(Homily 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Yr. B)
At the heart of
today’s readings is the demonstration of the divine power and its force at work
in the history of the chosen people and in the life of all believers in Christ
Jesus. The image of God portrayed in the first reading and the Gospel
is that of a caring and provident God. In the prophecy of Ezekiel he
assured his people, “From the top of the tall cedar tree, from the highest
branch I shall take a shoot and I myself will plant it upon a high and lofty
mountain; on the mountain height of Israel will I plant it that it may bring
forth boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar” (Ez.17:22-23). He
is presented as the one who gives life and growth to what is planted, He makes
the seed scattered by a farmer in the Gospel to spring up and grow beyond the
knowledge of the farmer (Mk. 4:26-27). This is symbolic of
God’s graciousness in giving new life to those who believe in him, a new life
that is the prerequisite for entrance into the kingdom of Heaven. The
context for today’s overriding theme is agrarian, where new life
springs, grows and matures. Similarly, Jesus has sown his seed in our
hearts and off he went, like the farmer of the parable, and like every other
farmer, and the divine power shows its force always in assuring the growth of
his seed/word in us and the expansion of the Kingdom. As the Kingdom of God is
growing, we are invited to grow as well; to grow with the rest and the
best! The first reading and the Gospel remind us that like the plant,
planted by God himself, and like the seed that God gives life and growth, we
are in a state of becoming. Our state of becoming is two-dimensional: our
becoming as in our growth and maturity in God and our becoming part of that
great Kingdom, the second is predicated upon the first. Interestingly, the
second reading, serves as a revelation of the climax of our becoming, for on
the last day, we shall see the type of person we have become,
and that will give rise to a state of being, no longer becoming; a
state of being in and with God.
The first
reading (Ez. 17:22-24) is replete with meaningful symbolic
images and equally in line with the teaching of the parables. Indeed, during
the time of the fall of the Kingdom of Judah in 587 b.c., the dynasty of David,
on which the divine promises hinged and the hope of the people of Israel were
seemingly compromised. During this period the people of Israel were going
through a very difficult period of their history. Jehoiakim,
the last of the line of David, had been defeated and taken prisoner to
Babylon. This national disaster weakened the faith of many in Yahweh. They questioned about God’s promise that David and his
descendants would reign forever. Then, here begins our reading, the
prophet makes assurance of what seemed humanly impossible, God will do it: from the top of the cedar (that symbolizes the
dynasty of David) it will take a shoot (the Messiah), and he will plant it on
Mount Zion (which represents Jerusalem and the people of Israel), and “it will
put out branches and bear fruit and grow into a noble cedar tree. Every kind of
bird will live beneath it, every kind of winged creature will rest in the shade
of its branches” (v.23). That stands to indicate that the
Kingdom of the Messiah will be open to all peoples. All this will be
possible, only through the power of God, because the history of the chosen
people is in his hands. He is the Lord of history: “I am the Lord,
I have spoken and I will do it” (v.24).
Truly,
Jesus is David’s descendant par excellence, and he is kingdom
personified (Auto-Basilea). The birds and the winged creatures
represent the people of the earth who will find shade and dwelling in the Him
and in the Christian community. In all, this reading invites us to keep
on believing in God, mainly when our expectations seem to come to nothing and
our hopes dashed. No doubt, prophet Ezekiel desires to transmit a strong
message of trust and hope to the people of Israel exiled in Babylon. And to us
today, it reminds us of the need to remain focused in God and his promises,
even when trials and difficulties seem to uproot our root in God, even when the
foundation of our faith is shaky, let us not rely on human means and
possibilities, but on the power of God, who realizes his words.
The
Gospel of today (Mark 4: 26-34) invites us to reflect on the
two popular parables of Jesus, drawn as usual from the agrarian context. He
used the scene of the reality of everyday life experience, to explain
transcendent truths: the parable of the seed that germinates and grows
on its own and that of the mustard seed. He used them to explain some
paradoxical aspects of the Kingdom of God. In the
first parable Jesus shows the miracle of growth, which
describes the dynamics of sowing. The seed is sown in the earth, then
without the farmers knowledge and effort, it springs up and grows by
itself. The experience of life in the field reveals that man does nothing
but sowing and waiting. We are in front of the mystery of creation,
God's action in history which we must contemplate in amazement. He is the
Lord of the Kingdom, man is a humble collaborator contemplating and
rejoicing of God's creative act and waiting for the harvest eager to
participate in it. In the second parable Jesus speaks of the mustard seed,
which is the smallest of all the seed, but when it grows it becomes a very
large tree, and he likened it to the development and expansion of God’s
kingdom. Irrespective of the fact that the mustard seed is the smallest
seed, it has an unthinkable dynamism and power of life. The
mustard seed becomes a high and robust shrub, able to give shelter in its
branches to the birds. Similarly, the Kingdom of God, from a human point
of view, may appear small, but it contains within itself the mystery of a
prodigious divine force that is unimaginable. Extrapolating
from this passage, it behooves us to affirm that the Gospel is a school
that educates us to the value of waiting. As
such, in the Gospel we can gather images of the value of waiting by which
we can learn how to live the "already and not yet", the
paradoxical waiting of the Christian life.
Be
that as it may, one could ask the reason behind the two parables? And from all
indications it does appear at that point in time, the ministry of Jesus was
encountering difficulties and incomprehension (cf. Mk. 3:22-30), with
the consequence of exposing the apostles and the disciples to pessimism and
discouragement. Jesus intended to hearten them, and thus with the
parable of the seed that grows on its own he teaches that the Kingdom of God
grows irrespective of many in-comprehensions and difficulties. It is not man
that gives success to the growth of God’s word and Kingdom. There is need to
adopt the virtue of patience, for the word of God in its own time will produce
good fruits (cf. Is. 55:11). The word of God is to be
proclaimed with trust, courage and perseverance, then it follows its course,
and in accordance to God’s time too. With the parable of the Mustard seed,
Jesus intends to teach us that the Kingdom of God, the work of salvation begins
in a modest way, and later grows into a magnificent reality, such that it has
the capacity to contain people from all walks of life. This is not as a result
of human capacity or organization, but through the power of God.
Furthermore, the parable reawakens in us the consciousness to take
serious the present time, the here and now. The parable thus, serves
as an invitation to rediscover the value of trust in God, but also
a reminder to remain committed to the Kingdom-cause. From the
beginning of his ministry, Jesus announced that this is the aim of his
mission (Mk.1:14). He inaugurates and established the Kingdom,
teaching also that the kingdom of God will grow and mature, but that it will
reach full manifestation, only at the end, with his glorious coming (1Cor.
15:24).
The
second reading (2Cor. 5:6-10) is in conformity with the Gospel
and the first reading. The central message is an invitation to a greater trust,
in the words of St. Paul: “we are always filled with trust”, notwithstanding
all the difficulties of the apostolic ministry. St. Paul was getting old, and
beginning to feel weary, in fact, the many sufferings and
persecutions he passed through had left their marks on him. Little
wonder, at the beginning of the reading we see Paul’s famous
spiritual saying delineating the Christian life as a journey “we walk
by faith and not by sight” (v.7). It is a journey towards God,
for this he talks about leaving the body.
Drawing
the issue further, as evident in the first reading and the Gospel, it is God
who takes a sprig from the cedar to plant it, it is he who makes the seed to
germinate on its own and makes the mustard seed to grow, who gives growth and
increase to his Kingdom. Be that as it may, this providential gesture of God,
should serve as an invitation to a commitment for a coherent Christian life, in
the continuous effort to do what is pleasing to Him (v.9). It
equally serves as a reminder to rediscover the sense of responsibility, with
the consciousness that “at the judgement seat of Christ we are all to be seen
for what we are, so that each of us may receive what he has deserved in the
body, matched to whatever he has done, good or bad” (v.10). Indeed, at
his judgement seat, our spiritual developmental journey of ‘becoming’ assumes
the reality of ‘being’, being in and with Christ, for we shall see him face
to face (cf. 1Cor. 13:12)
In
all, that God sees to the growth and expansion of his Kingdom does not mean
that we have to be passive spectators. We are called to cooperate with the
grace of God. If we love and live in a way pleasing to God, we will
make the world a “Little Heaven”. Predicated upon that, the question
we have to ask ourselves today is: how am i contributing to the growth and
expansion of God’s Kingdom, in our life and in the world around us? If you show
love, respect others and desist from whatever is evil, in fact, in few words,
if you live in a way pleasing to God, then God is near to you, and the nearness
of God is the nearness of his kingdom. God our Father, as you continue to
ensure the growth of your kingdom, we pray you to sow the divine seed in us, so
that we may grow to the full stature of perfection, worthy of your kingdom!
Give us the grace to work for the growth and expansion of your Kingdom around
us, so that our families and our societies will become “little heavens” at the
imitation of your Eternal Kingdom! Amen!!!
(Fr. Vitus Chigozie, SC)
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