It is too Small a Thing

A sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on January 11, 2026 by Revd Dr Sam Wells

Reading for address: Isaiah 49: 6

The guru of theatrical improvisation Keith Johnstone describes a game that drives his actors crazy. He tells them that they are the headteacher. Things have been going badly at the school, and he needs to face the governors and try to make a case for why he should keep his job and how it was all unfortunate and largely somebody else’s fault. So Johnstone tells each actor, ‘Ok, now enter the governors’ meeting and explain yourself.’ The actor does so, with a series of tendentious excuses and spurious counter-allegations. Finally Johnstone says, ‘That’s enough. Now go into the next room and relax.’ So the actor ups and leaves, and enters something like a common room, and starts to say, head in hands, ‘You’ll never guess what I cooked up to say to the governors. They’re such a bunch of half-wits I think they bought the whole story.’ Then Johnstone says, ‘Look up and see it’s the governors.’ With horror the actor realises he’s been talking to the governors and trashing them to their face. He rapidly backpedals and finds ever more attenuated apologies and defences. Then Johnstone has mercy and says, ‘Enough. Go next door and really relax.’ The actor exits and again buries his head and tells the new room what an awful catastrophe has befallen him and how mortified he feels. Then Johnstone says, ‘Look up – it’s the governors again.’ With indescribable terror the actor discovers an even greater calamity than before.’ Johnstone proceeds until the actor can take no more.

The point of the game is not to drive the actor to the ragged edge. It’s to train improvisers to perpetually locate their small story in an ever-larger story. One key to improvisation is never to close down a story because it seems too threatening, but neither simply to take a story on its own terms. It’s to embrace the smaller story you’re offered and place it in a much more expansive story. At one church where I used to work, an organist was playing a recital and 200 people were gathered to enjoy it. Disastrously the fire alarm went off in the kitchen nearby. Everyone flinched because most knew that, even though it was a false alarm, it would take three or four minutes to switch the system off; but they also knew the organist had practised for weeks for this recital. But no one expected what came next. The organist began to weave the discordant notes of the fire alarm into an improvised melody, counterpointing the shrill sound with the mellow effects of his skilful interpretation. No one present ever forgot that recital. That’s what it means to place a small story in a much larger story.

In his magnificent sprawling 1940 novel The Transvylvanian Trilogy, Miklos Banffy tells of two close friends, Balint and Laszlo. They grow up in the Hungarian half of the Austrian Empire and come to adulthood in the years before the First World War. It turns out both have an Achilles heel. Laszlo has a beautiful and charming young fiancée, a fulfilling and promising career, and effervescent prospects in any direction he should choose. But he becomes consumed by a gambling addiction. Over and again, he faces opportunities to live into a bigger story, and every time, more and more painfully and ultimately fatally, he defaults to the smaller story in which his impulse persuades him he can turn things round with one big victory at the roulette wheel. Meanwhile Balint is a highly skilled politician, and is marvellously able to uphold the dignity of the Transylvanian peasantry even as he attains high office in the Budapest parliament. Yet he is consumed with desire for Adrienne, to whom he was once attached but who subsequently married elsewhere. The tension of whether his passion will trounce his reason is as taut as the drama of Laszlo’s addiction. But in Balint’s case, without ever losing the flame of longing, he somehow manages to uphold his calling to be a public figure and represent his people with integrity and courage. The whole trilogy is a saga of how Balint finds his way to a bigger story, but Laszlo cannot.

This balance between the smaller story and the bigger story is the key to comprehending some of the most poignant words in the Old Testament, which we find in Isaiah 49. God’s people are in exile, and they’ve embarked on a heart-searching quest to understand how this disaster happened, and how it might possibly come to an end. It’s not surprising to find them licking their wounds and feeling sorry for themselves, as well as languishing in guilt about what they’d got wrong and boiling in anger about the injustices done to them. Into this desultory situation we hear an amazing voice. ‘Listen!’ it says. It refers to coastlands. Now remember these events take place in Babylon, which is 200 miles from the nearest coast, and 500 miles from the Mediterranean. In other words, practically the whole known world was being called to attention. Somebody’s talking. Someone called the Servant. We find out two things quickly. This is a figure who’s been raised with profound love and care, in the shadow of God’s hand. But it’s also a figure who feels a profound sense of failure: ‘I have laboured in vain.’ So this cherished but discouraged Servant clears his throat and readies everyone for the big announcement. It turns out the announcement is one of the most significant declarations in the Old Testament. The Servant proclaims, ‘God says, it is too small a thing for you simply to be in the business of restoring the chosen people. I have raised you to be for all nations, for everyone, for the whole world.’

See how this is a Balint and Laszlo moment. God’s people are asked a simple question. ‘Do you want to enter a bigger story, or are you going to retreat into a smaller one?’ It’s a simple question, but it’s not an easy one to answer. It would be totally understandable to retreat into a smaller story, beleaguered, lost, isolated, fearful: we had God’s favour and blessing, and now we’ve lost land, king and temple, and our prospects are hopeless forever. The End. It’s truly extraordinary that at this of all moments God calls Israel to a bigger story. That’s what makes this such a remarkable point in the Old Testament. Israel is at its lowest ebb, and God is calling it to its highest vocation.

But we haven’t yet noted the most amazing thing of all about this foundational verse in Isaiah. Look how the announcement goes on. ‘I will give you as a light to the nations.’ That’s the new calling. And look what comes next. ‘That my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’ Well that all sounds very well and biblical. The Bible’s always talking about salvation and the ends of the earth. But there’s something indescribably important about one of these words. The word ‘salvation.’ Isaiah wasn’t writing in English. He was writing in Hebrew. And the Hebrew word translated here as ‘salvation’ is a very very important word. Perhaps the most important word in the whole Bible: Yeshua. The Hebrew name for Jesus.

Just take that in for a moment. Jesus is the name for what happens when God meets us in our pit of despair and lays upon us the highest vocation. Jesus is the name for what it means to discover our calling is not narrow and self-serving but broad enough to encompass the whole earth. Jesus is the name for what it means to be called beyond the smaller story of our lives to enter the bigger story of what God has prepared for us. Jesus is the name for what happens when God is revealed not as a protective master but as a selfless servant. Yeshua. Here at the centre of the Old Testament story, we discover Israel’s true calling, and we find Jesus – and we find the two are the same thing. Jesus is the name for the bigger story.

And that’s not just an amazing thing that happened 2500 years ago. It happens today. The Holy Spirit still says, ‘It’s too small a thing.’ The Holy Spirit still says it to those in despair, who’ve lost sight of their calling. The Holy Spirit still says it to those like Laszlo, who’re slipping into the smaller story. The Holy Spirit still does ‘Jesus moments’ when it weaves the discordant sound of the fire alarm into the larger melody of God’s ultimate purpose. Maybe the Holy Spirit’s saying it to you, right now. I wonder the significance of those words: ‘It is too small a thing.’ Can you identify with Laszlo – maybe there was a vision, and through circumstance, health, disappointment or hurt you’ve ended up losing sight of the bigger story. Isaiah 49’s telling you this is precisely the moment you hear your true calling. Maybe you can identify with Balint, and you do have your eyes set on the bigger story, but could easily lose your way or be drawn into a smaller story.

And look how Israel’s story, Jesus’ story and your story all converge at the moment of Jesus’ baptism. Jesus is at the Jordan, the threshold where Israel meets the nations. Like the servant of Isaiah, he hears a voice. And he hears his calling. He is a precious child. He is beloved. He is utterly enjoyed. He isn’t just taking God’s people into a bigger story. He is that bigger story. Every time we’re invited into a bigger story, that story’s called Jesus, and we’re not alone in that story, because he’s the one inviting us.

Just imagine you’re in a different version of that improvisation game, and it’s not an indescribable nightmare of facing the governors, but the most glorious experience imaginable. Because you enter one room and it’s a bigger story than the last room, and your companions are more precious and wondrous than before, and then you enter an even bigger story, and on and on, and you realise this is called going from glory to glory. What is that smaller story you need to move beyond? At his baptism, God says to Israel, and Jesus says to us, ‘It is too small a thing: join me in a bigger story.’