A sermon by Rev. Dan Calvo
August 31, 2025.
Pittsburgh New Church
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When we choose to live a life in which we are trying to follow the Lord, sometimes we may feel that we’re not doing enough. The Lord tells us that we need to follow His commandments, that we need to live by this higher standard of morality and that to live a real spiritual life we need to practice charity. We may look at ourselves and the flaws in our personality, or we may look at the world around us and all the people that are hurting that we could be helping, and see that there is a lot more that we could be doing to improve ourselves and the lives of those around us. Maybe we start thinking, “I should be out there saving the world, I should donate all my money to charity, and I should spend every waking moment working really hard to make the world a better place and I should become a perfect human being.” And it's easy to feel this way because as religious people we do have a responsibility to each other and to society at large to become the best version of ourselves and to share the goodness of the Lord with other people, and sometimes when we still say or do bad things, or when we are not doing massive acts of service every day, or even when we do great acts of service like volunteering, we may think that we are not doing enough, that we should be having a much bigger impact in society at large, and that can be very frustrating. This can bring a lot of feelings of disappointment in ourselves and perhaps it may make us feel that we are failing at following the Lord the way that He wants us to follow Him.
The Lord knows that we can worry about our impact and about how much we are doing on an everyday basis. Luckily for us He taught us through His parables how to deal with this problem, and the Lord did this by teaching us the parable of the mustard seed. When the Lord was describing what the Kingdom of heaven is like he said this:
And He was saying, “How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is the smallest of all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants, and forms large branches, with the result that the birds of the sky can nest under its shade.” (Mark 4:30-32)
When we think of the Kingdom of heaven we think of this massive, glorious universe, we think of angels, light, beauty, and love, and we think of this infinity of goodness that comes from the Lord and being close to Him. When we hear the phrase “kingdom of Heaven” we don't think of a seed. And yet in this story the Lord tells us that the beginning of the Kingdom of heaven is in a seed, a seed which can then grow into a large tree.
When we plant a seed, we are helping in the growth of new life, we are setting the basis for the creation of a new crop or a tree. The Lord is teaching us in this story that when we have a little bit of faith, and when we take small steps to follow Him that is the beginning of bringing the Kingdom of heaven into our own lives and the lives of others, just how a small seed can grow into a massive tree.
What are some seeds that the Lord is telling us to plant? Well, for example, if we believe in the simple idea that the Lord is constantly guiding us to a good result, that can have a massive impact in the way that we live our lives. It can bring us so much peace to believe that the Lord is bringing us to a good result even though that can be a very simple idea but just that very small simple idea can change the way that we deal with life as a whole. To give another example, not saying something mean or rude to another person, can have massive consequences in other people's lives because just in the same way that us saying something mean to somebody else can have a huge impact in that person, not doing something bad can also have a massive impact in the lives of other people. Another example, preparing a meal for somebody who is struggling with grief or something like food insecurity can bring so much support and comfort to that person’s life. And those are all such small ideas, those are all such seemingly small actions, like little seeds but then they end up having a massive impact in the world.
It's very interesting that the Lord used the example of a mustard seed in the parable. The Lord could have used any tree for this example, and yet He specifically used the idea of a mustard seed. There are many reasons for that. A mustard seed is extremely small. I couldn't find mustard seeds to bring today but even if I was holding one up right now you wouldn't be able to see it unless you had a really good camera. A mustard seed is about 1 to 2 millimeters, or 0.07 inches long. That’s about 1/12th of an inch. So, it is barely noticeable, it's one of the smallest seeds in all of nature. and yet that seed when it is planted, grows into a tree that can be as big as 20 feet tall. It is a massive tree with huge branches and leaves, and it all comes from this very tiny seed. In this story the Lord is telling us that every small action that we can take today, whether it is to believe in a very simple idea like trusting that there is good from the Lord in the world we live in, or doing small acts of service like taking over a chore when somebody else is tired, doing the dishes or taking out the trash, or taking the time to visit someone who is sick, even if these are all such simple, small actions, can grow into such a massive wonderful thing that can change someone's day and not only does it change the world around us in a massive way, it also changes us.
There is a passage in the book Apocalypse Explained that describes the spiritual meaning of this parable, and it says that:
"A tree from a grain of mustard seed" symbolizes a person of the church, and also a church beginning from a very little spiritual good by means of truth; for if only a very little spiritual good takes root with a person it grows like a seed in good ground. And as a "tree" thus symbolizes a person of the church, it follows that "the birds of the sky" that made nests in its branches symbolize the knowledges of truth and thoughts from them. (AE 1100)
Now I have a quick question for you: when you plant a seed and you water it and you sit down and you look at it for a little bit, does it grow into a tree right away? How about if you wait for an hour? How about the next day? The next week? Next month? No! More often than not it takes a really long time for a tree to grow. In fact, it takes 90 to 95 days for a mustard seed to grow fully into a mustard tree, sometimes even longer. That's around 3 months, or close to 100 days, it's a long time. However, in the grand scheme of things mustard trees are actually known for growing much faster than other kinds of plants. So even though it takes a long time the effects start happening immediately even if we can't see them in the moment. So, the Lord is telling us to take the small step, to plant the little seed and even if we can't see the results right away, that seed is growing into a beautiful, massive tree. If we keep affirming truths from the Word, and practicing small acts of service, and supporting our neighbors when they need it, we’re starting a chain of events that can lead to immense positive change in our own lives and the lives of those around us, even if we can’t see it right now. If we just keep planting the seeds the Lord will make them grow.
And that's another very important thing to remember is that we don't make trees grow. If trees needed human beings to grow, the world would have a lot less trees, we would be in a very bad situation. We can help by planting the seed but ultimately it is only the Lord who can make the tree grow. The Lord is the one who provides the sun, the Lord is the one who provides the water, the only one who provides the soil and nutrients for the plant to grow. To take it even further, the Lord is the one who created the seed in the first place! The Lord is the one that makes it so that seeds can grow and become a full tree. In the same way in our own lives, we can believe all of these wonderful things, we can plant the seeds of choosing to believe truths from the Word, we can plant the seed of following the 10 commandments, we can plant the seeds of doing acts of service for other people around us but it is ultimately the Lord who takes those seeds and turns them into something greater and much more impactful in the lives of people. The Lord takes that seed that we plant, and He takes it from there. Our job is not necessarily to focus on taking the seed and following it as it grows, our job is to keep planting the seeds and as we do this the Lord will take over, and He will make those seeds grow.
So here is an exercise that I would like us to do. We are going to plant some spiritual seeds today. I am going to read some ideas that all come from the Heavenly Doctrines and from the Word, and I would like to invite you to repeat them after me. This is something that is known as affirmations, and there are a lot of studies that say that when we repeat positive affirmations it can have a massive impact in the way that we look at the world, and it can change our mental health and even our physical health. So, we are going to say some New Church affirmations today and plant some seeds. Are you ready?
1. The Lord loves me.
2. I was created to become an angel.
3. The Lord is always guiding me to a good result.
4. There is a place in Heaven for me.
5. There is good all over the world.
6. The Lord does not need me to be perfect.
7. The Lord is always with me.
Now after saying these affirmations whether we realize it or not we just planted some seeds in our hearts and in our minds, and if we keep repeating those ideas and we keep affirming them in our lives, and we keep putting them to practice, those ideas can take root and they can grow and they can change our whole life. Whenever we think that we are not doing enough that we should be doing more to change the world the Lord is telling us that we don't need to save the world in one day. We're individuals, we're limited, we're just human beings. And yes, we are called to become the best version of ourselves, and to love our neighbor and to serve others and to do as much good as possible in society, all of that is absolutely true and extremely important, they are at the core of a religious life. But we're not called to change the world in one day, we're not called to change ourselves entirely into a perfect being overnight. That's an unfair expectation and the Lord would never have that kind of unfair expectation of us because the Lord is incapable of being unfair. But the Lord tells us to plant the seeds, and He will take it from there, and if we keep planting seeds every day as small as they may seem, the Lord will take those seeds and He will make them grow into something beautiful. Amen.