Early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

The early bird catches the worm.

A stitch in time saves nine.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness.

God helps those who help themselves.

There are a lot of self-help books out there and the proverbs that I just shared with you would suggest that all you have to do is go to bed early and get up early and you will be healthy, wealthy and wise. . . Right?

Or, if you want to catch that elusive worm – get up early. Maybe if you are a bird that works?

By the way, there is nothing in the Bible that connects cleanliness with godliness or God helping those who help themselves.

As a matter of fact just the opposite is the Biblical truth.

God helps those who cannot help themselves and know it.

These little ditties are a great example of works-righteousness of which my dad was a great proponent.

There are indeed resources, which can help us to become better at many things from using our newly-acquired laptops to dealing with obstinate and rebellious offspring.

Some of these self-help books are better than others and some are useless, if not dangerous…in my humble opinion James Dobson’s work is self-help disguised as moralism with a few bible references thrown in for good measure.

In today’s Gospel Jesus uses a literary genre known as parables to talk about the activity of God, or the Kingdom of God.

Like Ezekiel in our first lesson – Jesus saw kingdom work as reversal of the world’s values.

Look again at the last verse of Ezekiel 17.24

I bring low the high tree

I make high the low tree

I dry up the green tree and make flourish the dry tree

I the Lord have spoken – I will accomplish it.

Turning now to Jesus' parable of the mustard shrub -- Botanist and Biblicist have scoured the landscape high and low and have not found a mustard plant that grows to the size large enough for you can hang up a birdhouse.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. In the first parable Jesus compares God’s activity to that of a farmer who plants seed, goes to bed and without much further ado the thing grows into a plant which produces “the full grain in the head.”  By the way the Gk. Word translated (sprout and grow) is aoutomatos from which we get our word automatic.

When Luther reminded us in the Petition “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done” he said that God’s kingdom comes without our prayer but in this prayer we ask that it may come to us as well.

I see these upside-down parables as a lesson in visualization. Stephen Covey in his best seller “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” makes the following observation –

“If you visualize the wrong thing you will produce the wrong thing” p.134.

The question of course is -- What are you visualizing when it comes to your faith journey with Jesus? What are you visualizing when it comes to your weekly participation in the weekly gathering we call worship?

By visualizing, I mean what is your pre-conceived image of worship or God’s activity in your life?

I find that most people don’t have one. They just sort of show up and are a passive congregant.
Garrison Keillor’s popularity is due, in part, to his ability to articulate and expose the visualization of his Lake Wobegon’s community.

Someone recently told me that they liked my sermons but get bored with the redundancy of the liturgy.

I told them they could sit in the car until sermon time and I would send an usher out to let them know when the sermon started. So, what is the visualization here?

I love the liturgy more than the sermon – even when I’m not preaching. But then I went to Seminary and where the Canticles, Psalms became part of my DNA.

I fear that generation X or more recently the Millennialists – those born in the late 90’s at the turn of the century and raised on sound-bites, catchy commercials and a cacophony of visuals would find it difficult to sit through our liturgy.

The parables of Jesus challenge us to see God’s activity not like the success stories of Oprah or Dr.Phil, but more like the little bitty victories of little bitty people who, with the help of God overcome the odds.  

More like a small seed that becomes a weed and gives modest shade to a humming bird or chickadee. More like a farmer who scatters the seed “and would sleep and rise night and day (as time passes), and the seed would sprout and grow. He doesn’t know how.”

In his book “Making the Small Church Effective” Carl Dudley celebrates the value of the “mustard seed congregation.”

In a big world the small church remains intimate.

In a fast world the small church has remained steady.                                                                                                                                                    

In an expensive world the small church has remained plain.

In a complex world the small church has remained simple.

 In a rational world the small church has kept intimate.

In an anonymous world the small church calls us by name… nickname.

The following e-mail came across my laptop this week.

Good Morning BOD’s

Just wanted to give you an update. We have smoothly made the transition into a “2 Family program.”  Everyone is getting along, doing their chores and meeting their goals. Even 2 y.o. Summer met her goal with “going to the potty.” It was a celebratory moment for all of us.

As Jesus said – from the smallest of seeds a shrub will grow giving birds a place to rest.

Or, a seed falls to the ground from the hand of the farmer. He goes home and sleeps and time passes and as dusks turn to dawns the seed sprouts and grows producing the grain that becomes wheat that becomes the bread that gives life.

A little two-year-old moves one step closer to becoming  a girl and a woman. Potty training is part of the process for us all.

And so is God’s call to sow the seed of the Word. That is how the growth of God’s reign happens.

We sow the seed, He does the work… God has given MLC the gift of Family Promise the gift of 2 y.o. Summer and the gift of seeds and seasons and sermons. Let us pray for the right vision to fulfill our mission. Amen