Proper 6 :: Ezekiel 17:22 – 24 / Psalm 92:1 – 4, 11 – 14 / II Corinthians 5:6 – 17 / Mark 4:26 – 34
This
is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, PA, by Fr. Gene Tucker, on
Sunday, June 13, 2021.
“GROWTH:
SMALL BEGINNINGS, GREAT ENDINGS”
(Homily
text: Mark 4:26 – 34)
Ever wonder about things in life,
often everyday things that might not catch or capture our attention, but if we
take a good, close look, appear to us to be mysteries? Take, for example, the
idea of planting a seed in the ground, then waiting for it to sprout and come
up from the soil, and then to mature into a grown plant. In reality, we can
understand the process by which the seed dies, then give way to new life, and then
to mature and full growth. But isn’t a part of that process beyond our
comprehension? For me it is, and perhaps, it is for you, too.
Just such a scenario is contained in
the two parables that Jesus told, contained in today’s appointed Gospel text.
In the first parable, a small seed is
planted, and then, without additional assistance or help, it grows. This
parable describes the initial growth cycle of a plant. The second parable
(often called the “Parable of the Mustard Seed”), describes the final product
of the planting of the small mustard seed.
Jesus often used commonly known
illustrations from everyday, common life, to point to the larger and deeper
realities of God’s plan, God’s rule, God’s kingdom. After all, in the time of
His earthly ministry, most people were either farmers, or were keepers of
animals of some sort. They would have been very familiar with such
illustrations.
The root meaning of the word “parable”
is to “place something alongside something else”. (That’s my paraphrase of the
meaning.) Jesus is, by describing the planting, growth and maturation process
found in agriculture placing a commonly known and encountered experience
alongside the less familiar business about God’s kingdom.
Having mentioned the word “kingdom”,
it might be good for us to pause for a moment to reflect on some of the widely
harbored desires of many of God’s people in the time that our Lord came among
us. It seems clear that many were looking for a deliverer, perhaps the
long-awaited Messiah, to come and usher in a new and golden age for God’s
people, and age that might look a whole lot like the golden age of Kings David
and Solomon, a time when Israel was secure and powerful and was the envy of
many who lived nearby.
And perhaps some who heard Jesus start
talking about a “kingdom” might have thought that perhaps He might be the one
to usher in that great and grand new kingdom of the kind that David and Solomon
presided over, nearly a thousand years before.
But Jesus offers a completely
different view of the coming kingdom.
For one thing, the kingdom has a
beginning, one provided by the sower of the seed. Ultimately, the one who sows
is God. But God is assisted in this work by Jesus. And, as we shall see, by
many others. (Stay tuned for a moment as we attempt to flesh out this idea.)
For another, the kingdom’s growth is
mysterious, and it seems to grow unaided.
Then, in the fullness of time, the
kingdom’s spread and its benefits are plain to see.
Returning to the idea of the parable
being something in which one idea is placed alongside another, let’s explore
the points we’ve just made a bit further.
If the ultimate creator of the kingdom
is God, then others, following Jesus’ example, assist in its creation as well.
To this list, we should add the Apostles, the Church Fathers, and all those,
great and small, who have planted the seeds of the kingdom in their own time
and place, down through history.
Then, those seeds will bear fruit. No,
not in ways that we – or those who planted in times past – might expect. After
all, it’s God’s design, not ours. Our role is to be faithful.
These two parables go hand-in-hand
with one another, for the Lord points to a large kingdom, one whose reach is
world-wide. We, as Christians in the twenty-first century, might lose sight of
the expansive vision of the kingdom’s reach, living in a post-Christian age as
we do.
Faithful living to God and to our Lord
calls us to be faithful in very small things. After all, it’s God’s place to
use our faithfulness to build the kingdom. The design of that kingdom isn’t
ours to dictate, that task belongs to God. So, in whatever small and seemingly
insignificant ways, ways that may seem unimportant or almost worthless in their
ability to build God’s kingdom, we are called to faithful seed scattering for
God’s sake and for the welfare of others.
AMEN.
