Ezekiel 17:22-24; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-34 There was once a man who
felt discouraged. He took stock of the plans and resolutions he had made the previous
year. Nothing in his life had changed. He was the same person with the same problems
although he had worked hard and tried a lot. He lost all hope. So he went to speak
to his Rabbi. The Rabbi asked him “do you know how long it takes for a Giant Chinese
bamboo to grow as tall as a building? During the first year the seed is watered and
fertilized... and nothing happens. It is watered and fertilized for another whole
year. Another year… and another... still nothing happens. Then in the fifth year it
shoots up to the sky. In six weeks the bamboo grows to 90 feet! So how long does it
take to grow that high? “Six weeks” the man replied. “That’s your mistake.. It takes
five years” said the Rabbi. “If the farmer would have been discouraged and stopped
watering the plant at any point during those five years, it would have died. What
was happening during all those years? Underneath the ground an enormous network of
roots was developing to support the bamboo’s sudden growth. Growth takes patience
and perseverance. Every drop of water makes a difference. Every step you take makes
an impact. You may not see the change right away, but growth is happening. With commitment
and drive to attain our goals, with patience and perseverance and with God’s help
you will eventually break through and reach great heights.” God is our Father
and he has planned a plan for each one of us and like a good father dreams a dream
for us. He has made us his chosen people and has showered plentiful blessing son us.
He is a benevolent Father who cares for his children. St John tells us that God has
loved us so much that he sent his only son for our sake that we may have life through
him. God works in every human person as he would work in nature. We can see how God
cares for each single item of his creation and builds into it his own presence and
action. He manifests himself to us in divine way so that we may understand his benevolence.
In the first reading from the book of Ezekiel we see the initiative of God towards
the wellbeing of his people. He causes a small shoot to grow into a mighty tree. Planted
on a high mountain, it struck roots and grew into a majestic tree that gives the picture
of the people of Israel how they turned into a great nation. In the second reading
Paul expresses his constant aim of his life is to please God. He talks to the Corinthian
community of becoming a New Creation for Christ. In the Gospel of today we have two
parables concerning the growth of the Kingdom of God. He uses the image of the seed
and the plant indicating how the Kingdom that he is proclaiming would grow quietly
as every farmer would experience. It is a call to belong to the kingdom of God, who
calls us to put oneself fully, consciously and deliberately under the power of God,
to experience that power and be empowered by it. In the first reading taken from
the prophet Ezekiel we find a beautiful passage that talks of how God will restore
Israel to himself. Ezekiel was writing during the time of the fall of the Temple
and the Babylonian exile. He was the priest of the Temple of Jerusalem and his writing
reflects experiences in exile and upon return to Jerusalem. In this passage, he's
writing about God's power and attributing all, good and bad, to the power of God.
He denounces the sins of Israel which brought on the exile. He foretold greater misfortunes
still for Judah, telling them the Jerusalem and the Temple would be destroyed by the
Babylonians and people will be taken into exile. They had deserted Yahweh but their
God who loves them so much will not desert them. He speaks of the better days to
come when God would take back his people once more and dwell in their midst forever.
The Prophet places before them the messianic prophesy in which God says that God will
raise up a descendent, a sprig from the lofty cedar of David, who will be the glory
of Israel. Planted by God himself, this tree will be a mighty tree. There, under
the watchful care of God, the shoot would grow into a mighty tree and extend its branches
in welcome to every winged thing. God has promised Israel the messianic restoration
and God will keep his promise. In his letter to the people of Corinth, Paul does
not directly use imagery of Growth from nature. He is talking of followers of Christ
becoming more and more and more like Christ as the days go by. He talks of becoming
a New Creation. This idea of "new creation" is an old one in the tradition which
formed Paul. That new creation represents all sorts of potential for change for the
better in this case. In this passage Paul tells the Corinthians that his constant
desire and motive in life is to please God. In this he wants them to imitate him.
While on earth this is his aim and when he goes to God in heaven this will be his
purpose and his delight. The Apostle reminds his readers that, at the end of this
life on earth, God, who will replace our earthly tent or body with a heavenly or spiritual
body, will also hold each person accountable for the life they have lived in the body.
Paul’s faith is such that even though he is living on earth, yet he is certain of
heaven that depression or despair has no place in his mind. While living in this
world we are separated from the Lord who is in heaven. We live our daily lives, faithful
to God and we know in faith that we are moving ever nearer to the day when we shall
be with God. He promises the community that God is infinitely merciful to us while
on earth. If we imitate Paul in the following of Christ we have nothing to be afraid
of. If a person in his foolish pride rejects God’s offer and settles for paltry things,
then he alone is the loser. What is expected of us is to live our daily lives honestly
and faithfully. When Jesus spoke to the people about the Kingdom that he was going
to establish he generally used stories or parables to illustrate the obvious facts
and explain the truths contained in it. His reason was because the minds of the people
were centered on the worldly kingdom they saw and glory and power it contained. Parables
are specific literary forms, told for a particular religious or ethical purpose in
order to provoke thought and challenge their hearers to decisive action. Every parable
has two levels of meaning, the literal meaning and the tropical or figurative meaning
to deduce the true and deeper lesson. The people waited for political messiah who
would free them from the Roman rule and bring them freedom by providing for them their
own empire. Jesus had to clear this wrong idea from their minds. In the meantime he
described the Kingdom he was founding in a way that they would later understand.
His stories and parables are taken from the everyday life of the Palestinian people
and concern, farmers, fishermen, shepherds, and housewives. Today’s two parables
are taken from the everyday agricultural experience. The Kingdom he was founding
will grow and progress in a quiet way without drawing any attention from others, with
no rebellion, no war, no uproar or any turmoil manifested in it. It will grow from
the smallest beginnings but will become so great that the birds of the air, indicating
the people of the earth, will flock to it for food and care. While this kingdom would
give total protection to the person, it will also show the concern and understanding
the Lord has for his people. When Mark put today’s two parables into writing, he
had seen the death of two great apostles of Rome, Peter and Paul. The Parusia or the
second coming of Jesus they were expecting had not come as yet. Nero blamed the Christians
for the burning of Rome and the faith of the Christians was at a risk. The parables
of Jesus given today provide an insight of the Kingdom of Jesus to the early church,
as it gives to us today and explains its growth. Here in the Gospel, Jesus is giving
an image of that kingship or power of God at work. He compares it to the situation
of a farmer planting seed on his land. The parable of the seed on the surface tells
us of nature’s mysteries of life and of growth. There is nothing as powerful as nature’s
growth. Jesus says that night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed
is sprouting and growing; how he does not know." Jesus goes on to say: "Of its own
accord the land produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the
ear. The seed that the farmer has sown on the ground sprouts, grows, forms leaves,
and gets itself ready to produce, with no one understanding exactly how it happens.
The farmer does provide his external help by watering, fertilizing, weeding and driving
away birds that may destroy the crop. Jesus goes on telling them that without anyone’s
direct knowledge the land produces its fruit. When the crop is ready, he loses no
time: he starts to reap because the harvest has come. The picture is clear: the
building of the kingdom is God's work. We see the growth of things in nature is often
not perceptible. We can see them with periodic observance of the things that are planted
or by returning at intervals. It is the same way with the Kingdom of God. It goes
on growing whether we are working with it or not; whether we are aware of it or not.
It will not be frustrated by any opposition or passivity on our part. We can see
evidence of that in the way that the Christian faith has survived over the past 2,000
years. Some people, some governments and other powerful agencies have done their utmost
to obliterate Christianity from the area under their control. They have inevitably
failed. The reason is that the values that the Kingdom stands for (which are also
the same values that the Church stands for) are so totally in harmony with the nature
of things and the deepest aspirations of the human person that no intervening force
can neutralize them for any length of time. And this nature and these aspirations
come, of course, from their origin and creator – God. So, while the outcome of the
kingdom is inevitable, it is important that each one of us identify fully with it.
The kingdom grows quietly without anyone being aware of it. It is the working of
the Spirit that makes the growth possible. Jesus gives another image of the Kingdom.
Here he gives his equally brief, simple and homely parable of the mustard seed which
he calls the smallest of all the seeds of the earth. It is in reality not the smallest
but proverbially so in Palestine during the time of Jesus it was considered to be
so. Here the image is not on the inevitability of growth but of how the Kingdom emerges
from tiny beginnings. As in the first parable it contains several points. Here it
is smallness against something very large. One begins with the observation that the
tiny mustard seed grows into a very large shrub that has large branches, so big that
it can provide shelter for birds under its shade. This is clearly a parable of encouragement.
We need to remember that when these words were written the Church was still relatively
small. It consisted of tiny communities scattered in cities, towns and villages all
over the Mediterranean area. Without the communications media which we take for granted
today they were to a large extent cut off from each other much of the time. In addition
to that, they were often subject to savage persecution. It would be perfectly natural
for them to wonder if they could survive into the future. They were like tiny mustards
seeds. Yet, given time, this tiny seed will grow into a plant so large that birds
can nest in it. Despite its insignificant beginnings Christ’s Kingdom has grown tremendously,
and will continue to grow. It too reaches far out giving shelter to all races and
nations of people. That vision, given the adverse circumstances in which the Gospel
was written, was an enormous vote of confidence in the Church and the future of the
Kingdom. Truly, the Kingdom of God in today’s two parables is seen as the rule of
God in the lives of people and the way in which God works among us. Today's parable
assures the readers of the Gospel that, like the mustard seed, they can grow. How
surprised those early Christians would be to see the Church today. We can visualize
how the mustard seed has grown in the world of today. Christians number well over
one billion people now, a figure not even conceivable in olden times. The Gospel's
confidence was not misplaced. At the same time Jesus tells us through the parable
that we should never be daunted by small beginnings. As with little mustard seed that
eventually grows into a large bush, we need patience and participation. We sometimes
feel that our little contribution makes no difference. But it does as it is manifested
the way we speak, doing a small act of kindness, giving a friendly smile, supporting
the people at a good cause and every bit we contribute provides good results. One
of the proofs of the divine origin of the church of Jesus is its growth from its very
humble beginnings. Being God, Christ could have come in different ways and preached
the whole world without any hindrance and without any human help. He could have transformed
the world through extra-ordinary miracles. He could have chosen brilliant persons
and not simple ordinary fishermen, tax collectors, freedom fighters, to be his followers.
Instead he chose to come into the world as a little baby, the son of a poor mother
and a carpenter foster father. He was born in a stable, forced to hide into pagan
Egypt to protect himself from an enemy, lived thirty years in an unknown village in
poverty, and earned his daily bread by hard work. For the last three years of his
life he went round Palestine teaching and healing, often weary, hungry and footsore,
preaching the good news of redemption. When the time came for him to lay down his
life for his people, he allowed his enemies to capture him and condemn him to the
death on the cross. There on the cross he was declared a king but beaten, crushed
and crucified. These were surely the humble beginnings for a kingdom which was to
span the earth and the ages. The small mustard seed did indeed succeed as per God’s
plan. It was not the eloquence of the apostles or their gift of persuasion, or their
learning that led the pagan world to Christ. It is grace of the Holy Spirit and the
objective of Gospel truth that brought the change and transformation. Today as we
reflect on the word of God and respond to the call of God we remember the humility
and smallness of the mustard seed. Let us come close to Jesus to give our contribution
to the growth of this Kingdom.