START SMALL
By Nathan Attwood
Pastor, Marianna First United Methodist Church
"For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel." --Zechariah 4:10
I haven't met many famous people and I'm not a name dropper. But please give me grace to share a story of an encounter I had with an important historical figure because the lesson it taught me has stuck with me ever since.
When I was a seminary student at Emory University, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was teaching in the theology school as a visiting professor. In case you don't know who he was, Desmond Tutu was an archbishop in the Anglican Church in South Africa during the apartheid regime. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his part in ending apartheid without a violent revolution. Archbishop Tutu took seriously the teachings of Jesus on reconciliation and forgiveness and believed that the Jesus way was the only path to peace and justice in his nation. As the segregation state crumbled, Tutu established a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" to allow the injustices of the state-sponsored racial discrimination to be aired, dealt with, and forgiven so that those crimes would neither be swept under the rug to fester nor be the source of violence and retaliation. Tutu was a world famous historical figure throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He was a physically diminutive man with a huge heart and radiant, joyful spirit, beloved by millions and fearless in his work to change the world.
I never had a class with him. I heard him preach several times but never had the opportunity to have an extensive conversation with him. But I did have a meaningful encounter with him one day.
When Archbishop Tutu taught at Emory, he was older and frail and battling cancer. I was walking through the courtyard between the main classroom building and the chapel when I spotted Archbishop Tutu pushing a piece of litter toward a garbage can with his cane. He was too frail to reach down and pick it up, so he was shoving it along in the direction of the can. A nearby group of students were chatting and didn't notice him. When I saw what was happening, I reached down and picked up the litter, smiled, said hello, put it in the trash, and went on my way.
How easy is it to pick up a gum wrapper and put it in the trash? For a sick and elderly man in terrible health, it was impossible. But it didn't stop him from trying.
Whose responsibility is trash pickup at a world class research university like Emory? The students who were so engaged in their deep theological conversation near the garbage can didn't notice the trash, probably because it seemed irrelevant to them and likely thought the trash was someone else's job. Archbishop Tutu saw a problem and did something about it.
How small a problem is a piece of litter? What real difference does a little garbage on the ground make? Why would such a great man spend so much attention and effort on such a small matter, such a trivial issue, something someone else is paid to do? I left that encounter learning that the way to make a big change in the world is to be satisfied to make a small change in the world.
The Book of Zechariah was written during a significant moment in Israelite history, the time of the rebuilding of the Temple after the Babylonian Exile. The construction of the Temple was a massive project, one for which the people had prayed and dreamed for decades. After the Persian King Cyrus allowed the return and ordered the rebuilding, the project languished. The people built homes and farms, but the Temple reconstruction was slow going. Zechariah is full of powerful visions of renewal and restoration, many of which the book of Revelation referenced much later (these include the four horseman, the horns, the accuser, the scroll). In a vision of a lampstand and olive trees (symbols also referenced in Revelation), Zechariah says, "For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel."
As a child, I often remembered this passage as saying, "Despise not the day of small beginnings." While there is no verse in the Bible that puts it quite that way (the NLT translation is closest), the text's point is very clear. Zechariah is telling the returnees not to get so lost in the glory of the big thing they have been called to do, but to just make a start and be grateful for the opportunity to do something small and meaningful. God does nothing big without his people being willing to be grateful for the opportunity to do something small. How does the long-delayed dream of a reconstructed glorious Temple finally get realized? When the people can be happy to make a beginning, when they don't care that the construction site is unimpressive, and when they stop comparing the work of today with the way the old Temple looked before it was torn down. The glory is revealed and the work of God is accomplished when people are willing to be grateful for the opportunity to lay a single brick.
Another Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mother Teresa, famously put the same sentiment this way: "There are no big deeds. There are only small deeds with great love." Mother Teresa's mission of mercy stirred the world's conscience and sparked a worldwide network of compassionate centers of care. She never stopped taking the time to love one unloved person at a time. She never stopped taking the time and giving the attention to one person the world had passed by after another. She became important to the world by noticing, caring, doing the small things for the "unimportant" of the world. Her life is a testament to the power of ordinary people doing enough ordinary things with extraordinary love and persistence that the result becomes extraordinary.
Jordan Peterson is a controversial public intellectual with whom I sometimes agree and sometimes disagree. But he expresses the lesson I learned from Archbishop Tutu's example in his book, "12 Rules for Life." One of the rules he offers is, "If you want to change the world, first clean your room." It's easy to decry the injustices in the world, but when people gripe and complain about what's wrong, they often have no sense of what it takes to make things better. Rather than complain, Peterson encourages people to start with the part of their world immediately around themselves, to do what they can do RIGHT NOW to make even the smallest difference. When we stop griping and start doing something, it's amazing what we can accomplish over time.
What small thing can you DO right now to make the world a better place, even in the most tiny, seemingly insignificant way? Whatever it is, even if it's just picking up a gum wrapper, DO IT. Becoming a person who brings positive action to the brokenness of the world is an empowering experience. And, just like Archbishop Tutu unwittingly invited me into his effort to make a difference simply by tending to a small thing, you never know how your most humble act of goodness might bring others alongside you.
In the same passage, Zechariah says, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts." When we start small, God moves. He uses our most humble acts of service as the means to change the world. So pick up the litter, read a book to a child, help the elderly neighbor, chaperone the trip, give the contribution, clean your room, lay the brick. Don't worry about the small crowd, the small scale, the small impact. Do the small thing with great love and be grateful for what starts small through his calling and spirit. Despise not the day of small beginnings. Start small. Let God make it do something big.