To feel small

 A sermon preached with the people of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Barberton, Ohio.

This week, we got photos of some really. big. things. New images from NASA’s Webb telescope show galaxies as they appeared over 13 billion years ago.

13 billion years. Before the sun, before the earth, before dinosaurs came and went. Before what we think of as time began.

Glittery pieces of light shining against a dark backdrop. A new view of God’s cosmos.

“Insignificant” and “small” are words I heard a lot of people use to describe how seeing these incredible images made them feel.

And the scale of what we were looking at (and my teensy weensy place in it) certainly made me feel that way too. It felt almost overwhelming. Maybe some of you felt this way too.

But vlogger, author and general “science explainer” Hank Green had a different reaction that made me rethink that feeling of smallness and insignificance.

He took to YouTube, and said, “I’m actually not sure if I feel very small right now or very big. When you look at [these pictures] it makes sense to think okay, so why do we think that anything here on earth matters at all?

“But I wonder: is the size the right measure? .. The vast majority of the particles in the universe do not know they exist. They have never wanted something. They have never looked at something and found it beautiful … It does not seem common for the universe to find paths to waking up. And to be a part of that -- it feels very big.” 

In the comments section, one poster responded, “I'm agnostic and watching Nasa reveal the Carina Nebula image live made me tear up a bit. I felt calmed by it's beauty and actually felt safe (like there is something or someone out there pulling the strings). I know it's weird at least for me lol but it was super comforting. We are definitely small af but we are made of that stuff. That's epic lol.”

A pretty good prayer by a self-described agnostic, if you ask me.

“That something or someone out there pulling the strings,” bringing comfort, bringing safety. We have a word for that, don’t we? I think it’s God. 

And our response to the presence of God can be to feel small. To feel insignificant. It can be overwhelming.

This morning in our Gospel reading, I think Martha is feeling small. She has, quite literally, welcomed God into her home. What an enormous thing that is. What an overwhelming thing that is. Just the scale of it. I imagine she thinks, surely it is not enough for me to just bring my small, insignificant self to God. Surely I must become useful. Must become busy. Surely, I must make everything perfect. And when she looks to her sister Mary for help in this work of making up for the smallness -- she finds that Mary is content just to sit and take it all in.

“Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?” Martha asks. “Tell her then to help me.” And Jesus, in my imagining looking right into her eyes says, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

There are many ways to interpret what Jesus is doing here. One way is to imagine that Jesus is chiding Martha. But listen to him again:

“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.”

 Maybe Jesus is telling Martha, very simply, that his presence should not make her feel small or insignificant. That she does not need to worry. That, to lean on a cliché, she is enough.

Because, after all, like all of us, Martha is a living and breathing and thinking and learning part of God’s created order. And what makes her special is not how efficient or busy she is, or the impact of her accomplishments or her influence or reach. It is her belovedness to God, her awareness of the world around her. It is that she wants. That she feels. That she sees beauty.

Friends, the worries of the world are too numerous to count. And we are not called to ignore them. That’s not what Jesus is up to here, I don’t think. We are called to fight injustice where we see it, to care for the most vulnerable, to put ourselves and our lives on the line. And, we are called to the smaller stuff – to getting the kids to school, to preparing meals, to paperwork and floor scrubbing and walking the dog. Those things of earth, those things of earthlings do matter.

But I think we’re being nudged this morning to remember that our value lies in something deeper than those things. It lies in our very being. No matter who you are, you are not small – not in a cosmic sense. No special preparations are necessary to behold the wonder of God. To sit with it. To feel it and name its beauty.

Because you are part of that wonder. That space-time. Those glittery pieces of light swirling against a black backdrop. 

And that’s pretty big.