11th. Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
Mark 4:26-34

XI6

Jesus said to the crowds: ‘This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man throws seed on the land. Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting and growing; how, he does not know. Of its own accord the land produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the crop is ready, he loses no time: he starts to reap because the harvest has come.’
He also said, ‘What can we say the kingdom of God is like? What parable can we find for it? It is like a mustard seed which at the time of its sowing in the soil is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet once it is sown it grows into the biggest shrub of them all and puts out big branches so that the birds of the air can shelter in its shade.’
Using many parables like these, he spoke the word to them, so far as they were capable of understanding it. He would not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything to his disciples when they were alone.

WITH HUMILITY AND TRUST
by José Antonio Pagola

Jesus was concerned that his followers would end up one day discouraged to see that their efforts toward a more human and happy world didn’t reach the success they hoped for. Would they go ahead and forget about God’s reign? Would they maintain their trust in the Father? What’s most important is that they never forget how they must work.

With examples taken from the experience of Galilean farmers, he encourages them to work always realistically, patiently, and fully trusting. It’s not possible to open up paths to God’s reign in just any manner. They need to focus on how Jesus works.

Right at the start they need to know that their task is to sow, not harvest. They shouldn’t go about looking for results. They mustn’t worry about the efficacy or the immediate success. Their attention will be centered on sowing the Gospel well. Jesus’ coworkers need to be sowers. Nothing more.

After centuries of religious expansion and great social power, we Christians must recover in the Church the humble action of the sower. Forget the logic of the harvester, who always goes forth gathering the fruits, and enter into the patient logic of one who sows a better future.

The beginnings of every sowing are always humble. All the more if we’re talking about sowing God’s project in human beings. The power of the Gospel is never something spectacular or noisy. According to Jesus, it’s like sowing something so small and insignificant like «a mustard seed», which germinates secretly in people’s hearts.

That’s why the Gospel can only be sown with faith. That’s what Jesus wants to help them see by means of his short parables. God’s project of making a more human world carries within it a saving and transforming power that doesn’t depend on the sower. When the Good News of that God penetrates in a person or in a group of people, that’s where something begins to grow that is way beyond ourselves.

In the Church we don’t know right then how to act in this new and unheard of situation, in the midst of a society every day more indifferent and nihilistic. No one has the recipe. No one knows exactly what to do.  What we need to do is to seek new paths with the humility and the trust of Jesus.

Sooner or later, we Christians will feel the need to return to what’s essential. We will discover that only the power of Jesus can regenerate faith in the de-Christianized society of our day. Then we will learn to sow the Gospel with humility as the start of a renewed faith, not transmitted by our own pastoral efforts, but begotten by him.

José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
http://www.feadulta.com

Upon awakening we look at the ripe ears
by Fernando Armellini

Introduction

We have the impression of witnessing a rapid decline of Christian values. We see man trying to get rid of the idea of God, placing himself as the ultimate point of reference, as the measure of all things. He makes himself the arbiter of good and bad, absolutizes the realities of this world, and retains the faith as almost an obsolete aspect of life. This is secularism, a phenomenon that has remote historical roots, but has reached its heyday in our time. How so?

In the search for causes, there are those who attribute responsibility to the increasingly fearful priests. They avoid to recall those truths which, in the past, when the churches were full of worshipers, were the recurring themes of catechesis: the judgment of God, eternal condemnation, the devil, the punishments.

The truth is otherwise: today we are paying for the consequences of evangelization and catechesis which—without wanting to apportion the blame to willing preachers and catechists of the past—was unrelated to the word of God.

The future is in our hands. The church has regained consciousness of the treasure that the Master gave: the Word, seed is waiting to be spread throughout the world in abundance, so that faith may reflourish on new bases and on a sure foundation.

Who today, with difficulty, is spreading around the world this precious seed, will not see the ripe ears, but at least the stem, yes, he can ask the Lord to be able to see it.

Gospel Reflection

Can the growth of God’s Kingdom be accelerated?

Jesus responds to this question with a short parable. A little gem, conserved for us by Mark, is the first part of today’s gospel (vv. 26-29).

It is divided into three parts of different extent, corresponding to the three phases of agricultural work: the sowing (v. 26), the growth of the seed (vv. 27-28), the harvest (v. 29).

The first and the third, that is, in which the work of the farmer is described, are minimized, “he scatters the seed upon the soil” (v. 26) and “he takes the sickle” (v. 29), nothing else.

The central one which occupies two-thirds of the parable is much more developed. The narrator clearly wants to draw all the attention on the time of growth. For this, he forcefully avoids emphasizing the work of the farmer and deliberately ignores activities that these normally do even after sowing: protection, re-cleaning, irrigation of fields. Jesus is anxious to emphasize one thing: the irresistible force of the seed that, when thrown into the ground, grows by itself.

Of the first part of the parable (v. 26) we note a detail: the evangelist does not use the technical term to sow, but tells about a man who scatters the seed, making the almost perceptible farmer’s joyful sweep of the arms and abundantly spreading everywhere the precious beans. The Gospel message should be spread in this way, in profusion and should be launched on earth, not in a defined and limited field, but everywhere, in the entire world. It is the invitation to overcome any exclusivism; no people can keep God’s blessings to itself.

The time for man to stop working comes after the planting season (vv. 27-28). Days and nights follow and the farmer sleeps and keeps watch without being able to intervene in the growth. It is useless to do something, to be restless or worried, the process in place is no longer dependent on him; if he agitates, enters in the field, he’ll provoke trouble, trampling and destroying the tender shoots. He should do nothing but wait. In fact, in silence and in an almost imperceptible way, the miracles starts: the seed sprouts from the earth.

The description of the growth is accurate: the green and tender stem appears first, then the ear and the mature grain. It’s a development that amazes and delights, but cannot be forced. It takes time and patience.

The assimilation of the Gospel message is not immediate; man’s work of inner transformation takes days and years. However, once it has penetrated into the heart, the word of Christ sets up an unstoppable dynamism, although slow. Who has not heard it remains the same.

Discouragement is one of the most common temptations of the apostles of the Gospel. They are often battered if they do not immediately notice some concrete results of their preaching.

The message of the parable is addressed especially to them. If they are certain of having announced the authentic message of Christ, if they have not confused it with the wisdom of this world, if they have not enfeebled the explosive force with the addition of a pinch of good human sense, they must cultivate the deep certainty that the fruits will be abundant.

The season and the abundance of the harvest does not depend on them, but from the ground, more or less fruitful, in which the seed of the word fell.

Paul is the model preacher Paul who declared to the Corinthians: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow” (1 Cor 3:6).

The maturation process should be respected. Who wants to speed it runs the risk of getting caught by frenzy; he is convinced of being able to substitute his own action to that of the Spirit. If he intervenes, he may easily lose control and also uses unfair methods, makes use of coercion, not respecting freedom, bringing into action psychological blackmail.

Those who, since the time of St. Augustine, have come to justify the recourse to the sword to force the conversion, are proving to what aberrations the lack of respect of times of the seeds’ growth lead.

The parable challenges all, parents, educators, leaders of the Christian community who, despite the best of intentions, let themselves be taken by impatience, haste, efficiency, getting, as one result, to appear irritating, aggressive, intolerant.

Most of the recommendations of the masters of spiritual life consist of pressing invitations to commitment, tireless activity, to feverish work. Today’s Gospel recalls another aspect, just as important. There are times when one needs to “sleep”, that is, knowing how to wait, stay calm and to sit and amazingly contemplate the seed sprouts and grows by itself. The fruits will certainly be beyond all expectations. Who is not convinced of this has no faith in the prodigious strength of the word of Christ.

The second parable (vv. 30-32) is also taken from the experience of life in the fields. The farmer sees every day small seeds disappear into the ground and reborn to become stems, shrubs and even large trees.

It is this amazing contrast between the smallness of the beginnings and the greatness of the results that Jesus seeks to highlight the parable of the mustard seed that, according to popular opinion, was the smallest of all seeds. The wonder stemmed from the realization that, from an almost invisible grain, it sprouted and grew, in one season, into a shrub that even today along the shores of Lake Galilee can reach three feet tall.

With this parable, Jesus did not intend to make predictions about the future triumphs of the church that, built by some poor fishermen, would become a solid institution, influential, able to inspire awe and respect even to the holders of political power. The development of the kingdom of God is not evaluated with statistics because, as reported by Luke, one cannot see or quantify; it is located within every man (Lk 17:21).

The seed of the kingdom of God is always small and devoid of the glory of this world; the effects it produces exceeds instead all expectations and in the parable they are presented through images taken from the Old Testament.

The luxuriant growth of the tree evokes the exuberance of life, the fullness of success. Ezekiel compares Assyria, arrived at the apex of power, to a “cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches providing forest shade, with its top among the clouds. It is higher than all other trees of the field” (Ez 31:3-5).

The shadow that depends on the burning rays of the sun is a metaphor of the protection offered by the kingdom of God to those who enter it (Ps 91:1).

Even the image of the birds that nest is often found in the Old Testament (Ez 31:6); it represents those who, having given full confidence in the word of God, build their nests in the house of the Lord (Ps 84:4), that is, they set life in harmony with the Gospel values. They will experience the bliss, peace, the fullness of love, the shelter of the shadow offered by the Most High (Ps 91:1).

The parable is an invitation to consider the reality with the eyes of God. People give value to what is great and what appears; they judge the successes and failures of the people according to the accumulated money, the power position reached, titles of honor, prestige and fame. Jesus overturned the scale of values: “Whoever becomes lowly like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:4).

Only those who will be made as small as a mustard seed will become “like a tree beside a brook producing its fruit in due season, its leaves never withering” (Ps 1:3).

The parable wants to infuse joy and optimism. One day the wonders worked by God will appear to all through those who, like his Son, will make themselves meek and humble servants of all.

Of the entire Christian message, this is certainly the most difficult to digest. It is no wonder that not everyone can understand it. Nay more it remains an unresolved enigma, not because they do not understand its meaning, but because it is humanly absurd and inconceivable that by becoming smaller, one looks great before God.

The passage ends with a comment by the evangelist: “he explained everything privately to his disciples” (v. 34). Reflection, silence and prayer are needed; one needs to devote time to dialogue with Christ. It is necessary to create a spiritual atmosphere to receive from the Spirit the needed light to assimilate and translate the message of this parable into choices of life.

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