Proper 6 -- Ezekiel 17: 22-24; Psalm 20; II
Corinthians 5: 6-17; Mark 4: 26-34
A
homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given
at St. John’s Church, in Huntingdon,
Pennsylvania, on Sunday, June 14, 2015.
“THE
KINGDOM COMES AND GROWS”
(Homily text:
Mark 4: 26-34)
At one point in my priestly
ministry, I was a volunteer chaplain at three different hospitals. In two of the hospitals, the entire chaplain
corps was staffed by volunteers. But in
the third one, there was a full time chaplain who was on the hospital’s staff,
and this individual happened to be an ordained minister from an evangelical
denomination. (The fact that this
individual was a paid employee of a Roman Catholic hospital always fascinated me….he
was wonderful in his work in every respect, and the hospital regarded him very
highly).
One day, I came in to be the
on-call, volunteer chaplain, and we got to talking before I made my
rounds. He said that it was time for him
to fill out a routine report that he had to do for his denomination
periodically, and the report asked him how many people he had led to the Lord (had
gotten saved) during the reporting period.
Then he said something like, “I always struggle to fill out this report,
because the kind of work I do here at the hospital doesn’t always lead to
people making professions of faith in the Lord.”
I’ve reflected a lot on the
chaplain’s comments over the years. One
thing that arises out of this reflection is that the kingdom of God grows in
various ways. The chaplain’s comment
touches on two of those ways:
· One is dramatic, such as when a person
comes to faith in the Lord and professes a conversion experience. Oftentimes, such an event is noticeable and
perhaps even quite sudden. A person
who’s had a conversion experience like that can often name the date, the time,
and the place and circumstances of their salvation experience.
· Another way the kingdom grows is by
quiet and steady work, as a person shares the love of Christ in acts of
caring. That’s the kind of work my
chaplain friend was engaged in: Quiet, steady caring for those in need, caring
which was rooted in a deep love for God and for people.
In today’s gospel reading, we hear
two short parables about the kingdom of God. In the first one, Jesus likens the
kingdom to the planting of seed, which sprouts without outside assistance, all
on its own (verses 26 – 29). Jesus says that the seed grows “by
itself”. In the second parable, Jesus
assures His listeners that the kingdom of God will grow from its small
beginnings into a mighty reality (verses 30 – 32). The Lord uses another agricultural image –
that of a mustard seed – to illustrate the assured growth of the kingdom.
These two parables must have had a
lot of importance for Mark’s original audience.
They are important for Christians to hear today. Let’s take a moment to explore the
implications for each.
If it is true that Mark wrote his
gospel account to Christians in and around Rome shortly after the first
organized persecutions arose under the Emperor Nero (perhaps around the year 65
AD or so), then Mark might have been writing to a demoralized and depressed
Christian community. Perhaps these early
Christians could see no future for the spread of the gospel. Perhaps they saw only a future that involved
hardship, persecution and even death for being a follower of Jesus Christ.
If this assessment is true – and I
believe it is quite possible that it is accurate – then Mark might be passing
along Jesus’ teachings in order to give encouragement to these Christians. Mark might intend to remind them that the
kingdom’s growth is assured, even if challenges to its arrival and its growth
arise. That seems to be the point of the
first parable. The second parable seems
to encourage these early believers to see beyond the immediate circumstances of
their predicament in order that they might see that the kingdom will be, one
day, a mighty reality in the world.
If we reflect on our own
circumstances as Christian believers in the twenty-first century, it might seem
as though our faith life is lived out in somewhat similar circumstances to
those of the first century Christians living in and around Rome.
It is true that we do not face
outright persecution for our Christian faith like those early believers
did. Our Christian walk isn’t a matter
of literal life or death such as they faced.
But it’s just possible that we might think that there is little or no
future for the kingdom of God in the world in which we live. We might think that the kingdom of God won’t
ever amount to the great entity Jesus tells us will someday come into
being. After all, many people who are
alive today don’t seem to have much if any interest at all in the things of
God. Some people are even quite hostile
to the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Our situation is a lot like the
situation those first century Christians faced, absent the outright persecution
they endured.
Jesus’ parables, heard today, are
meant to give us hope, and to allow us to see the big picture of God’s plans
for the coming and establishment of His kingdom. Two truths attend the coming and the growth
of the kingdom: 1. The kingdom will come because God established
it and because God is the ultimate guarantor of its growth, and 2. Because of God’s power, the kingdom will
flourish until the point that it is mighty in its power and size.
So how do we fit into God’s
plans? Do we have a role to play, given
the fact that – as Jesus says – the kingdom will grow “by itself”?
It seems as though Jesus is spurring
His followers into action with the telling of these two parables. After all, the early Christians who were
living in Rome about the time Mark was writing down his gospel account had come
to faith through the living and the teaching of other Christians. We know that St. Paul made his way to Rome,
and we also can be reasonably sure that St. Peter made his way there, as well. (By tradition, both were martyred under
Nero’s reign, perhaps not long before Mark sat down to write his account.) Both of these great saints bolstered the
faith of those early Christians by their presence and their teaching.
In time, the faithfulness of
Christians, even to the point of martyrdom, conquered the Roman Empire. In
truth, the blood of the martyrs became the “seed of the Church”, as has been
said.
We, too, are called into action with
the hearing of these two parables. We
are called to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ by “word and example” as
our baptismal covenant calls us to do (see page 305 in the Book of Common
Prayer, 1979).
Proclaiming the Good News with the
words we speak might result in a dramatic and sudden growth of the kingdom, as
a new Christian comes to faith through our words, being born again.
Proclaiming the Good News by example
– by the way we live our lives - allows the kingdom of God to come, often
without our noticing that it is coming into being. This sort of growth is quiet, slow and sure.
Realizing that we have a role to
play in bringing about the arrival of the kingdom of God prevents us from
sitting on the sidelines, doing little or nothing to assist in God’s work of
bringing the kingdom to earth. It is
true that God is the designer and creator of the kingdom. But it is also true that God calls us to be a
part of His overall plan to redeem and rescue the world and its people by
bringing the kingdom into being.
AMEN.
