Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and tomorrow is the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI). The Church Calendar today (10 August 2024) remembers Laurence, Deacon at Rome, Martyr (258).
I have been in Dublin overnight and I have a flight to catch back to Birmingham later this afternoon. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 17: 14-20 (NRSVA):
14 When they came to the crowd, a man came to him, knelt before him, 15 and said, ‘Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into the water. 16 And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.’ 17 Jesus answered, ‘You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.’ 18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ 20 He said to them, ‘Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’
This morning’s reflection:
It is safe to say, I do not have green fingers.
We have a patio area in Stony Stratford but no garden, and I have never had any real interest in gardening. But, when I lived in houses with gardens, I liked sitting in the garden, reading in the sunshine (when the sun shines), listening to the sound of a small fountain, enjoying the shade of the trees, and in summertime, eating out in the open.
So, it is not that I do not enjoy the garden. It is just that I have always felt I am no good at it.
It is an attitude that may have been nurtured and cultured from heavy hay-fever in my early childhood, hay-fever that comes back to haunt me persistently at summer-time.
I remember once buying a willow tree in the early 1980s, and travelling back across Dublin with it in the back of a small car, a small Mini, me holding on to the tree as it stuck out the side window. By the time I got back to the house, I was covered in rashes, and my eyes, ears and nose were in a deep state of irritation. It must have been related to those willow trees in Psalm 137, because afterwards I sat down and wept.
For that reason alone, you could not call me a ‘tree hugger.’ But do not get me wrong … I really do like trees.
I relish spending time in the vast, expansive olive groves that stretch for miles and miles along the mountainsides in Crete, or in vineyards where the olive groves protect the vines.
But I cannot be trusted with trees. I was once given a present of a miniature orange tree … and it died within weeks. I have been given presents of not one, but two olive trees. One, sadly, died. The other is still growing at the house I once lived in, but it is a tiny little thing. Perhaps if I had just a little faith in my ability to help trees to grow, they would have survived and matured.
We may wonder why Christ decides to talk about a mustard seed and a mulberry tree, rather than, say, an olive tree. After all, as he was talking during the incident in this Gospel reading, he must have been surrounded by grove after grove of olive trees.
But, I can imagine, he is also watching to see if those who are listening have switched off their humour mode, if they have withdrawn their sense of humour. He is talking here with a great sense of humour, using hyperbole to underline his point.
We all know a tiny grain of mustard is incapable of growing to a big tree. So, what is Christ talking about here? Because, he not only caught the disciples off-guard with his hyperbole and sense of humour … he even wrong-footed some of the Reformers and many Bible translators who make mistakes about what sort of trees he is talking about this morning.
Why did Christ refer to a mustard seed and a mulberry or sycamine tree, and not, say, an olive tree or an oak tree?
Christ first uses the example of a tiny, miniscule kernel or seed (κόκκος, kokkos), from which the small mustard plant (σίναπι, sinapi) grows. But mustard is an herb, not a tree. Not much of a miracle, you might say: tiny seed, tiny plant.
But he then mixes his metaphors and refers to another plant. Martin Luther, in his translation of the Bible, turned the tree (verse 6) into a mulberry tree. The mulberry tree – both the black mulberry and the white mulberry – is from the same family as the fig tree.
As children, some of us sang or played to the nursery rhyme or song, Here we go round the mulberry bush. Another version is Here we go gathering nuts in May. The same tune is used for the American rhyme Pop goes the weasel and for the Epiphany carol, I saw three ships.
Of course, mulberries do not grow on bushes, and they do not grow nuts that are gathered in May. Nor is the mulberry a very tall tree – it grows from tiny seeds but only reaches the height of an adult. It is not a very big tree at all. It is more like a bush than a tree – and it is easy to uproot too.
However, the tree Christ names (Greek συκάμινος, sikámeenos) is the sycamine tree, which has the shape and leaves of a mulberry tree but fruit that tastes like the fig, or the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus).
Others think the tree referred to here is the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus), a tree we know as the big tree that little Zacchaeus climbs in Jericho to see Jesus (see Luke 19: 1-10).
The sycamine tree is not naturally pollinated. The pollination process is initiated only when a wasp sticks its stinger right into the heart of the fruit. In other words, the tree and its fruit have to be stung in order to reproduce. There is a direct connection between suffering and growth, but also a lesson that everything in creation, including the wasp, has its place in the intricate balance of nature.
Whether it is a small seed like the mustard seed, a small, seemingly useless and annoying creature like the wasp, or a small and despised figure of fun like Zacchaeus, each has value in God’s eyes, and each has a role in the great harvest of gathering in for God’s Kingdom.
Put more simply, it is quality and not quantity that matters.
Here are six little vignettes about faith that I came across:
1, Once all the villagers decided to pray for rain. On the day of prayer, all the people gathered, but only one little boy came with an umbrella. That is faith.
2, When you throw babies in the air, they laugh because they know you will catch them. That is trust.
3, Every night we go to bed without any assurance of being alive the next morning, but still we set the alarm to wake us. That is hope.
4, We plan big things for tomorrow in spite of zero knowledge of the future. That is confidence.
5, We see the world suffering, but still people get married and have children. That is love.
6, There is a man who wears a T-shirt with the slogan: ‘I am not 80 years old; I am sweet 16 with 64 years of experience.’ That is attitude.
This morning’s Gospel reading challenges us to pay attention to our attitude to, to the quality of, our faith, trust, hope, confidence, love and positivity. And if we do so, we will be surprised by the results.
Perhaps I should be paying more attention to that small olive tree on my patio.
Faith is powerful enough to face all our fears and all impossibilities. Even if our germ of faith is tiny, if it is genuine there can be real growth beyond what we can see in ourselves, beyond what others can see in us.
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 10 August 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Understanding each other by walking together’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with a programme update from the Right Revd Eduardo Coelho Grillo, Anglican Bishop of Rio de Janeiro.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 10 August 2024) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3: 28).
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who made Laurence a loving servant of your people
and a wise steward of the treasures of your Church:
fire us with his example to love as he loved
and to walk in the way that leads to eternal life;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Laurence:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of Trinity XI:
O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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