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A Congregation Of The |
From
June 18, 2006 We live in an age in which bigger is better. It's not enough to order a value meal at the local fast food place; now it needs super-sizing. Humvees, McMansions, megachurches, Sam's club-sized packages of paper towels. American consumers love living large. Conventional wisdom says bigger is better. But Jesus, the man who saw through the eyes of his heavenly father, Jesus thought otherwise. And he taught otherwise. Something as small as a grain of mustard, he said, something as insignificant as a miniscule seed can lead on to the wild growth of God's kingdom. Like his heavenly father, Jesus appreciated smallness. In fact he trusted it. Why? Because like his heavenly father, Jesus knew that there is a world of difference between appearance and potential. Whatever seems to have little or no value, whatever is small and easily overlooked, whatever is commonplace and inconsequential can--in God's hands and in God's time--exceed all expectations. Out of a little bit of nothing can come a whole lot of something: God's kingdom. Not a place but a way of being and seeing and relating, that kingdom can ride into our lives on something as small as a seed. Or even on something as plain and expendable as that paper clip that came attached to your bulletin this morning. If God's involved, even that little bit of wire twisted into that familiar shape, even that can become a vehicle by which great things come into being, great things that can even change the world. You tell me. How many times have you been able to say that a paper clip made a real difference in your life? Probably none unless you are McGuyver. How many times have you been able to say that you will never be the same because of a paper clip? If you're like most people, probably your answer is never. But if you were a student at Whitwell Middle School in Whitwell, Tennessee, just north and west of Chattanooga, you would know the power of a paper clip. You and a lot of other people, too. It all started with one simple request. When 8th graders at Whitwell began studying the Holocaust to understand the evil that stems from intolerance and hatred, one student confessed the limits of his imagination. Could the students collect six million somethings, this youngster asked. Anything that would help make this enormous loss real? Yes, said the principal, but only on the condition that whatever this something was, it had to be small. Researching the possibilities, one youngster discovered that because a Norwegian had invited the paper clip, during WWII the people of Norway would wear a paper clip on their clothing to signify their opposition to the war and what the Nazis were doing to the Jews. So the students decided to collect paper clips. Each paper clip would represent a life lost to fear and hate. This was a small class, in a small school, in a small town tucked away in a far corner of the world. And yet what came of this project is remarkable. And huge. Even a 90-minute documentary (aptly entitled "Paper Clips") can't capture the enormous, life-changing happenings that were the result of this project. Let me tell you what happened. Not only did the children collect six million paper clips, they collected five million more so that the gypsies, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses who were executed during the Holocaust could also be remembered. Eleven million paper clips. But the kids did even better still. In the end, after a series of lucky breaks that could only be described as miracles, Whitwell's students collected over 29 million paper clips - this after their project stalled at 100,000 and the kids nearly gave up. But this effort wasn't about the paper clips. It was about something bigger. When people from around the country started sending in their paper clips, they would also send letters. Letters that told the stories held in the hearts of survivors, the stories of those who had participated in the liberation of the Jews, stories of those who had in one way or another been affected. Each one of these 25,000 letters the children read and kept. But it wasn't just about the stories, either. It was about those who had managed to escape execution. Before they knew it, the children had invited a handful of death camp survivors to Whitwell to share their experiences. And they came, these survivors. Came and brought to life what nothing else could: the horrible reality of it all. Tears flowed--students and speakers alike were changed by these encounters. And so were teachers and parents and members of the community who had come to listen and learn. And the people these people would tell. But even this visit from concentration camp survivors didn't exhaust the Holocaust Project's potential. Permanent storage was needed for the millions of paper clips and the countless letters that had come with them. Wouldn't it be nice, someone suggested, if the school had one of the original rail cars used to carry people to the death camps. And after being told that none existed, after an arduous 3,000 mile search criss-crossing Germany, one was indeed located, shipped to Baltimore Harbor, and then transported to Whitwell. But having the rail car was not the end. It was, in fact, a new beginning. With the help of the community, the school turned that cattle car into a museum. Now students from other schools can come learn about the Holocaust. And it is the Whitwell students themselves who do the teaching. But even this was just a beginning. Because a film crew went to Whitwell and captured the story for those of us who will never get to Whitwell, you and I and millions of other people have been touched, all of us, by a little seed - an earnest request that led to a modest object, that then grew and grew and grew. And it's still growing, this mustard-seed effort. "With what can we compare the kingdom of God? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade." OK. So what does all this have to do with us? What does this have to do with this little congregation, a member of a largely-unknown denomination, gathered in a building that too often feels off the beaten path, here in this tucked-away corner of Kentucky? What do paper clips and mustard seeds have to do with us? Let me share some thoughts. But first let me say that most of us never learned something about what mustard plants meant in Jesus' time. Sure they were weeds. But when they took hold in some farmer's field, they also rendered that field impure in a religious sense. Mustard seeds and mustard plants weren't just a farmer's nuisance; they were a big no-no. So when Jesus talked about how the kingdom comes into being and he used the mustard seed as an example, it would be every bit as shocking as if I were to compare God's kingdom, say, to a biker bar or a junkyard or, even, a manure pile. To speak of the kingdom the way Jesus did not only sounded inappropriate, it came off as scandalous. It wasn't by accident that Jesus used the mustard seed metaphor. He did it on purpose. Instead of offering up a tidy little spiritual symbol, Jesus wanted us to understand that God's work in and through us (because we are part of God's mustard seed plans, after all) sometimes upsets things. God's kingdom grows where folks don't always want it. And it messes with our nice notions of what is good and what is not. It messes with them because our nice notions are sometimes the problem. They represent conventional wisdom. The kind that says, for example, that bigger is better. So. One of the things I am certain of is that this church, this sweet little church on Buckner Lane, the one that so many hardly notice when they motor past, this collection of folks who are wonderful but not particularly remarkable in the eyes of the world, this congregation is one of God's mustard seeds. And God is interested, hugely interested, in growing us into a mustard plant that thrives and flourishes, one that is able to stretch out its branches to become a nesting place, a safe place, for the birds of the air. (Remember now how farmers feel about birds!) Don't misunderstand. We are already doing this. What I am saying is that I sense greatly God's desire that we become even more fully a place where the kingdom is perceived and entered into. A place that does not exist simply to perpetuate itself, a place that does not flourish so that others can drive by, oohing and aahing over our building or our dynamic programming or our marvelous choir. (Although, I do admit, the admiration of others IS nice from time to time.) What God is interested in here is growing us into a community that is every bit as helpful in fulfilling God's purposes as the full-grown mustard plant was to the birds of the air that Jesus said found a home there. Just as the mustard seed is not just a mustard seed, so this church is not just a church. In us right now, today, this minute--every bit as much as the mustard seed--is a reality that you and I cannot yet perceive but which is significant and valuable and necessary. For God's purposes. Not ours. For God's purposes. Now, as wonderful as this is--and it is wonderful--for some our mustard-seediness may be threatening. Because we don't attract birds of a feather. We attract birds that others might wish didn't exist or wish would just go roost in some far away field. Birds that think and act and fly differently. When it comes to our mission as a church--to be a place of extravagant welcome, a sanctuary for the spiritually homeless and the theologically divergent, a voice for the voiceless, and an agent for change (all of these God has called and is calling us to be)--when it comes to our mission as a church, you can bet that not everyone's going to be excited that there's a big mustard shrub nearby. But God is. God is excited about this mustard-seed church of ours. Excited about the many rich and varied ways in which we can grow into fullness. God is excited about using our modest gifts and unassuming ways to prosper God's wild kingdom. From my first contact with the search committee, I have sensed the enormity of God's vision here. Do I know what God intends? No! Not any more than the kids at Whitwell could imagine what would come of their paper clip project. Do I know exactly why and how God is mustard-seeding us? No. Only that God is and that if we will trust this, if we will walk in faith with one another, the Spirit will give us everything we need. Everything we need to be faithful and to grow. Not to grow bigger and better as the world defines it but into the kind of fullness that keeps opening on to a bigger and better expression of God's kingdom among us. Mustard seeds are small. But their "yes," their "yes," is huge. Amen. © Rev. Karen Winkel |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie Allen
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Please join us for a special viewing of
Paper Clips
on May 4th at 12 noon. |
