Dirt Is All I Have to Offer

I design computer chips for a living. These are the electronics that go into things like cell phones, laptops, cameras, and printers. These computer chips are very complicated, and the reality is that it takes thousands of people working across dozens of companies to produce a computer chip. So my job is this small part of an overall effort. The chips that I work on have many millions of transistors, many millions of wires, and there are over hundreds of steps required to fabricate the chips. It takes the factory about two months, working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to do all the processing needed to make the chip. I believe that computer chips are the most complicated thing that humans create.

I was thinking about this as I read the Gospel about the mustard seed. There is one thing in common between the mustard seed and the computer chips — they are both machines. The machinery of the computer chip involves the operation of transistors, turning them on and off.

The machinery of the growing mustard plant happens at the molecular level. There is the way that the DNA works. It is a complicated physical process where the cells divide and the DNA is replicated. It produces strands of RNA that get sliced up by another physical process, and that in turn makes proteins. The truth is that we know a little bit about the workings of the mustard plant, but for the most part there is much that we don’t know. We really don’t know how the mustard seed grows, and yet it grows anyway.

What I think is extremely difficult to grasp is this: this mustard seed has all the capability to do a number of things as it grows into a plant. It uses the sunlight for energy. It develops a root system to extract water and nutrients from the soil. It takes in carbon dioxide to create the sugars it needs, and it produces oxygen. But it does one more thing that I think should be impossible. It has all of the capability to make another seed. A copy of itself. That’s amazing. And it does all this in dirty dirt. These computer chips that we make need a complicated factory with highly trained technical staff to make sure the chip goes through all the steps. But the mustard seed does it on its own. It boggles my mind how fantastically amazing a common mustard seed really is.

The computer chip has no moving parts whatsoever. When a mustard seed grows, it has amazingly complicated physical movements. In terms of complexity, there is nothing that humans have created that comes anywhere close to the amazing ability of the mustard seed.

In Mark chapter 4, in the story of the seed that grows though the farmer knows not how, and of the mustard seed, Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God can be compared to that seed. The Kingdom has been growing for many centuries, and it is a complicated process. What I really enjoy about this Kingdom of God is that we all have a part to play. All of us do actively participate in growing the Kingdom. Now, do you believe that? Do you really think that your choices and your efforts make a difference in growing this Kingdom?

Well, I hope so. Because my point in talking about this complexity in the workings of the mustard seed is that the Kingdom of God is going to have even more complicated movements. But we don’t have to know how our prayers make a difference. We still see the Kingdom growing. We don’t have to know how our acts of charity and faithfulness make a difference. We still see the Kingdom growing. We don’t have to know how our participation in the life of the Church makes a difference. We still see the Kingdom growing. The Gospel reading specifically says that the plants grow, though the farmer knows not how.

It is a very encouraging Gospel reading. We benefit from the Kingdom. We are the birds that dwell in the shade of the branches. Also, we experience the growth in our own lives and those around us. And we get to do our part to help grow the Kingdom.

Now, for myself, I take comfort knowing that God can do amazing things with mustard seeds in dirt. It could be that dirt is all that I have to offer for the Kingdom. I don’t have to know how God could use what I have to offer. But I do trust that he can use whatever I am able to muster. And that is a wonderful thing.

If your work feels like one small step in a factory you cannot see, start by naming the job as it actually is. I design one part of a chip that takes thousands of people and two months to finish. That is not a failure of ambition. That is how complicated things get made. Write down the piece that is yours this week. Do not write down the whole factory.

You do not have to know how the piece matters before you do it. The farmer in this Gospel does not know how the seed grows. He still sows. If you are waiting until you can explain the effect of your work on the company, the parish, or the Kingdom, you will not start. Do the next faithful piece. Watch what grows later.

If what you have to offer feels like dirt — a small skill, a late start, a job that is not the one you wanted — do not wait to become the factory. Dirt is what the seed uses. Offer the part you actually have. Then stop managing the growth. That is the part you do not get to run.

This is a pastoral reflection, not clinical care and not a substitute for it. If you or someone you love is in immediate danger, call 988 or local emergency services.

Drawn from a homily first preached in 2017.