If you are like most people you love to cheer for the underdog. Whether it is Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party nomination process, little Iceland in the European Football championships, or the mom and pop variety store vs Walmart. We love such stories; be it the rags to riches triumph, or the victory of the ‘little guy’. Even as I write today I am aware that the young Canadian tennis star Milos Raonic has upset the great Roger Federer, a seven-time Wimbledon champion, to reach his first major tournament final. Many of our day’s thinkers and writers have tried to understand the appeal of the underdog story. Is it empathy? Microsoft founder Bill Gates says: “If there’s one cultural quality we have, it’s that we always see ourselves as an underdog.” Is that all it is, that we identify personally with the underdog? Is it seen as morally superior? Christian author Philip Yancey writes: “as I read the birth stories about Jesus I cannot help but conclude that though the world may be tilted toward the rich and powerful, God is tilted toward the underdog.” Perhaps deep inside we see that supporting the down-and-out underdog is “what Jesus would do.”
This Sunday we will be looking at a great underdog story: the story of the growth and victory of the Kingdom of Heaven as seen through two tiny parables – the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the leaven (Matthew 13: 31-35). Underdog stories are common in our scriptures as well, from Gideon’s little army to the lightly regarded shepherd boy David. These parables encourage us to “not despise small beginnings (Zechariah 4:10”, but rather trust in the Lord and live accordingly!
The New York based Canadian writer Malcolm Gladwell has an interesting view of the potential of underdogs:
The fact of being an underdog changes people in ways that we often fail to appreciate. It opens doors and creates opportunities and enlightens and permits things that might otherwise have seemed unthinkable.
Although a simplification of sorts, the jist of his position rings true with our Christian faith. For example, the apostle Paul learned to see weakness and suffering as an opportunity, and even transformative (“When I am weak, he is strong”). In fact anything that forces us to think outside of our smallness to place our trust and confidence in a sovereign, powerful, loving God is something incredibly helpful for us, and will inevitably lead us toward previously unthinkable opportunities and experiences.
The puritan commentator, Matthew Henry, wrote that the preaching of the gospel works like leaven in the hearts of those that receive it. Just as the leaven works certainly, so does the Word. It works silently and hiddenly, yet strongly and without fail. “When the gospel comes into the soul, it works a thorough change; it spreads itself into all the powers and faculties of the soul, and alters the property even of the members of the body.”
I hope to see you this Sunday for I know you will be encouraged as we see God’s plan for his Kingdom: from its humble beginnings to its glorious consummation as evidenced both collectively in His Church and individually in the lives of believers like you and me.
Much love,
Pastor Gary