We live in a time that expects efficiency and immediate results. But a plant or a tree needs time to grow; and human relations cannot be built nor our problems solved overnight. People too need time to grow and change. Fortunately, God is patient with us. But we must become patient with one another and, with God’s help, give people and the Church, the time needed to grow. We can just sow the seed and then wait in hope. If it is a good seed we sow, it will certainly grow. Jesus assures us that it will sprout and bear fruit.
Jesus planted the seeds of love and justice but the results remain poor. Yet we remain patient, as God stays patient, and we do not give up. The kingdom will flourish. But what is the Kingdom? Surprisingly, Jesus never says. He speaks of the Kingdom through comparisons and parables. His parables allude to various aspects of the Kingdom. But they never fully define it. His listeners understand little by little. We could almost say that to the extent that they want to understand. Because surely some of those who went to listen to him walked away from him thinking that this man was doing nothing more than telling children’s stories.
Today the Gospel brings to mind two parables of Jesus. One emphasises the mysterious aspect of growing up. The Kingdom grows without anyone knowing how. It does not matter if the farmer sleeps or is awake. The time will come when all he will have to do is harvest. The other says that the Kingdom is like the mustard seed, the smallest of seeds, but then it becomes so big that even the birds of the sky take shelter. Also the Kingdom will grow until it welcomes all the children of God without exception.
God expects the collaboration of man in the salvific plan, but he does not depend on man. Patience, together with a sense of humble modesty, is what we need in looking at our efforts and the work of God among us. Not that our efforts are useless, but when we try to do God’s work to make our world more God’s world or his Kingdom, then we must always remember and respect that God is the first agent in all this: he plants, he gives growth, he will do the harvesting. But he expects us to cooperate with him.
We Christians commit ourselves to work in the service of the Kingdom, to prepare the field to receive the seed of the Kingdom. God’s field is the world. Today, perhaps, we do not see the result of God’s work that builds the Kingdom, but we are sure that he will bring his work to a successful conclusion.
For your reflection
Why don’t I take some time to look at the field of the world and try to see where the Kingdom of God is growing—brotherhood, freedom, justice…
Father Fernando Torres CMF
www.ciudadredonda.org
Translated by
Father Alberto Rossa CMF
