Nothing Small nor Great
Did the product Nutella ever make it into your pantry? It is hazelnut cocoa spread introduced by the Italian company Ferrero. It was produced and used in the bakery in the Italian town of Alba. Even though the product is only 13% hazelnut (there might be sugar and palm oil in there too), some would say it is the best thing to come of the nut. It is truly the best thing to come in the eyes of hazelnut producers.
Students of faith might argue the best thing to come of the hazelnut is the insight within the writings of Julian of Norwich, 14th Century Mystic. Lady Julian holds a hazelnut or something of the size and quality of a hazelnut in the palm of her hand. In her contemplation, she receives revelation and marvels that we who are so small before the expanse of created existence, infinitely small before the reality of the Creator, are kept from falling out of existence. She discerns it is the loving nature of God that calls us into being and holds us in existence.
Julian calls these insightful revelations, “shewings”. They came to her in unexpected ways, and they have been noticed and valued for centuries. This one shows that beings are astoundingly lifted out of nothingness, held in a relationship constituted in love by God, who will not let go, therefore we do not slip back into nothingness. Something of the eternal was resting within the substance of that hazelnut waiting for Julian, in patient quietness, to notice.
In the nineteenth century, Elizabeth Barrett Browning takes up the theme in her epic poem Aurora Leigh. In Book 7 she celebrates how ordinary things signal and reveals the extraordinary and divine to those who will see. Things natural and spiritual intersect, run congruently, and really, will not be separated. No one is forced to ponder this connectedness. She writes, “On any peasant’s face here, coarse and lined. / You’ll catch Antinous somewhere in that clay….” The most oft-quoted lines are: “Earth’s crammed with heaven, / And every common bush afire with God; / But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, / The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries, / And daub their natural faces unaware.” You can see the thread of the theme here. You can see how God can show sublime truth through a nut sitting in your hand, and see that it is crammed with heaven.
The passage I love of Browning’s work is this, from the same section:
‘There’s nothing great
Nor small’, has said a poet of our day…
And truly, I reiterate, nothing’s small!
No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;
—From ‘Aurora Leigh’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Book 7, 1857
As with Julian, so with this poet. The blessed Julian marvels that in our lowliness the Creator has taken note of us. She was moved to burst forth with stupefied amazement: “What is he indeed that is the maker and lover and keeper?”. She is convinced that fulfillment comes by God’s willing connection, saying, “For until I am one with him I can never have true rest nor peace. I can never know it,” she concludes, “until I am held so close to him there is nothing in between.”
In like fashion, the brilliant Elizabeth Barret Browning extols how the Holy is shown within the easily overlooked, in the created order. By some grace, a soul can attend to it. Imagine the grace to notice that somehow, the whole sphere of reality is signaled by the tiny pebble lying near the toe of your shoe.
I am not telling you, I am asking you, do you see any overlap between this theme and what we find in the Gospel for this Sunday? Look for a connection in how Jesus teaches the disciples about the kingdom of God:
Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.” (Mark 4:26-29)
We know about seeds. We know the sequential movement toward the desired outcome, beginning with planting the seed in the ground. Something goes on in the ground, such that, when all goes well, we harvest grain. It is something to which we can give a nod, and move on. It is Jesus who says, “Don’t move on; not so fast, anyway.” Jesus hints to us that there is kingdom-of-God stuff in this scenario. He suggests that we stop, and marvel, “What a design!” A seed so tiny in the dark of the moist soil sprouts and grows, flowers and produces. We know not how. For some, it is just the hum-drum of getting hold of food to distribute. For those who see, it is the mystery of life on display from the Author of life. If you have planted thousands of times, you might not experience the mystery showing itself. It will seem too small a thing. On the other hand, the poet knows, and you and I know too. There’s nothing small.