Begin
Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the
work begin. (Zechariah 4:10)
World War II had
utterly destroyed Germany. Citizens were desperate for supplies. Russia had reduced
Berlin's buildings to skeletons, and sought to do the same to the German people.
Russia blockaded food-bearing trucks, trains, and boats, and without help the
city would soon starve to death. The United States and British militaries responded
with the 1948 Berlin airlift. For eleven months, they airdropped tons of food
to the 2.5 million West Berliners. Gail Halvorsen piloted one of those planes for
the United States.
After landing in
Berlin one day, the twenty-seven-year-old Halvorsen talked with thirty or so
German children through a barbed-wire fence. Though hungry and needy, they neither
begged nor complained. Impressed, Halvorsen reached into his pocket, produced
two sticks of gum, broke them in half, and handed the pieces through the wire.
"Those kids looked like they had just received a million bucks," he
recounted. "They put that tiny piece of paper to their noses and smelled
the aroma. They were on cloud nine. I stood there dumbfounded." Touched by
their plight, Halvorsen promised to return the next day and drop more gum from
his plane. But with supply flights landing every half hour, the children asked
how they'd recognize him. "I'll wiggle my wings," he replied.
Halvorsen
returned to Rhein-Main Air Force Base and bought gum and candy rations from his
buddies. He tied the sweets to tiny handkerchief parachutes, loaded them on his
C-54 and, true to his word, wiggled his wings over West Berlin. Kids in the
city streets spotted their friend and ran to gather the falling candy. And with
that Operation Little Vittles had
begun. Momentum mounted quickly. Within three weeks the Air Force had sanctioned
the crusade, and during the following months U.S. planes dropped three tons of
candy on the city. Halvorsen became known as Uncle Wiggly Wings.
Do small deeds
make big differences? Halvorsen thinks so. Of greater importance, Jesus does.
He says: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field.
It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants
and grows into a tree where birds can come and find shelter in its
branches." Jesus followed with this additional illustration: "The
Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast used by a woman making bread. Even though she
used a large amount [three measures] of flour, the yeast permeated every part
of the dough." (Matt. 13:31-33)
Original listeners
caught quickly the pictures of this parable because they knew about mustard
seeds and leaven lumps. Both were small: the seed the size of a freckle (it
takes 750 of them to weigh just one gram, or the weight of a paperclip), and the
leaven no larger than the end of your thumb. Yet a tiny mustard seed can erupt
and reach for the clouds, growing to three times an average person’s height,
boasting bushy branches large enough to house a homeless flock of birds. And a
pinch of fermented dough can feed forty people three meals a day for several
days. What begins minutely ends massively.
Maybe the early
church needed this reminder. What clout does a tiny manger and a bloody cross
carry in a forest of Jewish tradition and Greek philosophy? How can a backwoods
movement headed up by a rural carpenter gain traction in a religious world
dominated by Epicureans, Stoics and Gnostics? That’s like a kid on a skateboard
entering the Daytona 500.
We, at times,
fear the smallness of Jesus' story. And that fear can keep us from seed sowing.
Can the Sunday school account of Jesus hold its own in the Ivy League? Do terms
like "sin," "salvation," and "redemption" stand a
chance against today’s humanism and relativism? Apparently they do. Where are
the Romans who crucified Christ? The Epicureans who demeaned and debated Paul?
The Gnostics who mocked the early church? And the great temples of Corinth?
They dwarfed the infant church. Do worshipers still sacrifice to Zeus? No, but believers
still sing to Jesus. God does uncommon works through common deeds.
A survivor of
Hurricane Katrina recounted that as the waters rose around his house, this New
Orleanian had to swim out of a window. With two children clinging to his back,
the man eventually found safe refuge atop the tallest building in his neighborhood.
Other people soon joined him on the roof. Eventually, a small circle of people
huddled together on what would be their home for the next three days until they
were rescued. After an hour on the building, the man realized he was perched on
a church. He patted the rooftop and announced to the others, "We’re on
holy ground, friends."
His news jogged
the memory of another roof-dweller. She looked around at the area, crawled over
to the steeple, hugged it and proclaimed, "My grandfather and grandmother
helped build this church!" Now, do you think those grandparents ever
imagined God would use their work to save their granddaughter from a flood?
They surely prayed for God to use that building to save souls . . . but they
couldn't have imagined he would use it to save their grandchild from a
hurricane. They had no idea how God would use the work of their hands. And
neither do you.
What difference
do selfless deeds make? Do you ever wonder if your work makes a difference at
all? I'm envisioning a believer at the crossroads – one recently impacted by
God somehow. Maybe that’s you. The divine spark within is beginning to flame. Do
you douse it, or fan it? Dare you dream that you can actually make a
difference? God's answer would be, "Just do something and see what
happens." That's what he told the citizens of ancient Jerusalem.
For sixteen
years the temple of God lay in ruins. They had abandoned the work. The reason?
Opposition from enemies, and indifference from neighbors. But most of all, the
job simply dwarfed them. To build the first temple, Solomon needed seventy
thousand carriers, eighty thousand stonecutters, thirty-three hundred foremen,
and seven years. A gargantuan task. The workers must have thought, “What
difference will my work make?” God's answer: "Do not despise these small
beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin." (Zech. 4:10) Begin. That’s it. Just begin. What seems
small to you might be huge to someone else. Just ask Bohn Fawkes.
During World War
II, he piloted a B-17. During one mission he sustained flak from Nazi anti-aircraft
guns. Even though his gas tanks were hit, the plane didn’t explode, and Fawkes
was able to land the plane safely.
On the morning
following the raid, Fawkes asked his crew chief for the German shell. He wanted
to keep a souvenir of his incredible good fortune. The crew chief explained
that not just one but eleven 20 millimeter shells had been found in the gas
tanks, none of which had exploded. Technicians later opened the missiles and
found them devoid of an explosive charge. They were harmless and, with one
exception, empty. The exception contained a carefully rolled piece of paper in
the shell. On it a message had been scrawled in Czech. The note read:
"This is all we can do for you now." A courageous assembly-line
worker was disarming bombs and had scribbled the note. He couldn't end the war,
but he could save one plane. He couldn't do everything, but he could do
something. So he did what he could.
God does big
things with small deeds. Against a towering giant, pebbles from a brook seem
futile. But God used them to topple Goliath. Compared to the tithes of the
wealthy, a widow's two coins seem puny – they were, combined, about ¼ of a
penny by today’s standards. But Jesus used them to inspire us. And in contrast
with sophisticated priests and powerful Roman rulers, a cross-suspended
carpenter seemed nothing but a waste of life. Few mourned his death, and only a
handful of friends buried his body. The people turned their attention back to
the temple. And why not? What power does a buried rabbi have? We know the
answer. Mustard-seed and leaven-lump power. Power to rise from the dead. Power
to change history.
In the hands of
God, small seeds grow into sheltering trees. Tiny leaven expands into
nourishing loaves. Small deeds can change the world. So, sow the mustard seed.
Bury the leaven lump. Make the call. Write the check. Organize the committee.
Drop some gum from your airplane. Sixty years from now another soldier might
follow your example. Chief Wiggles did. No, not Uncle Wiggly Wings of West Berlin
fame, but Chief Wiggles of Iraq.
Like Halvorsen,
his story begins with a child at a fence. And like the candy bomber, his work
began by giving one gift. He noticed a little girl crying on the other side of
a stretch of barbed wire in Baghdad. "She was obviously very poor, in her
tattered old dress, totally worn out plastic flip-flops, her hair matted against
her head indicating she hadn't had a bath in a long time and her skin blistered
from the dirt and weather." The soldier remembered some toys in his
office, so he hurried and brought the girl a toothbrush, a whistle, and a toy
monkey. As he gave the gifts, "her eyes lit up with such joy." He
posted this experience on his Weblog and thousands of people responded, asking
where they could send gifts. Operation
Give was born. And the soldier inherited Halvorsen's nick-name – “Chief Wiggles."
Moses had a
staff. David had a sling. Samson had a jawbone. Rahab had a string. Mary had
some ointment. Aaron had a rod. Dorcas had a needle. All were used by God. So what
do you have? God inhabits the tiny seed, and empowers the tiny deed. John
Wesley, the 18th Century founder of the Methodist church said, "Do
all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all
the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as
long as ever you can." Don't discount the smallness of your deeds. In
God’s hands, you never know how big they’ll grow.
Grace,
Randy
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