Dragons, daffodils, and doing the little things

Reading:  John 3.1-17

If you ever want to feel slightly inadequate as a preacher, just schedule St David’s Day in Lent and then put Cwm Rhondda at the end of the service. There is simply no competing with “Bread of Heaven” sung at full volume by people who secretly wish they’d been born in the valleys. 

It is, however, a good reminder that the 40 days of Lent do not, technically, include Sundays.  Tradition gives us permission to rejoice, amid our Lenten fasts.  So, when the time comes…sing!  Don’t hold back!  Today is for St David — Dewi Sant — patron saint of Wales. A man whose most famous recorded sermon ended with the words: “Be joyful. Keep the faith. Do the little things.”

Do the little things.

Which is faintly disappointing, isn’t it? We expect a Celtic superhero. Flaming sermons. He’s the only British-born patron saint in Britain. So I expected him to say ‘plant daffodils on every hillside!  I want a sea of daffodils!  A custard lake of daffodils!.  Or dragons.  Get out there and slay those dragons of anger and greed! And…for God’s sake, win the Six Nations, for once…!

Instead what do we get…we get… “Do the little things.”

Though, if you’ve been following Welsh rugby recently, “do the little things” might actually be excellent advice.  Because the little things matter. The missed tackle. The forward pass. The dropped ball two metres from the line. Entire matches have been lost on the small stuff.

And Lent is the season where God gently says to us: the small stuff matters.  In Genesis this morning, Abram hears God say: “Go.” Leave your country. Your security. Your father’s house. Go to the land I will show you. And what does Abram do? He goes. There is no committee. No feasibility study. No laminated vision document. Just: God says go. Abram goes.

It’s such a small sentence. “So Abram went.”  But that small obedience changes the history of the world.

Then we meet Nicodemus. Poor Nicodemus. He comes to Jesus by night — which is John’s polite way of saying he doesn’t want to be seen. He is cautious. Curious. Slightly anxious. A religious professional who realises that something is happening that he cannot quite control.

And Jesus says to him, “You must be born from above.”  Or, in other translations, ‘born again by the Spirit’.  But what Nicodemus hears is this: “You must climb back into the womb.”

Jesus, of course, means: “You must allow God to begin again in you.” And Nicodemus — very humanly — says: “How can these things be?”

Which is the question of Lent.

How can these things be?  How can a comfortable life be left behind? How can a grown adult be born again? How can water and Spirit make a new heart?  How can God love the world this much?

“God so loved the world…”  Not God so tolerated the world. Not God so rolled his eyes at the world.  God so loved the world…that he…what?  Sent an army of avenging angels to clear up the place?  No.  Did he send lightning bolts to blow up the Roman senate?  No.  Did he send earthquakes, fire, floods, to punish the evil doers.  No.  He sent a baby…a little thing.  And through that little thing, he changed everything.

And here’s the thing. When St David said, “Do the little things,” he was not advocating small ambition. He was pointing to daily faithfulness.

The small choices.  The quiet prayer before you answer that email that has enraged you. The generosity given, without counting cost.  The gift of time to a person who just needs someone to listen, for five minutes.  The courage to say, “I don’t understand — but I’m willing to be taught.”

Abram’s obedience was a little thing.  Nicodemus’ night-time visit was a little thing.  A baby born in Bethlehem was, outwardly, a very little thing.  But, as that famous poem reminds us, all the Kings that ever ruled, all the navies that ever sailed; none have had the impact on the world of that one, solitary life – lifted up, as Jesus says, like the serpent in the wilderness.  Lifted up, on his cross of sacrifice, that all may look to him and draw inspiration.

Here’s another thing…from that little conversation with Nicodemus, in the dark of the night.  Jesus says “the wind blows where it chooses. You hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”  The Holy Spirit is like Welsh weather. You think you’ve understood it, and then it shifts entirely.

You cannot manage the Spirit. You cannot scrum it into submission. You cannot put it on a spreadsheet. You can only open yourself to it.  And that is deeply uncomfortable for respectable church people. 

We would quite like to stay as we are, thank you. Mildly improved, perhaps. A little more spiritual. Slightly kinder. But fundamentally the same.  But Jesus says: No. You have to be born again. Born from above. Let God re-make you.  Which sounds ever so dramatic. It implies, to some ears, dramatic experiences of being filled up with God, of speaking in strange tongues. And that may happen, for some.  But, really, for most people, it begins with little things.

Turning up to worship when it would be easier to settle in with the Sunday papers.

Lighting a candle with a child and remembering that God’s love is real.

Praying for people on the prayer list — even the ones whose names we struggle to pronounce.

Singing a Welsh hymn with gusto even if we are from Hampshire.

Little things.

And here is the deep encouragement of St David’s Day in Lent: You do not have to save the world. That’s God’s job.  You just have to look for where God is already at work, and join in.

You do not have to fix the Church. Christ is already building it. Patiently.  And inviting you to take part.

You do not have to win every match.  Though if anyone from the Welsh Rugby Union is listening, prayer is available after the service.

What you are invited to do — what I am invited to do — is this:

Go, when God says go.
Listen, when God prompts you to listen.
Give, when holding on to your money would be safer.

Ask your questions, like Nicodemus.
Allow yourself to be re-made.
And do the little things.

Because the kingdom of God does not usually arrive with dragons or seas of daffodils.  It arrives in obedience.  In the small things.  In baptismal water. In bread and wine. In daily faithfulness.

And one day — perhaps when the roof nearly lifts during Cwm Rhondda — we glimpse that Kingdom.  Not because we have been magnificent.  But because God so loved the world. And still does. Amen.