More Little Things

The other day I heard read a gospel passage (John 12:27-33) that sent my mind shooting back some thirty-odd years, to one of the earliest sermons I preached after I became a Reader.  I felt I’d delivered quite a nice talk, but my rector took me to task.  “You have just heard a lesson about Jesus being lifted up,” he said, “but you didn’t lift Him up to those who were looking for Him!”  It was clearly not a memorable sermon, but it lingers in my memory, albeit for the wrong reasons.

In a recent post, I wrote about little things, and used as an example Jesus’ teaching about great plants that could grow from mustard seeds (Lk. 13:19).  Paul wasn’t referring to mustard plants when he wrote, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused it to grow.”  (I Cor. 3:6).  Still less was he thinking of gardening when he asked the Romans, “How are they to believe in one they have not heard of? And how are they to hear without someone preaching to them?” (Rom. 10:14).

It’s staggering how long a shadow a single adverse experience can cast.  If we’ve encountered even a mild rebuke or rejection after talking about our faith – perhaps to a friend or family member – it can make us reluctant, even years afterwards, to be so unguarded again.  It doesn’t seem to matter how much pastoral or biblical encouragement is poured out upon us ... those all-important words just don’t come.  We speak of ‘thinking of’ someone in distress rather than ‘praying for’ them.  And although we know that God hears and answers those prayers, how much more could be the impact if the one whose distress was eased were to know that it might be because of our prayers?

Many years before that sermon, I used to sing in a church choir; consternation was often expressed among the men about teenagers who left the choir when their voices broke, and then never came back as altos, tenors or basses.  Full of prejudice and disapproval, we questioned what value all those years singing in the choir had been to boys who were now playing football or riding motor bikes.  I have often recalled the wise words of our choirmaster from those days who suggested, in line with Paul’s message to the Corinthians, that we could have no idea of the impact of what these boys had sung and heard in those hundreds of hours spent in church during their formative years.  “Maybe they won’t darken the door of a church again until they get married,” he suggested, “or are invited to a baptism or funeral.  But when they do, they won’t be the ones who feel uncomfortable about being there.  Something will strike a chord with them, and who knows what might come of it afterwards?”

He was quite right, of course.  We can have no idea what could grow whether immediately, or after many years, from seeds we might sow simply by talking about our faith.  One thing is certain, however.  If the seed is never planted, NOTHING will grow.

What seeds have you left in the bottom of a packet?