them.”

His argument convinced them — it simply wasn’t worth bothering about these Christians — and so they left them alone. And left alone
that little group grew
and spread
and became what we know today
as the church, in all its denominations and communities.
And thousands, millions
of people
have found shelter in its arms,
and in the arms of God.

From little things
big things grow.

But that’s not all there is to the mustard seed.
Because Jesus talks about a mustard seed another time, later in the gospel of Matthew. And this time, it’s not just about the church as a whole
but the faith
of every member.

Jesus said,
“You struggle with your faith. But you know, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, a little tiny mustard seed, you can say to a mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move.” Just a tiny little bit of faith
can do momentous things.

The history of the church
is full of people
who do great things, great people of faith like saints and martyrs.
And I don’t feel much like one of them,
and probably you don’t either.
But each of us, each and every one of us
has a tiny grain of faith.
Just a little bit,
the beginnings —
and what we need to learn to do
is to use it.
To trust God
and take a risk.
To help it along, so that it grows
maybe not quite into a tree, but at least a seedling
with maybe a small flower.

And how we do that
is to do the things that nurture our faith — things like coming to church, to meet with one another and with God, and be encouraged,
things like reading scripture and pray, so that God can feed our faith directly. Things like using our faith, taking risks
for the sake of God
and our world.

And that’s what we’re praying for little Gabriella today, that here faith, such a tiny seed now, will grow and be nurtured
so that she will grow up a faith-full person,
and in turn use that faith
for the sake of God and the world.
And we commit ourselves as parents and godparents and a congregation
to help with that, to do the fertilizing and the watering and so on,
so that she can grow, just as we ourselves work on our own growing.

We all have that tiny seed of faith. And we all have the potential to become like trees of faith, that will strengthen and nurture others. Some of us have seen our faith grow over the years. For others of us, it’s just getting ready to sprout its first shoot. But by the grace of God
all those seeds and shoots and plants
can grow up together and make a jungle of faith, where we and others
can fund safety and love.

And so today I want you to do something. I’m going to get the acolytes
to give you each an envelope. In the envelope
is a dollar bill.

Imagine that dollar
is your seed of faith. And then do something with it.
You might want to just give it back, putting your little seed back in the safekeeping of the church
until you feel like it’s time to try the growing thing for yourself.
You might want to add to it an amount
that represents your growth in faith over the years,
a thanksgiving to God for the faith you have been given, and a commitment to keep on growing.
You might want to add some loose change or another dollar, as a symbol that you want to begin working at helping your faith to grow.
You might want to use it to take a risk, giving it away to someone else
as a sign that maybe you’re ready to try to begin to take some risks with your own faith.
Or you might even want to hold on to it,
as a reminder
of God’s invitation and gift to each of us
to live lives of faith.

Whatever you do, I ask you today or in the next few weeks
to bring back the envelope and put it in the offertory. It might have some money in it; it might not. And write on it
what you did
with your dollar, your seed
of faith.
As a sign and symbol, an offering to God
of your seed of faith.

From little things
big things grow.

Sermon ©Raewynne J. Whiteley 2005