On moving

In Jesus’ world there was an invasive shrub called the mustard tree, that, if it broke into your cultivated strip of subsistence land, was hard to drive back again. Jesus used it as an analogy for faith. He said, of you have mustard seed faith, you can say to this mountain, or to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and thrown into the sea, and it will be done.

Mountains, in biblical imagination, stand for meeting places with God. And the particular ‘this mountain’ Jesus was referring to was Mount Zion, the frankly unimpressive hill in Jerusalem on which the Temple was built. The Temple that, within the lifetime of many of his listeners, would be thrown down, stone by stone, by the Roman army.

The sea, in biblical imagination, stands for the chaos that always threatens to overwhelm, and at times succeeds in overwhelming, our lives as we have known them.

Trees, in biblical imagination, stand for people, and in particular, the people of God. The mulberry tree was valued for its medicinal properties.

In these days, our church buildings are shut. These are places where many of us have found that we encounter God in a special way. Yes, God can be — and is — met anywhere; but, nonetheless, in certain buildings the very walls are thin and the very air is thick with generations of family encountering God. And this experience can be translated into the place of overwhelming chaos. It won’t look exactly the same, but the principles can continue. What — and Who — you found on the familiar mountain can still be found on the mountain in unfamiliar surroundings. It isn’t a case of, the mountain never mattered, but, rather, that faith can move the mountain.

This is also true of other gods. At times, we read, the people set up high places, on the hill tops, to worship a vast array of gods. Mountains stand for whatever has given us a sense of stability, security, identity: our workplaces, our parental homes, our local pub, our football stadium. Though I would say that ultimately peace is only found in being reconciled to God, we all have our gods and our mountains; all our mountains are presently shaken; and every mountain can be moved.

The world has been overwhelmed by a flood, a viral tide. It will reach its furthest extent, and then flow away again; but we have not yet reached high tide. For now, for many of us, at least in the so-called developed nations, our mountains are unscalable. But a persistent faith will throw them into the sea, will give us — and others — solid ground on which to stand.

We see this, to an extent, in the ways in which we have moved to remote working, and, in the church, to meeting online for worship. We see this, to an extent, in the ways we are reimagining and, in some cases, re-discovering community.

Along with the mountain, Jesus speaks of throwing the healing tree into the sea, to take root in a submerged bed. Of a people who are not afraid to position themselves in the chaos and to bring healing in that place. I am seeing examples of this around me too, of this mustard seed kind of faith, both from within and from out-with the church.

When the sea goes out again, the tree planted in it remains. The mountain thrown into it remains. What will the landscape look like then?