Friday in the Third Week of Ordinary Time, January 29, 2021

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.

The crowds expected their Messiah to talk about the kingdom of God in terms of its mighty buildings, its invincible armies, its completed Temple, and its fabulous wealth.  After all, he was to restore the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1, 6).  Instead, he spoke of anything but these things.  He talked about women sweeping their houses for lost coins, merchants finding pearls, and seeds growing into plants, bushes, and trees.  They listened in silence, waiting for hints as to what he meant, and then when they did not hear anything that made sense or that they recognized as pertaining to the kingdom they expected, they drifted away, unsatisfied.  They listened, but they did not understand, and they did not cheer, as they had expected to do.  But neither did they ask questions that would lead them to deeper understanding.  They would rather fade away than know for sure what it all meant.  To the Pharisees he once explained, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17, 20), but this left them silent as well, though of all people, they were the ones who should have understood. 

“He knows not how.”  The growth of faith in a person is a deep mystery, even to that person, let alone to others.  It can be likened to the terms of reproduction, wherein a single, simple word or look can stick in a person’s mind, and the Holy Spirit “fertilizes” it, and faith begins to grow, nourished or hampered by the person who has received it through their behavior, their reading, and praying.  They can also be fortified by the prayers of others, often of others who are far away and unseen, as the prayers of St. Therese of Lisieux from her Carmel in France assisted in the conversion of many Vietnamese she did not meet while on this earth.  But not knowing how this works in a given person does not prevent us from scattering all the seed we can and praying for good results.  “Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.”  It only seems to the outsider that faith grows of “its own accord”.  The believer in Jesus knows that it is the result of someone cooperating with the grace God has freely granted.  And it is a joy to behold the growth in all its flourishing mystery.  Indeed, witnessing the growth of faith in another fosters our own growth in faith.  “And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.”  When a person has matured in faith as much as he will, then God brings him into his barn.  It is the end of his life in this world and the beginning of his life in the next.  Some achieve this more quickly than others, while others live long lives in order to teach and inspire.  Some are cut off at a certain point so that they do not fall into deadly sin later on.  And some people are given a long length of time, as we reckon time, for a repentance that they continually put off and perhaps leave this world without.  

“It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth.”  Oftentimes we do not realize that we are scattering seed.  We go about our day according to our customs and habits and speak and act as we normally do, but some person hears us speak a word or two, not necessarily directed at that person, and it acts like a gentle rain upon a parched field.  It may not even be a word but a gesture like a smile that is the first smile someone has seen that is not sarcastic or cruel, but is full of kindness.  Sometimes it happens that we do not even recognize a seed as a seed but scatter it anyway.  Mustard seed does not look like seed.  It looks like dirt.  But if it is flung in the right place — and we poor mortals cannot on our own know what is that place, so we fling it in all directions — it will grow marvelously and we will wonder at the mystery.  It will even grow so that “the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade”, that is, even those who firmly believe in the Lord and so already dwell in heaven in their prayers and hopes, will find refreshing coolness in their company.