Friday in the Third Week of Ordinary Time, January 27, 2023

Mark 4, 26-34

Jesus said to the crowds: “This is how it is with the Kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.  To what shall we compare the Kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it? It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.” With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to understand it. Without parables he did not speak to them, but to his own disciples he explained everything in private.

“This is how it is with the Kingdom of God.”  The greatest truths can be best told not by long theses or whole books, but through simple, but precise, similes, metaphors, and allegories.  This enables the minds of anyone, regardless of education, to understand what is necessary in order to be saved.  Here, the Lord Jesus speaks of the virtue of faith. The Prophets, with all their inspiration, and the greatest theologians, with all their ability, cannot approach what Jesus does, and how beautifully and memorably he does it.  Through this we see his fervent desire for us all to know about faith and how it works so that we can practice it and spread it.

“It is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.”  The Lord uses the simplest activity, one which anyone could see and do.  A farmer would have wheat or other grain seed poured into his long tunic that he would hold up by its edges, and he would walk up and down his field scattering the deed with his free hand.  Today farmers use large pieces of equipment to do this work, but they must know how to use it and care for it.  The work of planting seeds has become easier on the back. but more complex.  

“Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.”  normally, field were not fertilized, though fruit trees in an orchard might be.  Nor could the farmer in ancient Israel engage in large-scale irrigation.  After sowing the seed, the farmer prayed that the seed was good, that it had fallen on good soil, and that the weather was favorable.  If his crop grew, he rejoiced.  But it remained a mystery to him how it all happened.  Perhaps the admission to himself that he did not understand how it all worked made him all the more grateful when it did.

“And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.”  When the grain ripened, action had to be taken quickly.  If the farmer gathered his grain into his barn too soon, it would be no good, but if he waited to gather it or was slow about it, the rain might come and then danger threatened through spontaneous combustion of the hot, wet grain in the barn.  The harvest must come at the exactly tight moment, and the seasoned farmer knew when this would be.

We learn here, among other things, about the mystery of how faith arrives to a person, without him even knowing where it came from.  If it is nourished through the rays of the sun, that is, through prayer, and the drops of rain, that is, through the exercise of the virtues, then it grows, and the Lord, watching him carefully, takes him to heaven at exactly the right time, when his faith has peaked.

“It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth.”  The Lord speaks again of the arrival of faith, through a word heard or an example seen of a faithful believer by one who does not believe.  All it takes is the simplest word or action on our part because it is God who uses it to bring the unbeliever to belief.  It is God’s work, for which we supply the tiny, but necessary, kindling for his spark that will erupt into a conflagration in the other’s heart.