Sun. June 14, 2009 (Don Teichroeb)

Don Teichroeb entitled his talk, "Modest beginnings". The bible reminds us that small beginnings can be blessed by God. The morning's gospel lectionary reading (Mark 4) gives the parable of the mustard seed, suggesting that the Kingdom of Heaven can grow from a very small beginning, inauspecious at first, but a beginning filled with potential. Don explained that the Kingdom is not the mustard seed itself, but rather the Kingdom will evolve as surely and as mysteriously as the growth of a seed. Humans generally only plant their seeds, possibly nurture the plants, and then harvest the new seeds; we do not give guidance to the growth itself. In fact, we may not even know how things grow. 1 Samuel 16 tells of the young boy David being chosen by God to be the future king of Israel, someone seemingly too small for any such task, but God (who looks on the heart rather than just appearances) assured Samuel that David did indeed have tremendous growth potential. Today's world is governed by forces of growth we do not understand fully--compound interest, growth of seeds. But ultimately, we are assured that everything is overseen by God. [JEK] Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday June 14th, 2009 using your browser's preferred media player.