Josh Broward
June 8, 2008
Read Matthew 13:31-33.
Mustard seeds were not just something to put on your hotdog or to use for a gourmet dip. For Jews mustard seeds were dangerous. Sure, they were little bitty seeds, but they were dangerous.
Jewish rabbis even had a basic rule: Never plant a mustard seed in your garden. If you want mustard, plant it in some out of the way place where you don’t care about what happens. The mustard seed looks small and innocent, but it keeps growing and growing and growing, and it will completely take over a little garden.
There’s another thing about mustard seeds that’s worth noting. Mustard is strong. It is potent! There’s a lot of power inside those little seeds. If you don’t believe me, just go home and eat a whole spoonful of mustard. It’ll make your nose burn!
Jesus says the
In a way, we are like those little mustard seeds. We are small people. None of us are very important or very big in the world, but the
The point of these two little stories is simple: We are small, but we are powerful. The
But I want you to get involved in this. It’s not enough just for me to say it. You need to say it, so when I say, “What’s the point?” You say: “We’re small, but we’re powerful!”
Ready? Let’s practice.
“What’s the point?”
People: “We’re small, but we’re powerful!”
Then, we have to ask ourselves a question. If we’re so small and powerful, what would happen if God planted us? What would happen if we let God invest us in the world? So here’s the question: “What could God do with us?”
What’s the question?
People: “What could God do with us?”
The
I hated carpetweed. It looked kind of innocent and small at the beginning. It was just start out small as just a patch in one corner of the yard. It was only about 6 inches (20 centimeters) high.
It had these little round seeds with little fuzzy hair on them. They would stick to anything that touched them: socks, shoes, shoelaces, leg hair. When I finished mowing the yard, they were all over me.
Mowing down carpetweed didn’t even help. It just spread the seeds all around the yard.
To make matters worse, I discovered that I am allergic to carpetweed. One time, I decided to defeat the carpetweed, and I spent an hour or two pulling up every last piece in our yard. By the end of the day, my arms, my neck, my legs, my hands were all covered in an itchy red rash.
That’s when I started calling it “devil-weed.” I hated it. I hated it with a passion. When I saw the first picture of carpetweed when I was doing my research this week, I actually felt bitterness in my heart. I hated it, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. It just kept growing and growing and growing.
The
What’s the point?
People: “We’re small, but we’re powerful!”
That’s right. We are powerful, so we have to ask a question.
What’s the question?
People: “What could God do with us?”
The
He obeyed God and went to
You remember, Russell Crow in Gladiator? Well, the gladiators were still fighting in
Well, old Telemachus couldn’t take it. He got up out of his seat, and he climbed into that arena, right into the middle where the gladiators were fighting. He stood between the two gladiators and begged them to stop. They pushed him aside again and again. But he was stubborn. He kept coming back. “Stop in the name of Christ! How can you just kill each other? Stop! Stop!”
OK, so this was the final sign that he was officially crazy.
The people were furious that he was stopping their show (and maybe that the gladiators didn’t just slice him open). The thousands of people had gathered there in the stadium to see people kill each other, and somebody was going to die! They picked up stones and stoned Telemachus right then and there in the middle of the Roman Coliseum.[1]
That was New Years Day, 404 A.D, and that was the last day the gladiators ever fought in
The
What’s the point?
People: “We’re small, but we’re powerful!”
If we are as powerful as Telemachus, then we need to ask a question.
What’s the question?
People: “What could God do with us?”
“The
Yeast is almost always bad in the Bible. Yeast became a symbol for some small bad thing that corrupted the whole batch of dough. Jesus told the disciples to be on guard against “the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Luke 12:1). Paul compared yeast to sin (1 Corinthians 5:6-8) and to false teaching (Galatians 5:9), and both times he warned them: “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.”
So this story about yeast is kind of scandalous. Jesus says the way the
And there’s one other surprise to this story. The woman mixes the yeast into “3 measures of flour.” These aren’t 3 little cups. This is enough flour to feed a small army. 3 measures of flour is nearly 40 liters of flour! It would make 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of bread! A little yeast really does go a long way!
What’s the point?
People: “We’re small, but we’re powerful!”
If we are as powerful as yeast, then we need to ask a question.
What’s the question?
People: “What could God do with us?”
The
Cancer can start with just one cell that becomes different, abnormal, counter-cultural. Usually, when this happens, our bodies push out that different cell and eliminate the rebel. But cancer cells are different in two ways.
First, they resist elimination. They resist the body’s normal immune system. They’re different and dangerous, but the body just can’t get rid of them.
Second, they multiply, and they spread. That’s the biggest problem with cancerous cells. There’s just more and more of them. The cancer reproduces faster than the body can deal with it.
Cancer can even jump from one part of your body to another. This is called “metastasizing.” Cancer that starts out in your stomach can jump to your liver. Cancer can start in your lungs and go to your bones.
The
What’s the point?
People: “We’re small, but we’re powerful!”
If we are as powerful as cancer, then we need to ask a question.
What’s the question?
People: “What could God do with us?”
The
But in
One roach can live up to 18 months, and a single female can lay 300-400 eggs. They’re hard to find because they live in the walls, under the floors, in the backs of cabinets and under the furniture. Once they take root in a home, they can just keep reproducing. They multiply and multiply and multiply.
Roaches may be small and easy to stomp, but if you get enough roaches in one place, they can drive the owner out of the home.
The
What’s the point?
People: “We’re small, but we’re powerful!”
If we are as powerful as roaches, then we need to ask a question.
What’s the question?
People: “What could God do with us?”
You are small. But you have so much power. The
[1] Monk
[2] “Saint Telemachus,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemachus_(martyr), downloaded 6.5.08
[3] I am indebted to Shane Clairborne’s The Irresistible Revolution for the idea of Telemachus and the
4 comments:
That was brilliant! Good stuff. You should have had the audio recorded for that one I would have loved to have heard it.
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