Matthew 13:31-33; 44-46

31He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

33He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

44″The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and reburied; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

45″Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46 on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

I was raised in an ambitious family, maybe some of you can relate.

My father was a high school science teacher, so he had to take continuing education classes to keep his teaching license current, as many of us do in professional careers, so he quietly earned a Masters Degree over the course of several years of continuing education.  My grandmother was thrilled that he got his masters degree! She really was!  But she immediately started encouraging him to get his PHD.  

My grandmother was very proud of my father.  She herself only had a high school diploma, and the fact that her son went to college at all was something she was soooo proud of, but she was always striving for the next bigger thing.

And I felt this growing up.

My father passed this sense of pressure on to me.

That doing my best was never enough.

The expectation is excellence and anything less may as well be nothing at all.

It wasn’t until I was in Seminary that I heard the phrase, “C’s get degrees,”

and this was a whole new concept for me!

Maybe you totally understand the phrase, “C’s get degrees,” but for me that phrase was mind bending!

I mean, I once got a talking to for getting one A- instead of all straight A’s!

So, in case you also grew up in an ambitious home the concept behind “C’s get degrees” is this:

Once you have your degree, nobody actually looks at your grades.  The requirement for the job is the degree, not the grade point average.  So especially if you are an adult college student with a full time job and a family, your goal is to balance your priorities –  your family, your work, your home, your health, and your degree.  So it’s better to get C’s than to miss out on your children’s childhoods in the pursuit of straight A’s.

Because C’s get degrees and in the end, the degree is the goal, not the grade point average.

I’m still processing this idea that C’s get degrees.  

It’s very new to me.

So I settled for grades in the low 90’s, rather than making sure I did perfect work for the MBA program I’m doing to help us build affordable housing.

Baby steps, for this recovering perfectionist!

Because I’m trying see the value in balance and imperfection reading these parables hit differently for me this week.

I’ve always read these parables of small things –

-A seed,

-The even smaller micro-organism of yeast

-A pearl 

-Buying a whole field to get what is buried in just one small part of it.

I’ve always read these parables of small things with the idea that God can turn something small into something big.

The mustard seed turns into a decent sized bush.

Yeast micro-organisms multiply to make many loaves of sourdough bread.

It’s worth it to sacrifice everything for something greater than ourselves – that is, the pearl and the treasure.

And I think those perspectives are still true.

But this week I’m seeing another side to these parables.

The idea that small things matter.

The idea that sometimes all we have to give is, not much.

Sometimes we feel powerless to help the people we love and all we can do is plant one seed, one mustard grain of hope into their hurting heart and hope that it will take root.

And by the way, mustard seeds are not the smallest seeds out there!

And mustard bushes do not grow into trees.  

There is no mythical middle eastern mustard tree!

Jesus was speaking metaphorically and using exaggeration.

This week I’m seeing in Jesus’ metaphorical exaggeration the idea that a small-ish seed of hope can grow into something that not only saves the life of our loved one, but also grows into our loved one being able to save the lives of others — that other birds can find shelter in what has grown from that seed of hope.

This week, I’m thinking of yeast as one small voice who shouts a message of justice into the void, and one by one other small voices take up the shouts until the halls of power can no longer afford to not listen – because the message of justice has spread like yeast through bread dough of popular thought.

That first voice often feels lost and alone and too small to make a difference for quite some time before the call for justice reaches critical mass.

Sometimes we feel like we have given everything, absolutely everything we have, for a dream that turns out to be mostly dirt.  

Sometimes we feel like we have nothing left to give and we don’t even remember where that so-called treasure is buried.  But it’s still there.  And often, what we thought was the treasure, is really just seed money for what we will do with the field.

And sometimes what matters most is not the whole pearl company.

Sometimes what matters most is one small precious thing.

One person.

One relationship.

One life changed.

One life saved, and restored to wholeness.

Yes.  God can do Great Big Things with whatever small things we have to offer.

But sometimes we need to be reminded that the value of small things is not just in their ability to become bigger.

The small things matter for their own sake.

You matter for your own sake.

God loves us like a mother loves her newborn baby.

Not because the baby is perfect – although all babies are perfect, no matter what.

The mother loves the baby because the baby is hers.

God loves us because we are God’s.

God loves us just because.