THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY

11^TH Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. Ezek. 17:22-24; 1 Cor. 5:6-10;

        Mark 4:26-34.

AIM: To counter discouragement by reminding the hearers of God’s power.

 

          “This is how it is with the kingdom of God.” Jesus says in the gospel reading we have just heard. What does he mean? What is this “kingdom of God” that we hear so much about in the gospels?

          God’s kingdom denotes a world in which those sayings of Jesus that we call the Beatitudes are fulfilled; where the sorrowful are consoled, the meek inherit the earth, those who hunger and thirst for justice are satisfied; where the merciful experience the mercy they have shown to others, the pure hearted see God, the peacemakers are known as God’s daughters and sons, and those who previously were persecuted for the cause of right are finally vindicated. (See Mat. 5:3-10)

          People have dreamed of such a world from the dawn of history. The Bible calls it God’s kingdom and describes it in parables. We heard one in our first reading. When God’s kingdom comes, Ezekiel said there, God would take the weakest and most delicate shoot from one of the mighty cedar trees of Lebanon and make of it a tree more noble than all the rest. “It shall put forth branches and bear fruit . . . Birds of every kind shall dwell beneath it.”

          Because such a thing was, by all normal standards, impossible, when it happened everyone would recognize it as God’s work, Ezekiel declared. “All the trees of the field shall know that I, the Lord, bring low the high tree, lift high the lowly tree …and make the withered tree bloom.”

          Ezekiel’s parable was a message of hope to his dispirited countrymen in exile in Babylon. Like one of the lofty Lebanon cedars felled by the woodsman’s axe, their once mighty nation had been cut down. Humanly speaking, there was no hope that it could ever be restored. Yet God would bring his people back again to their own land, in his own time and in his own way. He would take the most delicate shoot from the fallen tree and make of it a great nation.

          Jesus’ parable in our gospel reading about the tiny mustard seed that “springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade” builds on the foundation laid by Ezekiel. Like him, Jesus was speaking to people who were dispirited and without hope.

          Jesus began his public ministry in this gospel according to Mark by announcing that God’s long awaited kingdom had arrived (cf. 1:15). What actually came, however, fell far short of the divine kingdom foretold by Ezekiel and the other prophets. Jesus’ followers were unimpressive: a small band of lowly fishermen with little education and less influence. The upright pillars of the establishment held both Jesus and his followers in open contempt: “This man receives sinners and eats with them,” they complained (Mk 2:16). How could anyone take seriously the claim of this self-appointed rabbi from Nazareth that he, of all people, had come to announce the arrival of God’s kingdom of justice and peace?

          The parable of the great bush growing from a tiny mustard seed was Jesus’ response to his critics. It also contained a message of hope for those followers of Jesus who were starting to suspect that his critics might be right. The kingdom he had come to proclaim, Jesus said, could no more be judged by its admittedly humble beginnings than one could draw from inspection of a tiny mustard seed a picture of the great shrub which it would produce. 

          Jesus’ other parable, of the seed growing secretly, is similar. Once the farmer casts his seed into the ground, he can do nothing to promote or hasten its growth. The process of germination and development takes place without his help, without his knowledge even. Having sown his seed, the farmer sleeps and rises night and day “and through it all the seed sprouts and grows, he knows not how.” Jesus addressed this parable to those among his followers who were disillusioned because he was not the powerful and glamorous hero they expected God’s Messiah to be. Why didn’t he act, they asked? Why didn’t he lead a revolution to overthrow the hated Roman military government of occupation?

To all such doubters Jesus was saying: “Look at the farmer. He waits patiently for the time of harvest. God’s harvest is coming too, God’s hour. He has made the decisive beginning. I have sown the seed. Because it is God’s seed, the harvest is certain.’

Was it only in Jesus’ day that his followers had doubts? How much of the Church’s work today seems to be an exercise in futility. No wonder many grow discouraged, disillusioned, and cynical. Doesn’t the state of the Church today give every reason for discouragement and cynicism?

Those of us old enough to remember Pope John XXIII, who is now Saint John XXIII, know that the answer to those questions is No. It is reported that “good Pope John,” as we was called even in his lifetime, liked to conclude his night prayers by saying: “It’s your Church, Lord. I’m going to bed.” How wise that is. If the Church is God’s and not ours (and it is), then the success of failure of the Church’s work is not determined by us. Today, no less than in Jesus’ lifetime, it is he, the Lord, who sows the seed. It is he who will bring it to fruition. Our task is to be patient, as Jesus was patient; to remain serenely confident, as Jesus remained confident even till his final hour on Calvary. There it was Jesus and not his enemies who spoke the last word – a word not of defeat but of victory: “It is finished” (John 19:30).

Here in the Eucharist we have with us the One who spoke that word. Here his finished work is celebrated and made available to us: the work of proclaiming and bringing in God’s kingdom. Here we who in baptism became citizens of that kingdom enjoy its fruits: forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with the One those sins have offended, and with each other; love, joy, and the Lord’s peace. Here we can repeat Paul’s words in our second reading: “We walk by faith, not by sight.”