Sermon preached on March 1st. 2009
Introduction
Today is Saint David’s Day – a great day for all true Welsh men and women. But how many of those who celebrate their Welshness on this day know much about Saint David himself? Actually there is not a lot of historical information on him, but many legendary stories. It’s hard to separate the fact from the fiction in the life of David.
Saint David, or Dewi Sant as he is known in Welsh, was renowned as a preacher and teacher in West Wales during the C6th. He and his followers lived a very hard and ascetic life:
The Monastic Rule of David prescribed that monks had to pull the plough themselves without draught animals; to drink only water; to eat only bread with salt and herbs; and to spend the evenings in prayer, reading and writing. No personal possessions were allowed: to say “my book” was an offence. He lived a simple life and practiced asceticism, teaching his followers to refrain from eating meat or drinking beer.
It is claimed that David lived for over 100 years, and he died on a Tuesday 1 March (now St David’s Day). It is generally accepted that this was around 590, making the actual year 589. The monastery is said to have been ‘filled with angels as Christ received his soul’. His last words to his followers were in a sermon on the previous Sunday. Rhygyfarch transcribes these as ‘Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed. Do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. I will walk the path that our fathers have trod before us.’ ‘Do the little things in life’ (‘Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd’) is today a very well-known phrase in Welsh, and has proved an inspiration to many.
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Do the little things
I’m not now going to say anything more about Dewi Sant. Instead I would like us to concentrate on those famous last words
‘Gwnewch y pethau bychain’ —- ‘Do the little things’
This saying of Dewi expresses a point of view that has been shared by many other Christian saints and leaders. For example Mother Teresa:
“ Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
“I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness. “
And this is only reflecting the words of our Lord himself in the Parable of the Talents
‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ (Matthew 25:21 )
And also in another parable, in Luke’s gospel:
Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. (Luke 16: 10)
Any employer knows this is true. If an employee has been caught with his hand in the petty cash you are not likely to trust that person with the till. No, you will not trust a person who has been found unfaithful in small things.
The small things are important and this is true in all areas of life. In the area of health for example. To clean your teeth is a small thing: but if you neglect to do it you will pay later in a big way, when you lose your teeth. Bacteria and viruses are tiny – so microscopic that we have only known about their existence since the invention of the microscope. But is only takes one germ to kill you – if it is allowed to multiply and take over. In the same way it can often be the little bad habits which are the thin end of the wedge – leading eventually to an addiction.
The importance of small things
If we are followers of Jesus, then we will seek to be faithful in small things as well as large. For we will realise the importance of small things.
Jesus valued the small things. He talked about the mustard seed which grows into a mighty plant and shelters the birds. He talked about he yeast – it only takes a little bit to spread through the whole lump of dough and leaven it. He referred to a lamp on a stand – it might only be one little flame but it lights up the whole house. In the same way a few grains of salt give flavour to food.
Jesus noticed the small things: the flowers in the field. the single sparrow that falls to the ground. And he noticed small people too. He welcomed the little one when they came to him. He placed his hand on them and blessed them. He told his disciples they had to become like these little children if they were going to see the Kingdom of God. He sided with the weak and the poor, the outcast and the leper. With people who were regarded as being of small importance in society.
Oh yes, the small things are important. “You don’t have to be a large gathering to know my presence,” he said. “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”. (Matthew 18:20)
At times huge crowds followed him but there were other times when he was left just with his few disciples. In the end he was alone on the cross.
This is a spiritual principle: the importance of small thing and small numbers of people. We see this throughout the whole Bible. Think of Elijah – on his own confronting the hundreds of prophets of Baal. Or Moses and Aaron standing before Pharaoh and his court . Or Gideon, with his pathetic group of 300 men defeating the tens of thousands of Midianites.
Small is beautiful
“Who has despised the day of small things?” wrote the prophet Zechariah.
( Zechariah 4:10)
And it is easy to despise or ignore the little things. When I lived in Prestatyn we went on a church nature ramble over the sand dunes to the East of the town. It’s a pleasant place, looking out over Liverpool Bay and the Dee estuary. It is a nature reserve, a place where little terns nest (one of the few in Britain). It’s a place where you could sometime view seals on the beach and also, on the sand dunes, there were a number of species of rare orchids. The lady who was guiding us took out a pocket magnifying glass and showed us the tiny little flowers. They were as lovely as any cultivated orchid in someone’s conservatory but they were only a few milimetres in size. She said, “I don’t think they are any less beautiful just because they are so tiny that you can walk past them without noticing they are there.”
We depend on small things
Small things are just as important, and just a beautiful, as large. I suppose we can all get worked up about the possibility of the Blue Whale, or the Elephant, becoming extinct. But we don’t bother so much about some rare species of snail or bug! Now if the snail were a hundred feet long, that would be a different matter!
But the snail or bug has its part to play, just as the whale. And when you think of it, the mighty blue whale depends on tiny sea creatures called Krill, which make up the whole of its diet!
On the radio the other day on Gardener’s Question Time, Bob Flowerdew was talking about earthworms. There is a small, insignificant creature, if there ever was one! But if there are no worms in a patch of land nothing will grow on it. The worms aerate the soil, they facilitate drainage, they fertilize it, they even secrete plant hormones which encourage plant growth.
I also read the other day that if all the insect life on this planet died, human life would outlive them by only a few months!
Small deeds of service
So , you see, small is important. And for the follower of the Servant King no task is too small or menial. Everything can be done as service to Christ.
Teach me, my God and King,
in all things thee to see,
and what I do in anything
to do it as for thee.
A servant with this clause
makes drudgery divine:
who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
makes that and the action fine.
(George Herbert)
And here’s another hymn which expresses this attitude:
Fill thou my life, O Lord my God,
in every part with praise,
that my whole being may proclaim
thy being and thy ways.
Praise in the common things of life,
its goings out and in;
praise in each duty and deed,
however small and mean.
Fill every part of me with praise;
let all my being speak
of thee and of thy love, O Lord,
poor though I be, and weak.
(Horatius Bonar)
So what does this mean in practice, in daily life? It means that if we do a job we aim to do it to the best of our abilities for the glory of God. Any job: it could be composing a great work of art, or it could be washing dishes. It might be a tremendous sporting feat, or it might be scrubbing the floor. It might be travelling to the other end of the earth as a missionary, or it might be going next door to check if the neighbour is alright.
The small things are just as important as the large ones. (Indeed, in a sense they are more important, because they are so easily overlooked or forgotten.)
And we all know how the neglect of a small thing can lead to a disaster:
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
(Anonymous)
There are many small deeds of service the Lord wants us to carry out and some of them are very small and very simple:
If anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.” ( Matthew 10:42)
And to quote Mother Teresa again:
“If you can’t feed 100 people, then feed one person.”
“I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbour. Do you know your next door neighbour?”
“In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”
Meditation
Let us pause now for a time of quiet mediation:
· think of the small things we may have left undone.
· perhaps we intended to say something or to do some small kindness and we never got around to it. We resolve that we will, at the next opportunity.
· think of the needs of people around us. Is there some small thing we can do to help them.
· think of the work of Christ’s Church: this church, or the Church world-wide. Is there something small we can do to help God’s kingdom grow?
· to come more regularly to worship on Sunday?
· to get involved in spiritual activities of the church during the week?
· to pray for the sick or to visit them?
· to pray for the minister and elders?
· to support mission in the Third World?
· to give little bit more to the Lord’s work, either to this church or to other charitable causes?
Conclusion
Some people are great Welsh patriots, making much of their county’s culture, language and success (or otherwise) on the Rugby field. But, I wonder how many of these “patriots” think about what has made Wales great in the past – its Christian heritage. The Welsh Bible of William Morgan, the hymns of Pantycelyn, the preaching of Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland, the Revival of 1904 and the great Christian foundation laid by Dewi Sant one and a half thousand years ago in our land.
‘Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed. Do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about.”
