Little things make a difference.
Several years ago, I was a youth chaplain for young adults that lived in a secured residence facility.
My role was to care for the spiritual needs of the youth residents. I was tasked with visiting the teens in secured units, to offer small group gatherings and to provide emergency pastoral care.
Because I wasn’t a full-time staff person, I was never given keys or exit codes to the secured facility. I was dependent upon the support staff to let me in and out of the secured units.
In this arrangement, my safety was dependent upon my relationships with my co-workers - as well as my clients - to have way in and out of the secured units.
On my first day, I entered the locked down unit to meet my first group of students. I remember saying out loud as the door was buzzed to let me in, “Ok God, here we go - you are coming with me and I have NO idea what we’re walking into!”
In that season as a youth chaplain:
I taught lessons on the parables - like the Good Samaritan - and the students clamored to help act out all the parts of the story.
I brought in art projects to work on - and the students painted and played with the supplies - and made beautiful projects to adorn the main office.
I sat around dinner tables, sharing simple meals of chicken nuggets and fries - as the students shared their life stories with me.
My role as youth chaplain was to care, to listen, to offer support - and with the help of God I learned that those little things meant more to my students than I could understand.
In the two years I worked in this role,
I never had a safety issue!
It didn’t take much time for my initial fears about “safety” to be calmed. As I got to know my students, my perspective shifted from asking God to escort me in - to understanding that God was already present in the lives of the students. In this role as youth chaplain, I learned in very real ways, that while God was with me in the fearful places, as well as many other little treasures.
God was very much present in the lives of the young people that taught me about faith and courage.
God asks us to partner in the work of discovering and unearthing little treasures; wherever we are.
ALSO…
I needed to learn from my student’s stories.
I needed to learn that the students were able and ready to give treasure to others.
I needed to see the treasure of who they were…among secured units with buzzers, alarms, and security staff.
The youth who lived in the residential facility were a huge source of treasure - right before my eyes.
They were a living parable I needed to learn from.
Little treasures: mustard seeds, yeast, pearls and fish of all kinds - to see and celebrate the little beautiful treasures that are always present.
The little treasure Jesus talks about in Matthew 13 are:
Mustard Branches as shelter for birds
Bread for hunger
Pearls of great value
Net full of all the fish
In the sorting of what is to be held on to and what is to be released…
In all of these examples it is important to see how the little treasure connects or builds spaces of community: Trees for birds - Bread for hunger - pearls for place - a net full of fish. All of these little things lead to connection - provision - community.
At the end of the parable, we learn that the scribe, who is wise, is able to gather the old and new little treasures, sort what to keep and what to release - so they can share good things with the greater community. So that they can offer support, nurture and encouragement to that gathered community.
The scribe is given the opportunity to gather little treasures to make a big difference. Do we recognise that we are scribes - that we are called to gather treasure and nurture community? I learned my role as a youth chaplain - we all need eyes and ears to see and hear the little treasures that are right before us.
We all have little treasures that we have within us and around us that God can use to nurture, grow and attend to the needs of the community.
God takes small seeds of faith and grows them into bountiful harvests. Little things, gathered, nurtured, and attended to - actually are the big things. The little things of life that bring hope, strength, connection and purpose.
With the help of God, may we see little treasures, share them generously and celebrate the little things - that actually are the big things.
Questions to Ponder:
What are the mustard seed treasures do you have to share?
Have you ever considerer the process of "sorting things out" to be a gift? What if the sorting section of this text refers to a process of growth, testing or process of change? How does this help you hear the text in a new way?
What little treasures do you notice today?
How have little treasures shown up as the "big things"?
@Copyright 2023, Rev. Tara L. Eastman July 28th
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