Apr 2 2019 Mark 4:26-32 Celebration of James Lloyd Breck

He also said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.

This morning, we commemorate another lesser-known saint in the church. By saint, I don’t mean Saint, like someone who’s performed miracles, or been deemed an official Saint by the Church. In addition to those recognized Saints, we believe all people of God who die are saints, maybe not recognized, but worthy of an examined life. 

James Lloyd Breck was an extremely important missionary in the Episcopal Church. Upon reading that, I imagined far-flung mission fields. However, he was a missionary in the early 1800’s, so his mission field wasn’t so far. He initially went to the wilds of Wisconsin, founding a seminary there which still exists. He went to Minnesota, and founded another seminary which ultimately became Seabury-Western, in my hometown. Finally, he landed in the far reaches of California, and founded churches in Benicia and beyond. 

The reading today is about that mustard seed, which has many cameo roles in Jesus’ parables. Today, we hear about the story of the mustard seed, which is small enough to be scattered, grows with some unseen force, and ends up big enough to house the birds of the air in its branches. 

James Lloyd Breck was like this. A little known guy, who at age 16 committed himself to a life of mission work. He was scattered all over the Midwest and Western wilds of the US, which during his time was all known as ‘territories’. He worked to found schools so others could learn, founded churches so others could worship. Since his time, thousands have landed on the branches of the mustard seeds he sowed. 

This morning, I’m struck by the universal commonness of James Lloyd Breck. Unlike some of the saints that seem so distant, and their greatness seems so unattainable, I feel like I could do something like James Lloyd Breck. Or maybe better yet, I feel like the things I do, could be seen like that little mustard seed that’s scattered, grows, and harbors birds. I don’t say this because of anything special I’ve done, and I’m definitely not trolling for affirmations. If done for God and by God’s grace, we can all do great things. And we may never know what birds will find rest in the branches of the seeds we plant. 

I attended a Wednesday morning Eucharist at one of his churches in the Bay Area, nearly 200 years after him, during a time when I needed a rest from an extended visit with extended family with extended challenges. It was the perfect mid-week refreshment. 

What seeds can I sow today that God can nurture? How can what I do today be that needed rest for someone decades or centuries after I’m gone? Is it something with my family? Coworkers? Something I’ve said or done? To a friend or a stranger?  I believe the answer is yes.

Apr 1 2019 John 6: 1-15

Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?



This is at the tail end of John’s account of Jesus feeding the hordes. Instead of simply telling his disciples to take care of these people’s needs, he starts the dialogue with them with this question “where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”  Knowing the rest of the story, it seems a little bit like a trick question, doesn’t it?



Ultimately they don’t buy the bread at all. The fish and loaves are miraculously multiplied. But by asking where they’re going to buy enough food, Jesus has framed this opportunity as an unsolvable problem. Just by how he asks, he’s sent them down the line of thinking that the resolution will require somewhere to buy the food, and enough money to do so. Right after this question, we learn that Jesus asked this to test them, because he knew what he was going to do.



Why, Jesus, why?  I don’t need any help or tests in small-thinking, or inherently constraining problem definitions. I don’t need Jesus to point me towards resolutions that aren’t. I don’t need that test, and I suspect the disciples didn’t either. We’re pretty good at this way of thinking without being tested by God, without whom we can not resolve it anyway, ever.



Maybe that’s the point of the test. Whether it’s the devil, my self-reliant streak, or Jesus, I am frequently led down a path of problem resolution absent God. How am I going to resolve this? Where are we going to get enough money to buy enough bread for all of these people?



In psychology, they talk about the lightbulb effect, where we can remember a lot of details about incidents of import. The assassination of JFK, 9/11, etc. In addition to the events like that, I have a lightbulb moment when one of my children was deeply suffering. My son was failing at high school, and contemplating dropping out, during his sophomore year. He’d been a very easy kid up to that point, and now, no matter what I did, I could not help him hold it together. We couldn’t cajole him out of bed to get to class.



The lightbulb moment for me was when I finally, out of desperation, cried out to God. I was walking from the bathroom, crying. Only then, when I’d spent months trying to resolve this, did I get to that place. Yes, I’d thrown up my son’s name in daily or weekly petitions to God. But that lightbulb moment was from a place of utter helplessness. 


Things did not immediately get resolved, and he did drop out during his sophomore year. But they did eventually, and he has navigated a path much better than any I could have scripted, and is a fantastic young man in law school.



For me, that lightbulb moment was so powerful because it shattered that illusion that it was up to me to fix, by myself, based on my skills and smarts. It made me again remember that I’m not my kids’ savior. I’m not alone. And I cannot do it alone.



Maybe we need to be tested, to be led to those self-reliant solutions, so we again remember that it’s not ours alone to fix. We cannot. Today, I want to see that, without it having to become a lightbulb moment.