By Rev. David Rommereim

Matthew: 13.31-33, 44-52
He 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.” 33 He 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.”
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; 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; 46on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. 47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48 when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 51“Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” 52 And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure
what is new and what is old.”

If you're like me faith is often in the cerebral cortex. That is, we think about faith, we find words to describe it. We pray for it. Hopefully the thoughts we use to describe our faith in God come from the thinking side of our brains. Lately, however, in all the religious rhetoric going on throughout the world it looks like the words church, synagogue, mosque, use to describe faith in God (our theos-logos) comes from the reptilian part of the brain rather than the mammalian. That is, the reptilian is the oldest part of our brain, which deals with issues of survival, conflict, defensiveness, and protection. It is where wars are made and fighting is nurtured. It is that part of our brains where many of the destructive forces in our society begin ~ economic exploitation, racism, class-ism, sexism, religious warfare, suicide bombers, desperate and addicted behavior, etc., etc., etc. Often our reptilian brain is the place that nurtures conflict between partners, lovers, friends, or siblings.

Thankfully the mammalian part of our brain tells a different story. It is the mammalian part of our bodies that marks humans as distinct from other living creatures of God's creation. There we have learned to think, to interpret our world, to think beyond ourselves, to imagine, to write, to draw, to dance, and to participate with God in creating. It is where stories are made and comprehended.  And it is often the place of personal well-being.  The place you are best suited to contribute to the world.

Today Jesus touches us through story telling. He speaks sparingly and almost subversively. A story like the Mustard Seed leaves us wondering whether God has more trust in us than we do of ourselves. In the story of the mustard seed we hear Jesus share the likeness of God’s presence through a little seed and a promise of greatness and the offering of a shelter from the storms of life.

I remember how difficult it has been to believe this tale. I remember how difficult it has been to believe that I, a little seed of faith, could become a shelter for others as needed, or a bird flying for refuge, or a soul searching for a sanctuary.  I remember Jacob, a little boy playing baseball for the first time as a 7 year old. He was a little seed. He was intense, and had no sense of humor in playing baseball for the first time. He watched TV like any little person. To learn baseball he watched his favorite team and tried to emulate the best player on that team. For Jacob his hero, his television mentor, was Jose Canseco. Jacob would stand at the plate trying to look like Jose. He had a strong will to be great, to do big things, to seek greatness…just like his hero.

Jacob would stand at the plate ready for every pitch with utmost seriousness. After each pitch the umpire would shout out, strike one, strike two, and then strike three, you’re out! Jacob swung his heart out at the pitched ball. After the third strike Jake would stand in awe and embarrassment for a moment. Then, after a moment, he would burst out crying.  Our team would love him out of his tears. We would say things like: “It’s ok Jake. You’ll get ‘em next time.”  But next time was the same. With the same intensity, the same loss, and the same loneliness of failure at home plate, Jake would burst out crying.

This went on for many games in our short season. Until one day his coach, who was myself, went up to Jake and whispered in his ear. I said, “Jake, you’re going to strike out again unless you smile at the pitcher.”  Jake put a quizzical look on his forehead and directed it at me. He didn’t know quite how to act. He didn’t know how to smile and play baseball at the same time. So after the first strike he looked confused. Then after the second strike he looked nervous. He took himself out of the batter’s box and did what he watched on TV. It is what the big leaguers always did. He took his bat and hit the bottom of his shoes pretending to clean them and look like he knew what he was doing. Then he stood up to the plate, almost as if all the cheering and encouragement from team members and family were silent in his ears. For a brief moment Jake gave a little smile and looked to the pitcher. I could see the twinge in his cheek. It showed the beginnings of a smile. Then when the pitch came he did not think about striking out. He didn’t think about being embarrassed, about being no good. He smiled a little smile, and swung with all his might…hitting the ball fair for a single.

When he got to first base he was so excited that he kept going to second even though the pitcher already had the ball in his hand. But Jake kept going. The whole event was new to Jake. He wanted to mark time with it.  So, with Jake still running the pitcher needed to throw the ball to second base. But, because this whole event was so surprising, there was no second baseman at the base…so the ball went into the outfield.  By the time the fielder got back from his daydream, he picked up the ball and threw it to third base. But by that time Jake was on his way around third and on to home. The ball from the outfielder went past the third baseman, as happens in that field of work. Almost as if this was the event of the season, Jake slid home as if it was a close play. And the smile never left his face.

But the home run was not his victory, nor was the smile. His victory was in learning how not to be controlled by his failures and to begin to live up to his potential.  Jake, like each of us, has something important to accomplish. Each of us has something vital to offer God’s earth - something life-giving.  All of us are little seeds with large wonderful branches. When Jesus told this story to his disciples he was sharing something about God, about God’s presence in their lives. And Jesus, through the story, was touching them with God.

Every person listening to Jesus’ story knew that mustard seeds were small. They were so small that they could be carried on the back of the wind. They also knew that mustard seeds grew everywhere. For farmers, they were annoying since they would get in the way of their crop. They would be in the way of the big landowners’ need for another bumper crop. And whenever the landowner grew greater crops, the little ones/the poor did not get to share in the bounty of the landowner’s crop. In Jesus’ day the rich kept getting richer and the poor kept getting poorer. There was no middle class. This was especially true since Rome was taxing Palestine for the first time in record numbers.

But, Jesus said that the mustard seed, the little ones, grow up to be a tall tree. They grew to become a shelter for God’s creatures. And the people hearing this tale for the first time would probably have thought that Jesus was telling a tall-tale, because everyone knew mustard seeds only grew about three to five feet tall. The image of a small seed growing to become like a cedar of Lebanon, a large tree in the forest, providing shelter for the birds of the air, seemed like folly; laughable. But, when we look at this parable with what Jesus has told us about the eyes of God, through the touch of Jesus’ ministry of God’s grace, we then can hear this story/parable that God’s abundance is not necessarily quantitative.

God’s abundance is in the quality of grace - shelter from the storms, from when we fall on our buttocks, from when we are afraid of striking out. It is the abundance of this quality of grace which takes little ones -- the little seeds, the little Jewish resistance movement Jesus has begun -- and spreads them on the backs of the wind through the earth placing them in the way of persons.  These people, in a humorless way, often horde and provide no shelter or sanctuary for hope.

Jesus is giving his listeners new ears to hear the word of God, new eyes to see the Word of God. He’s giving them permission to be themselves, whom God has created, forgives, and loves so much that they, and we, live, grow, mature and become a shelter for others.  He is giving the church permission to scatter, be planted, and challenge ruthless power. Keep them honest and honorable. The Seattle poet, David Whyte is on a vision to bring meaning, through poetry, into the monolith of corporate America. He seeks to invite individuals into the place that allows them to find meaning, significance, and well-being. He seeks to bring meaning in the middle of the hectic, pressurized world of the information/ technology industries. He writes to busy people, who are busy with essential things, but frequently, not busy with what is vital for their soul, their living. They, like Jacob are seriously trying not to fail and cannot put a smile on their lips unless it is induced by some external chemistry.

In a poem called, What to Remember When Waking, the poet writes: To remember/ the other world/ in this world/ is to live in your true inheritance. / You are not/ a troubled guest/ on this earth, / you are not an accident/ amidst other accidents/ you were invited/ from another and greater/ night/ than the one/ from which/ you have just emerged. / Now, looking through/ the slanting light/ of the morning/ window toward/ the mountain/ presence/ of everything/ that can be, / what urgency/ calls you to your/ one love? What shape/ waits in the seed/ of you to grow/ and spread/ its branches/ against a future shy? / Is it waiting/ in the fertile sea? / In the trees/ beyond the house? / In the life/ you can imagine/ for yourself? / In the open/ and lovely/ white page/ on the waiting desk/

Then he pauses to remember God’s invitation to grace, like little seeds spread out to become a shelter, a place of refuge. He concludes: Inside everyone/ is a great shout of joy/ waiting to be born.

Jesus has given, and will continue to give us this great shout of joy waiting to be born. To the little ones, the little seeds, he gives them the will to live their lives. And he does not send them alone, scared, or marked with failure. He accompanies them, like a shelter their friends and neighbors offer, as they are carried on the back of the wind to the place they call home. Whatever age --   whether a little seed like Jake, or an older seed like his coach, or an older seed yet, like his grandpa cheering from the stands -- Jesus gives us the spirituality which reminds us of our selves.

Jesus gives them a challenge to scatter and even subvert the status-quo meant to keep them and us silent. He gives them, and us, a beatitude in the shape of the littlest seed becoming a shelter for others.

By Rev. David Rommereim






Photo source:  
http://www.greatarchaeology.com/



On The Consilience of Values

The Intersection of Sacred Scripture, Contemporary Faith, and Values shared with the insights of Evolution and Adaptation from Charles Darwin [1]

It is not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives, but the one that is most adaptable to change. - Charles Darwin

Let me set the stage as   I begin the dialogue with our own shared values and the values which have been deep in the work of   Charles Darwin (theory of evolution). My desire is to remember the best of his work as it has developed a humane system of relational evolution.   I will seek to glean from the best of his work to explore the values that dig deep into our spiritual tradition as Christians.

I am not afraid to remain a person of faith and dedicated to the institutional church despite the dilemma of the church not living up to its mandate to proclaim and teach the gospel by every means possible. Many who practice living our faith through a committed faith community called, the church, tend to live through the machinations of doctrine, proper denominational belief systems, rather than the varied nuance found in the Biblical stories surrounding the teaching of Jesus…the profound and troubling storyteller of parables that speak through a spiritually enlightened insight seen through a political observation negotiated through a specific topographical interaction of faith and the public square.

I stand before you also because I serve a congregation that empirically states that “some of us believe some of the time, some believe all the time {Matthew 28.17}, and some believe none of the time,” yet we remain part of a ministry of belonging stirred with the radical hospitality shared through the stories of Jesus of Nazareth.

Finally, I stand before you as one who has engaged in theological study,   a spiritual ‘way of seeing’ that comes through a regular human and environmental experience of question and intellectual curiosity, as well as, divine wrestling. The way of seeing comes through the art of questioning.

To begin let me say, I love the book by Isaiah Berlin called, The Hedgehog and the Fox. It is Isaiah’s analysis of Tolstoy’s view of history. To begin the work Mr. Berlin used a line from the Greek poet Archilochus who gave him a picture of two different types of people. One is the hedgehog and the other fox. The poet writes: The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

I know a little about many things and to that extent represent the fox-type. I’m not foxy. I am just eager to learn and in love with a lot. By being a fox, however, I can see the interconnectedness and eventually the concilience of many things. So, I read all the hedgehogs I am able to muster ~ those who know a lot about one big thing.

Today we peek into a hedgehog.   - Natural selection, by Charles Darwin. I am also part of another hedgehog that expresses itself in the sacred text and the gift of values expressed through the sacred myths in that sacred scripture.

I have three presuppositions in my contribution to this dialogue on Values. First, there are some values that remain deep in the soul force of the best of religion. Second, there are values that have been mistakenly abused due to misinterpretation from those sacred texts. And third, there are values that participate with a consilience of knowledge the more the faith community and the secular community intersect their ideas and experiences.

The deep soul force of values comes to me in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. The Jew and Christian is trained to see and experience the planet and all living things that mask the divine. That form of sacred pleasure enters our conscience through the biblical lens of the story of beginnings in Genesis 1.1~2.4. There we encounter the myth of what we have called, “creation,” through an exchange of the Elohist community who describes God as the mystery who enters the creation through the tohu va bohu, the depth veiled in darkness, the sea over which the spirit pulses.[2] As that God brooded over the waters She dove deep into the tohu va bohu (Genesis 1.2) to speak light into the chaos/darkness. The sound of God creates life by spewing light in the midst of darkness. One cannot be without the other. Light cannot be light without darkness. Darkness cannot be darkness without light. In our creation myth, seven times God calls that life good, very good. And ultimately names all of it, gadosh/holy.

In that myth of beginnings we have the values of goodness to all living. It is also curious that the Elohist knew something about what would become evolutionary theory by sharing the story that humankind was the last work of Elohim, on the sixth day. Then, on the seventh day, God did a work stoppage and took a Sabbath rest.

If you read many of the paleontologists (Stephen J. Gould is my favorite) you would notice that each one articulates the fact that humankind enters the created order late. Homo sapiens, the brain species, the wise hominids may have been at work on the planet for only the last milliseconds of geologic time. We are a late arrival. We are a most recent phenomena. We are one of the species that has produced well. What may have started as few as six hundred individuals our tribe, homo sapiens, now accounts for over seven billion.

I do not intend to insult a hedgehog like Charles Darwin and his magnificent work, The Origin of Species, by creating brief sound bites of his theory. But as a fox, I give myself permission to sum up much of his theory of evolution and natural selection in terms of working, as he says, “solely by and for the good of each being. And that all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection.”[3]

I see this as the value of belonging. Those values are implicit in the originating myth of beginnings. Since humankind, male and female, were created and as the story goes, were given “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Genesis 1.26 NRSV). Yet, the word, dominion, does not refer to the modernist industrialist’s approach,  of having force and power over. Rather, dominion, as viewed through the sacred lens of our Genesis myth,   along with our values   refers to our being God’s stewards (managers) on earth.

Human dominion is to be specified and limited. The value of our dominion/stewardship is shown by the vegetarian requirement through a fact that there was to be no killing. Human dominion corresponding to God’s rule is to be benevolent and peaceful. Obviously we have not perfected that gift of management of God’s breathing life into this planet.

The quote at the start of this essay best expresses the values of Darwin’s theory and his articulation of the process of natural selection of all species. For it is not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives, but the one that is most adaptable to change.

 As we age, we can look back at our lives with regret and bitterness, or we can look at the future with utter thankfulness and see daily life as one whole élan vital. What is important and of true value is one’s relations, one’s commitment, one’s faith, one’s ability to treasure every moment. Everything but value, true value, is forgettable.  

Old folks joke that we occasionally forget things. However, according to Dr. Hillman, the truth of the matter is that as one ages, one naturally selects what is important. As we near the end of life we should only remember important things. Vital things are life giving. What is not vital is where you place your keys, pocketbook, or grocery bag. In this view of aging, what is vital is whether there will be a true peace in the world. The way you leave the earth after you die is important to the way you learn how to grow old and prepare for the inevitable. Whether your grandchildren or grand nieces and nephews have water and air that is breathable and drinkable. Whether our elected officials can begin talking across the isle rather than staring angrily at the other talking head. Or whether corporate power may be dismantled to economically level out their greed to a more sensible profit.

I am reminded again and again that it is not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives, but the one that is most adaptable to change.

The force of our character means that we look to what is truly important. It refers to what is valuable. And because of this desire for value, I remain in solidarity with those contemporary as well as 19th century evolutionists, who have encouraged us to understand a selection process that naturally modifies our life for the benefit of ourselves and our society.

Humankind together with all of life on this watery, blue, Third Rock from the Sun understands that natural selection “almost inevitably causes much extinction of the less improved forms of life, and induces what (Mr. Darwin) called Divergence of Character.”[4] Our survival is not guaranteed. Rather, it could be our character that improves our chances for survival. The variation we have borrowed from our ancestors, and the variation we provide our children and their children’s childrens’ children will make a difference in the modification of life.

This, I believe, is a core insight from our hedgehog, Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. For it remains intimately present for us today, and intimately anticipatory for our offspring that survival refers not to the battle of the fittest but to the life forms that learn best to adapt and change. This is fundamental to the insight from Charles Darwin and many other evolutionists then and since. This marks a divergence from many who have, upon his writing in 1859 to the present day, referred solely to the survival of the fittest,  as a “dog eat dog” mentality to our survival.

This principle of adaptation and change refers not to one isolated life form, like me, or my dog, but to the complex community of life species that humankind shares with all life forms on the planet. One’s adaptability affects the other in the same way that one’s inability to adapt to change affects the other. As a biblical theologian I see this as the moment of interaction and adaptability that ushers in our shared values and the divergence of characters.

Values refers to the shared accumulation of values through our interaction and contribution to our place in the planet. When these values are cockeyed,   self-centered, autocratic, or even naive , our human community suffers with the rest of the species. Understanding our moral sentiments is becoming increasingly critical as the planet loses species after species, and begins to cook the ozone shield necessary for habitation.

This is the core of what I glean from Darwin’s Origin of Species and the process of natural selection. The theory of evolution doesn’t appear to be about who or what is independently created, nor who or what may be immutable. But rather, natural selection remains the main, even though, not exclusive means of modification.[5] And it is with modification that Darwin hangs his refined ability to observe the intimacy of life.

It is at this point that humankind needs to remember that a belief that we are created special and immutable forfeits the fact that humankind is one of the most recent adaptations of those of our species who have learned to walk upright and use their thumbs. As stated before it is helpful to keep in mind that we are a most recent phenomena in the created order of life. Our specialness has not to do with a special mark from the Holy Mystery who entered that chaos and   touched us with the power of love. Humankind has entered deep time rather recently. The idea of our latent arrival does not take away from our specialness. It is Charles Darwin’s opportunity to place before society the image that we all are part of this tree of life.

The wonderful metaphor Tree of Life is used by countless people. It was used by Charles Darwin as he closed The Origin of Species. There he says: “The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented as a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth…. As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler brands, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications. … There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one, and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”[6]

You remember the ‘Fiddler on the Roof’s’,   lead character, Tevia. He was on the roof top and cried out with great joy, “lecheim ~ to life!” He was crying for himself. Yet, he was actually pleading for his entire tribe. Often what is vital to faith, life, and the values we share is implicit in our living together among the two leggeds, the four leggeds, the winged, and the slithering. How we live together could create a wonderful life...or not.

Life is about faith, morality, ethics, and whether the family, or the community is living as a whole, not independent, alone, nor selfish.  Values like this have to do with our adaptability to social, economic, and environmental challenges.

In the historic faith of the Jew, Christian, and Muslim, how I care for the sojourner, the stranger, the immigrant is the mark of virtue and distinction of our values. There are many examples in both the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Testament, and the Koran which describe the role of hospitality to the stranger. One of the best known stories comes from the Hebrew Bible in Genesis 15. The faith ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, were living in the desert; n that culture how one treats the stranger is based on this story of beginnings. They noticed three gentlemen coming toward them.  and it was Abraham who passed the test of hospitality by looking into the face of the stranger and seeing God. Their moral courage overcame their fright; they became enlightened by the care for the stranger who in Jewish, Christian, & Muslim terms has become the moral high-ground.

Today our value in social, political, and religious hospitality has been challenged by the thousands of stories of children crossing Mexico from Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. This dangerous and expensive crossing is due to the fact that their world has become too violent. They look for any place of refuge. One such place is the USA. The question we need to adapt to is: “Does my well-being depend on the well-being of these children living a life of fear and trembling? Do I adapt to this catastrophe and thus change enough to let others live?”

On another level of adaptability we are never too far from the present age of climate change.  The question goes beyond whether we are our brother’s keeper or not. The question becomes, Am I the earth’s keeper? Can I adapt enough to give the planet a chance to adapt to the climate change I have already contributed to?

Those are the questions we seek to talk about when we ask: “what is at stake?, what do we value, and how do we adjust and change for the betterment of our species and the planet as a whole.”  The Origin of Species inspires the deep time of evolution as we participate with it in our own ability or lack of ability to change. These sentiments have to do with how we align ourselves with the created order and how we learn how to share our economic resources, and do what is fair.

I am sure you already are fully aware that I am not an expert in the Origin of Species. Nor do I command the language of Charles Darwin. Yet I believe I have attested to the spirit of his magnificent work.

---------------------------------

Postscript

You have noticed that I have referred to the values implicit and experienced in an optimistic manner. I am fully aware that this may not be the case. That is, humankind may sustain its greed and lust for ubiquitous usury of all the natural resources thus making the planet inhabitable and unsustainable for human beings and for numerous species which fall victim to our painful ignorance. So to keep honest let me turn to another paleontologist who died in 1978, Loren Eiseley. Dr. Eiseley wrote a book on Charles Darwin analyzing his theories and the other naturalists who contributed to his Origin of Species. The book was published after his death. In the chapter called, The Time of Man, Loren writes:

It is a curious thought that as I sit down to write this essay on the history of our species, I do so in the heightened consciousness that it may never be published: a holocaust may overtake it. Tomorrow I may lie under tons of rubble, precipitated into the street along with the paper on which this history is scribbled. Over the whole earth ~ this infinitely small globe that possesses all we know of sunshine and bird song ~ an unfamiliar blight is creeping: man ~ man, who has become at last a planetary disease and who would, if his technology yet permitted pass this infection to another star. If I write this history in brief compass it is because, on the scale of the universe, it is but an instant, shot with individual glory and unimaginable shame. Man is the only infinitely corruptible as well as infinitely perfectible animal.”[7]



[1]               Origin of Species (1859) and the Descent of Man (1871)


[2]               The term is shared in the excellent work by Catherine Keller, The Face of the Deep, A Theology of Becoming,                   Routledge 2003, Chapter 1, page 4. 


[3]               The Origin of Species, pg. 913


[4]               Origin of Species, Introduction, Alfred A. Knopf, New York based on the original text from 1859, page 540


[5]               Ibid. Page 541


[6]               ibid. Page 913


[7]               Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X, New Light on the Evolutionists, Loren Easily, E.P. Dutton, from the estate of                              Loren Easily, 1979, page 220