Homily for January 26th, 2018: Mark 24: 26-34.
“Without parables [Jesus] did not
speak to them,” Mark tells us. Why do you suppose Jesus chose parables as his
favorite form of teaching? Well, who doesn’t like a good story? Stories have a
universal appeal: to young children, but also to adults. But there is another
reason why Jesus chose to teach through stories. Because stories are much
easier to understand than abstract explanations. In his book, Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI
writes: “Every teacher who wants to communicate new knowledge to his listeners
naturally makes constant use of example or parable. ... By means of parable he
brings something distant within their reach so that, using the parable as a
bridge, they can arrive at what was previously unknown.”
Today’s
gospel contains two parables. The first tells us that God’s kingdom is like
seed that a farmer sows in the ground. It grows secretly. Most of God’s work is like that. We grow discouraged
because our efforts to build and grow God’s kingdom seem to bear so little
fruit – or none at all. Unknown to us, however, and unseen, God is powerfully
at work. One day – if not in this world, then at least in the next – we shall
witness the result of this secret growth: fruit as astonishing as the enormous
bush that grows from the tiniest of seeds.
Teach us
then, good Lord, to trust always in you: to give and not to count the cost; to
fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to look for any reward, but
that of knowing that we do your will. All this we ask in the name of your dear
Son, who died that we might live; and who now lives with you in the unity of
the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
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