ELEVENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - B

ELEVENTH SUNDAY OF THE ORDINARY TIME – Year B (Ezek 17:22-24; 2 Cor 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-34) Theme: We are detached from the world and attached to the heaven Reflection Introduction – we are on the journey towards our Christian maturity - We have in the eleventh Sunday of the ordinary time of the year. We have just retaken the path, the path towards our entrance into the kingdom of God. As Christians in the world we are always in the journey and the journey means to go always ahead in well being and in the hope. In most of the time of ordinary period the church keeps open to us the mysteries of the kingdom of God which have been already revealed in the life and action of Jesus Christ. Yet, those mysteries are still in the revelation for us and all through our life we are asked to grow in these mysteries. - As the part of such spiritual growth we have today the two parables of the kingdom of God. Jesus always preferred to explain the mystery of God’s love and His kingdom in way of parable sayings. Parable is a means of explaining the hidden meaning with the help of the content of daily life: it may be with the things that we use in our common life and it may be the simple words that we use in our daily talk and it may also be the situations of which we are thoroughly familiar. Jesus makes use of such kind of means, means very closer to the ordinary life of the people, so that they could easily catch the significance it reveals. - As we have already schematized in the theme, the common meaning of today’s readings is: that we are picked up from the world and place in the upward direction towards the heavenly bliss. In other words, we are uprooted from the soil of the world and upgraded in the spiritual aspiration so that we do not live as though belonging to the world but as if inserted into the life of grace, thus belonging to the very life of God. We will see how the readings help us to understand this truth: the truth of Christian identity of being above the world. First Reading: Small branch picked up and planted by the Lord grows into big tree - In fact, it is from the first reading that we have the fullest meaning of the theme proposed. The first reading is taken from the book of Ezekiel. It reminds the promise of God to the people of Israel that he would pick them from the multitude of nations and place them on the high mountain. The words of the prophet are crystal clear and express well the promise of the Lord: “I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain” (Ezek 17:22). - First and above all, it is the work of the Lord: it is he who makes the promise and fulfills in the time he himself appoints. The Lord has already chosen for himself a small nation through the calling of Abraham and through the patriarchs that followed him. He named it Israel. He gave it an offer of liberation through the establishment of the covenant with them: the covenant of fidelity. It is through the living of this covenant with trust and love that they would enter into the land of freedom. For this He has worked many signs and wonders both in the wilderness providing food and water for them and in the new land by providing them many victories. Though it is a small nation it was flourishing just because of the powerful hand of God. - The story did not end there and did not reach its peak. People who are chosen and called to be faithful have forgotten all that God has done for them. They have become insensitive and inactive to the words and commands of God. They have failed to live up to the conditions of the covenant. The nation has neglected its roots and its base. It has given up its author and founder. The consequence they started tasting the bitterness of failure in the battles. They started reaping the rotten fruits of suffering and scarcity of daily living. They started experience the filth of slavery and captivity. Finally, they are out of their freedom and outside of their Lord’s house. But the story of the faithfulness and mercy of God continues. The covenant is broken not by two partners but only by one. The other is still strong and faithful and it is the Lord himself. He is the Lord of mercy and God of love. Therefore, He did not leave his chosen sect to its fate. He wished to bring them back into their higher dignity and to the life of grace of the covenant. He promises to make them once again a people of his love. - It is from this promise we have the first reading of today: He will make sprout the tree of David’s dynasty. He makes this possible by uprooting them from the numerous people and from the various nations and by placing it in the high mountain as the separated people. They will become a great nation to which all come for their refuge and secure life. This promise is ultimately fulfilled in His Own Son Jesus Christ. Gospel: Not the quantity but quality of the heart that counts much - Jesus himself points to this coming of the kingdom among them in his person and the mystery of his presence of which they have to be aware of. As the content of the parables of today’s gospel reading reveal, it is not the quantity of the seed that is sown but is its quality that matters and that gives good growth. The two parables, the man who sows and the seed that is sown, have an internal unity. Apart from the common concern about the mystery of the kingdom of God, they refer both to the man and the seed. - The seed has both the capacity for growth and possibility for spoil but it certainly depends on the one who sows it for its good growth: “Kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground” (v.26). This first parable reveals the fact that the seed has the capacity to grow by itself and still, it also has the possibility of losing its identity if it is not found in the good soil. o Capacity for growth: In fact, the seed that falls in the good ground has the capacity to sprout and produce fruit but what happens if it falls on the rocky land or in the bushy thorns? Therefore, only after finding itself in the good soil it has the capacity. o Dependence on the sower: But even prior to that it does not simply depend on the seed for its growth but on the one who sows it in the tilled and prepared ground. It is the sower who takes care and makes ready the good soil for the seed. He does not want the seed to go in vain or fall in the useless soil and lose its existence. He wants its growth. - The measure of the size does not matter but the internal potency that matters: the second parable is the parable of the mustard seed which is smallest of all the seeds in size and in measure but it has the qualitative productive nature if once it is planted (vv. 31-32). It grows into a great tree so that all the birds come under its shade and find their living place. o Kingdom is a reality which is almost invisible and incomprehensible at the beginning of its entrance into the world but its final splendor will be so great that all reach to it for their spiritual security. Once it grows into the great tree of life with is arms extended, as the branches, it offers to all the protection and peace. o It has the capacity to grow just because it was planned, prepared and planted by God himself in the world. His kingdom is his renewed Covenant in the Person of Jesus Christ, whose branches of redemption are outreaching to the every corner of the world. It is in Jesus that all have the possibility of finding their personal dignity and freedom. It is in him that they find their growth in fullest sense: they realize what they are and who they are only in his rays of light. Second Reading: We are in the time of maturity as good Christians - It is the time of bodily existence: Paul recalls our daily life. He reminds how we are and how we lead our life. What we have is only bodily life. But this is not the destiny of our earthly life. The destiny of bodily is its transformation into the spiritual and eternal existence. - It is the time of exile: Paul also admonishes us to be attentive to the way of life we are living. We are not in our land. We are called to be in the kingdom of God and that has to be realized at the end of our life. Meanwhile we are in the life of transition and in the life of passage: we have to passes from the desert to the land of the living, from the exile to the freedom. - It is the time of preparation for the life of the Lord: the bodily existence and the exilic life of this earth will pass away and we will reach our final destiny and the tent that is prepared for us and that is the life with the Lord. We will be with the Lord and in the Lord. For this purpose we have to prepare ourselves daily. - How to prepare? By being always confident (v.6), by walking with faith (v.7) and by doing what is pleasing to him (v.9). It reminds us that we are in the time of preparation and in the period towards the maturity. Conclusion – We are the diamonds in and for the present world - Christ himself is the Seed of God (Word of God): o He is sown and planted into the human soil: In the incarnation and in death, he has assumed human nature and he has entered into human death. In the proclamation and in the resurrection, he has sprouted into new life. He is planted in the ground of death and he is grown into the life giving tree. o He is the seed, unknown and refused: John puts it well: “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him” (John 1:10-11). When Jesus has come to his people they did not recognize his presence, they did not intend his words and they did not understand his actions. More than their comprehension they have rejected him and put him to death. He is the neglected and rejected seed. o He is the seed, small and humble – poor and weak: Both in the incarnation and death his smallness and humility, his poverty and helplessness are manifested. He has nothing to wear and nowhere to lay his head when he came into the world, only a manger became his dwelling place. He has nothing on his body and nowhere to rest his head when he left the world, only a cross became his refuge and it was all his wealth of the world. He is the seed so small, so humble, so poor and so weak. o Yet, once planted in the ground in death he has risen/sprouted to life on the third day, he became the savior of the world and the refuse of redemption and the dwelling place of peace. Unless the seed falls into the ground and dies, it has not life. Jesus is the seed thrown into the ground and died and transformed and now became the tree of life in the midst of the garden of the world. - Church/ community of believers is the Seed of Christ and the Spirit: o Jesus is the seed of God who is thrown in the human world and who has become the tree of life. Now Jesus is the man who sows the seed in the world by his redemptive merits. The seed which he plants the present world is his Church. o The Church is the seed that is small and often unintended: Though the small Christian community has grown into powerful tree of grace in the world, still the Church is poor because all that she has she pours out to others; she is still humble because she obeys and accepts in silence all the her master’s instructions; she is still in the growth because she puts herself at the disposition of the truth, of the charity and of the solidarity. o The church is the seed, neglected and rejected: the church is often like the hidden seed because its existence is often neglected by its own members because of their failure to be faithful; the church is often rejected by the other entities which seems to be powerful and dominating with their rapid technological and scientific developments; but once it grows it is the only consolation to the world and it is the only tree of hope to which and around which all gather. - Each one of us is the seed of the Church, of Christ and thus of God: o We are called to be small and humble: Jesus assures the blessedness of the poor in Spirit (Mt 5:3). He invites his listeners to be like him meek and generous (Mt 11:29ff). Let us not regret when we are not understood. Let us not be discourages when we are not recognized. Let us lose our heart when we are openly rejected with any kind of inhibitions. In this we manifest our littleness which will grow slowly in the greatness in God’s presence. o We are in the spiritual journey towards the harvest of blessed joy: we have not yet finished our journey. We are still in the walk towards our promised land. What we have to do in this journey is contained in two things: one, we have to remember well that we are detached from this world and are placed within the divine life, and second, we have to spend all our energies, capacities and possibilities, to grow into a fruitful tree for our neighbors next to door and to all in the society.