To spend time with a caterpillar -- a sermon for Blessing of the Animals

 

Sermon for Sunday 2 October 2022

St. Francis/Blessing of the Animals

University Lutheran Church, Cambridge

The Rev. Carrie Ballenger

Luke 17:5-10 

Audio of the sermon will be posted here 

You can participate weekly by Zoom! 

Sundays 10:30 am Eastern

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Humphrey and Boris, beloved creatures of God

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.

The 13^th century German philosopher, theologian, and mystic Meister Eckhart once wrote:

“Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things. Every single creature is full of God and a book about God. Every creature is a word of God. If I spent enough time with the tiniest creature – even a caterpillar- I would never have to prepare a sermon. So full of God is every creature.”

As I was preparing to preach this week, I thought about looking for a caterpillar instead, just to test Eckhart’s theory. I didn’t find one, though as usual I did spend time hanging out with my cat George, who by virtue of being a cat considers herself not only a book but actually an entire encyclopedia of knowledge.  

George did not write me a sermon, however, and there was no caterpillar available, but that thought from Meister Eckhart on the holiness of tiny things seemed to fit very well with our Gospel lesson for the day. Hear these words again, spoken as Jesus and the disciples were on their way to Jerusalem:

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

Dear people, mustard seeds are tiny. This is a fact of which you are already aware, I’m sure. But I’ll say it again: Mustard seeds are very, very, tiny! I learned this painful fact during two summers of college in which I worked in a plant biology lab at Oklahoma State University. The lab was working with Arabidopsis thaliana—otherwise known as mustard plants—which are a model organism for plant biology. Some days I watered roomfuls of mustard plants. And on other days I sat in a room by myself washing and then planting tiny seeds into Petri dishes of gel. Keep in my mind that as a piano major, I had no idea what I was doing, but I kept on doing it….again and again, picking the seeds up with tweezers, washing them and then placing them just the right distance apart in the little dishes. It was a bit boring, of course, so I read the book “Out of Africa” in 90 second increments that summer, because 90 seconds was the exact amount of time the seeds needed to sit in their little bath before being plucked out and planted.

90 seconds at a time, many hours per day.

Those tiny mustard seeds, unbeknownst to me, held within them a wealth of knowledge and possibility. The biologists who oversaw the Arabidopsis lab were studying plant genetics, which in turn helped reveal knowledge about human genetics, which today has the potential to help shape medical technology and even public policy around human health. All of that, from one tiny seed. Or, more accurately, all of that from millions of tiny seeds planted and grown and studied over many years—some of them, by me.

If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, said Jesus, you could uproot a tree and plant it in the sea.

“Have a little faith” says Jesus, and some days it takes a microscope to find some in ourselves. “Follow me” says Jesus, and some days we wonder if what we’re doing is making any difference at all in the world. “Feed my sheep” says Jesus, but the hunger and need and suffering all around us is clearly too much for one person to fix.

And then God uproots trees. And love moves mountains. And the collective power of community disrupts systems of injustice. Your tiny seed of faith cannot do it alone, nor can mine. But the Creator of all things knows what to do with seeds. The one who took dust and made each of you beautiful people, and other beautiful creatures, can do mighty works with the tiniest of things, thanks be to God! Amen!

What is faith? It’s important to remember that faith is not the same as belief. Jesus doesn’t ask followers to believe all the right things. Jesus doesn’t require us to belong to the right church or to pray in an orthodox way or to agree with every word of every creed. Jesus asks us to have faith in him. And faith is something beyond belief. It is confidence and trust. It’s knowing in your heart of hearts that you stand on solid ground. Faith is not something that one possesses, it’s something that one does. It’s an annoying fact of the English language that we cannot easily express faith as a verb. What I mean is, followers of Jesus are not required to have faith so much as to go out and be “faithing”, every day. And what does that look like?

In the case of the apostles who were with Jesus that day, they were on their way to Jerusalem. Even though they are told multiple times, the disciples never really understand what is about to happen when they get to the city—that Jesus would be arrested, and crucified, and then raised from the dead on the third day.

But Jesus doesn’t require them to understand. He doesn’t require them to believe. He asks them only to have faith. He asks them to take the next step, and the next, and the next, alongside him. What Jesus needed of the disciples then—and what is needed of us as followers now—is faithing. Putting one foot in front of the other. Planting this seed, and another one, and another one. Staying awake. Staying with Jesus, until the end, for lo he is with us, until the end of the age, amen.

If you had the faith of a mustard seed, you could uproot a tree and plant it in the sea.

Today we are honoring the day of St. Francis by blessing animals—our faithful companions. Some of us have brought our animal friends here to church. Some of those friends are on Zoom! And some are in our memories.

My cat George is not here today, but when I think about the nature of faith, I often think of her.

I can tell you that my cat George has faith in me.

George has faith that I will feed her on a regular schedule. Maybe it will be manna from heaven, also known as Creamy Delights Fancy Feast, or maybe it will be the new plant-based sustainable food that her human parents thought was a good idea and definitely was not. But for certain, she has faith that there will be food.

George the cat has faith in us because we have shown her consistency and love and consideration. We have cared for her when she was sick or cold or lonely. We have given her comfort and companionship. We have been her foundation.

It seems to me that our faith in God is similar.

Faith, Scripture tells us, is a gift from God. It is a gift that we receive through God’s consistent love and care of us. It is a gift we receive through the beauty of creation, and the companionship of animals, and the love of our friends and partners, and the excitement of scientific discoveries, which are also a gift from God.

Some of you may be following the recent images coming from the James Webb Space Telescope. How amazing are those images? For me, they are stunningly beautiful. They have the power to open our minds to the vastness of our universe and the wonder of creation.

They also have the power to make us feel infinitely tiny. What are we humans, in the shadow of Neptune or Jupiter? And yet, the Creator of all that greatness also created every cell in your body. The Creator of all that greatness also created mustard seeds, and caterpillars.

Remember those words of Meister Eckhart:

Every creature is full of God. Every creature is a book about God.

Dear people, God doesn’t require us to be immense or colorful or impressive. We don’t have to be or to hold the entire universe in our hands or in our work or in our being.

What God requires of us is to be who God created us to be—creatures made in God’s own image. And if God is love, then we are love, and so we love:

We love God. We love creation. We love our neighbor, as God made them to be. We love ourselves, as God made us to be. And we keep doing that, again and again. We keep planting seeds of love, of mercy, of justice, of compassion, of radical welcome, even if we won’t ever see the end result, trusting in God to bring the growth and the harvest.

This is faith. This is “faithing”, if there were such a word.

In the spirit of Meister Eckhart and his caterpillar, I will end with a poem about a tiny creature whose existence itself is holy—as we, too, are holy. These are the words of the 18^th century English poet Christopher Smart, from his work “Jubilate Agno”:

 

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.

For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.

For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.

For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

For he rolls upon prank to work it in.

For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.

For this he performs in ten degrees.

For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.

For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.

For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.

For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.

For fifthly he washes himself.

For sixthly he rolls upon wash.

For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.

For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.

For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.

For tenthly he goes in quest of food.

For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.

For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.

For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.

For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.

For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.

For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.

For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

For every family had one cat at least in the bag.

For the English Cats are the best in Europe.

For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.

For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.

For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.

For he is tenacious of his point.

For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.

For he knows that God is his Saviour.

For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.

For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.

For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually—Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.

For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.

For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.

For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.

For he is docile and can learn certain things.

For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.

For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.

For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.

For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.

For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.

For he can catch the cork and toss it again.

For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.

For the former is afraid of detection.

For the latter refuses the charge.

For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.

For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.

For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.

For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.

For his ears are so acute that they sting again.

For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.

For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.

For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.

For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.

For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.

For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.

For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.

For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.

For he can swim for life.

For he can creep.

 

 

Amen. Thanks be to God.