The mustard seed

Today Jesus tries to explain the kingdom of heaven through two parables, using a comparison about seeds. He loves using natural images from the fields, from the human experience of farmers of that time. Unlike us, seeds were very important to them. We don’t normally buy seeds and plant them in the ground, unless you have a vegetable garden. But for those people seeds were the future. They had to plan how they were going to eat during the months ahead. We have supermarkets; all we need is money.

Seeds tell us about how things grow. It is a mysterious process that escapes our control. It shows us the power of nature; things grow in the most amazing places. It is the same with God’s things. He has his plans and has the power to produce fruit whenever he wants, wherever he wills. You learn a lot reading the history of the Church. How things are born small, grow to an amazing size and then they disappear. It is a circle that comes and goes. It is easy for us human beings to become proud of the achievements of God. We think that we are doing something, and all we do is to be a spanner in the works. Once pride comes in, God runs away. It is very important for us not to think that we are indispensable, that we are at the same level as God. We are just little children being more of a nuisance than any help.

Sometimes we doubt that God is in control. We can hardly notice the seeds sprouting, we don’t see the fruits, the actions of God in society. On the contrary, we touch more the machinations of the evil one, the hand of the devil clearly present among us. From our point of view we see only a flat terrain. John Paul II used to talk about the new evangelisation, a new spring in the Church. He could see it from his vantage point. We cannot see it with our large egos.

Pope Francis commenting on this parable says that “Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a small grain of mustard seed. It is a very small grain, but it grows to become the largest of all plants in the garden: unpredictable growth, surprising. It is not easy for us to enter into this logic of the unpredictable nature of God and to accept it in our own lives. But today the Lord exhorts us to have an attitude of faith that goes beyond our projects, our calculations, our forecasts. God is always the God of surprises, the Lord always surprises us. It is an invitation to open ourselves more generously to God’s plans.”

God normally works in this way, like the mustard seed. Things always begin small, with few people, sometimes with just a holy person, with a slow gradual process, quietly growing under the soil, with time to mature. God’s kingdom keeps growing. How did the Franciscans begin? Through a voice to a young man: rebuild my Church. It is something amazing, to look at the hand of God working through history. You cannot see it at a particular moment, but you notice it in the long run.

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