The mustard seed is the smallest of seeds
and grows up to be one of the largest of bushes.
I have a friend whose parents divorced very early.
His father left the house and left his mother to raise the kids alone
without any financial help whatsoever.
He was in high school at the time
and his mother had sort of a breakdown dealing with it all.
He became the father of the household and the caretaker of everybody.
As soon as he finished high school, he started to work
and to provide for his younger sisters.
He was there day in and day out, helping to raise his younger sisters.
As you can imagine, for a 17-year-old it was quite a heavy task to do.
Every year, his father would make an appearance on his sisters’ birthdays
and lavish them with numerous gifts and a big party.
Then never to be seen again.
He never paid a dime to help raise the children
outside of the birthday parties.
My friend’s younger sisters idolized their father.
It was all so wonderful to get showered with gifts on their birthdays.
They reminded my friend, “You never do this for us.
You never treat us like this. You never make us feel special.”
It was hard on him because he was there for the every-day events;
every day putting the food on the table;
every day he was the one who provided for the house;
every day he supported his mother in her ill health.
Now that they have grown up and
he has grown up too and is out of the house,
and they are out of the house,
they now appreciate the magnitude, the sacrifice that he gave them.
They love him dearly and they have a great relationship.
The father still flies in on birthdays.
And fools himself but not them anymore.
I call the birthday love;
a love that lasts a day and no longer!
The love that sustains us is the love of the ordinary day events;
the ordinary little things of every, single day
is what makes up the magnitude of real love not birthday love.
That is the theme of our readings today
albeit somewhat hidden from us.
This gospel passage, written by the evangelist Mark, is interesting;
this is the only time we see a parable of the mustard bush.
It is the only parable that uses it.
It is not clear whether Mark is having
Jesus say this tongue-in-cheek;
or whether he was trying to describe Jesus as sarcastic;
or whether it was meant to be
some sort of humorous poking of his audience.
But for Jesus to say that the mustard seed
was the largest of plants was simply ignorant.
It wasn’t true.
The largest, everybody knew at this time,
that the largest of the plants would have been the Lebanon Cedar.
We hear about this referenced in the reading from Ezekiel.
The tall cedars were the largest of trees.
They were magnificent in Lebanon and Israel at that time.
The mustard seed would have been a weed, a bush
that grows underneath; it’s a scrub bush.
The birds would come and even they couldn’t nest in a weed bush.
They would play around and get the seeds
but not nest in the bush; that would be silly thinking.
The idea that Jesus, as the son of a carpenter,
would not know the difference between a Lebanon cedar
and a bush is not sustainable.
So, it was clearly done tongue-in-cheek.
To whom it is addressed is very important
to help understand this passage of the gospel.
It was the Pharisees and the Sadducees
he was having this battle ground with.
They considered themselves to be the Lebanon cedar,
standing tall among the community;
and it was their outward show that frustrated Jesus.
He was constantly hammering away at them.
In a sense they had the birthday love.
They came in on the Sabbath to do their thing
but in the mid-week, they never lifted a finger
to help anyone, anyone with their lives.
It was all for show.
So, Jesus says,
“Listen, where the real action of life happens is in the bushes.
All the birds that is where they do their gathering.
That is where the ordinary love of life
happens down, close to the earth.
The humble love of every day activity.”
And Jesus holds up that as an example to us.
It is a reminder to us that, like my friend,
it is the love of everyday activity that matters.
In particular, for those students who just graduated,
the graduation day is wonderful
but it is the everyday love that sustains you.
Every day when your mother brought you
breakfast, lunch and dinner throughout all the years of your schooling,
not just showed up for graduation day.
That is what sustains us.
It is the love of mother and father that sustains us
day in and day out.
Or maybe as in my friend’s case, maybe it is a sibling.
Maybe it is a sibling that has supported you throughout your years.
Or maybe it is a friend who is there day in and day out,
listening to your troubled days and
celebrating with you on your good days.
Last week, we entered into ordinary time
and it is not ordinary as in “not extraordinary.”
It is ordinary as it is ordered time.
We now move back to the non-feast days of summertime
and in a sense, we go back to the ordinary day-to-day
loving of one another in the ordinary way;
or what I call the muck of everyday life,
bringing that cup of coffee or tea to your spouse every day.
You feed your children with good food;
breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.
That the little ordinary things are what matter
and what builds up and constitutes a life of love.
Jesus reminds us that the life of a disciple
is not separate from our everyday life but is integrated into it.
And it is how we do those things of love
that makes the greatest difference.
So today, and in this week,
may we celebrate the ordinary moments of love
in our family and in our community.
And if you are the one being served or receiving that,
to celebrate it and accept it.
Then if you are the one who continues to do it,
do it with joy, knowing that we are living the gospel
in our everyday ordinary circumstances.
It is not birthday love that matter;
it is everyday love.
