Sunday Worship 4 October | 125th Anniversary Service

This weekend we have been celebrating the 125th anniversary of the signing of the original church constitution. We've eaten a lot of cake and shared a lot of memories and it's been good to remember what a special community this is.

Matthew 13:31-32

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

Those of you who have been around for a while may be able to guess why I chose that passage. Six years ago, three guest preachers brought us the parable of the mustard seed, and it felt like more than coincidence. It felt like a story that deeply resonated with the life and character of this church. I have preached on it again since, and when Paul suggested creating a tree for our collaborative artwork, I thought maybe it would be time to return to it again.

In our previous reflections on this parable, we've learnt a couple of things about mustard trees and what they have in common with this church. First, mustard trees were a nuisance. They cast shade and attracted birds, which made it harder to grow other crops. They were basically seen as massive weeds, and no one planted them on purpose. Except that the character in this parable does plant one on purpose. He knows it will be awkward and unpopular, but he clearly has his own reasons for wanting it to grow. I don’t want to say this church is a nuisance, but it has at times made itself awkward and unpopular, and I suspect always on purpose. From conscientious objection to embracing a more generous understanding of marriage, we have planted and nurtured seeds that others would have dismissed as weeds, and that has been kingdom work.

And second, mustard trees start small but end up big. That means that if you don’t know what you have, you are likely to be surprised, and if you do decide you want to plant one, you need to have patience and leave room for it to grow and flourish. I like to think that we have surprised folk a time or two, and that the conditions are right for us to continue growing and flourishing, as I have seen us do over the eight years I have been here.

That is what we already know about mustard trees and what they have to say to us as a church. And yet there is still more to be dug out of this short parable, if you’ll excuse the gardening pun. I said that mustard trees grow big, but it turns out that means about twenty feet high and about the same across. It might be the largest of garden plants, but in the forest it would be overshadowed. For context, the cedars that are frequently referred to in scripture as a sign of strength and blessing can grow up to one hundred feet tall. So the point of the mustard tree isn’t that it is the biggest or indeed the most beautiful. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a mustard tree, but they can be strange gnarly things, much less aesthetically pleasing than the majestic cedar. The point of the mustard tree is that it has its own character and purpose.

So when I talk about growth and flourishing, I’m not really talking about numbers. I grew up in a church only a little bigger than this one, and I trained in a church even smaller than this one. The truth is that I love small churches, and they are where I feel most at home. I believe they have their own charism or spiritual gift, and not every church is meant to be a megachurch. And so while I think there is still room for us to grow in numbers, the flourishing I am most concerned with is to do with character and purpose. If we are called to be a mustard tree rather than a cedar, then we should embrace that, not trying to fit someone else’s pattern, but growing into our own shape. And I do think that has been the history of this church.

I've also learned this week that mustard trees are particularly resilient, able to survive extreme temperatures and water scarcity. I like that, because as I read the history of the church again this week, I saw something of that same tenacity. The congregation took a huge risk building this place, and it was decades before the church cleared the debt. Again and again in the historical records, there were serious concerns about the financial position of the church, but they persisted. We faced our own crisis six years ago, when the day after we affirmed our commitment to full inclusion, the covid pandemic forced us to close our doors. We lost people we couldn’t say goodbye to, and we disagreed at times about what the restrictions meant and how we worked them out, but somehow we weathered the storm. 

Back to the tree, and it seems that mustard is not just good for hot dogs. Twigs from the mustard tree have long been used as natural toothbrushes, and various parts of the tree have medicinal and antimicrobial properties. It is also being eyed up as a potential source of biofuel, due to its high oil content. There is clearly rich potential in the mustard tree, and there is rich potential here too. We are a worshipping community, and our building is a bit like a village hall for this area of the city. We support good work that happens all over the world, and bit by bit we are helping to shift the needle on inclusion in the wider church. And I know that is not all, not now and not for the future. On the second anniversary of me being inducted as minister here, I said that I was delighted at all we had achieved together, and excited to see what more was to come, and I still feel that way.

The parable ends with birds nesting in the tree's branches. When Luke Dowding, now ordained by the Canadian Association for Baptist Freedoms, came and preached here, he described them as birds of many colours. There has long been a sense for us that there is a wonderful diversity to those who make their homes in the tree, resonating with the wonderful diversity of those who find their home in this church,  but in fact the picture is even wider and wilder than that. It seems that mustard trees support entire ecosystems, with insects and small mammals finding a home in and around their branches too. 

Over the summer, Paul introduced the hymn ‘There’s A Wideness in God’s Mercy’, which for a moment I misheard as ‘There’s A Wildness in God’s Mercy’. I scribbled it down in my journal, because it seemed fitting to me. There is a wildness to God’s mercy, and there should be a wildness to the church. Not in the sense of being feral or dangerous, although it may feel that way to those whose comfort it disturbs, but in the sense of being free and natural.

So here is to being a wild nuisance, stubbornly taking up the space and the shape we are called to, for at least another one hundred and twenty five years.