The Chosen https://thechosen.link/1Y1R7 – highly recommended (8 episodes in S1-2020; S2-2021 started on Easter) A Parable of the Growing Seed and Mustard Seed Mark 4:26-34 Opening Prayer Intentions 7:05-7:20 Lord, you promised that where two or three of us are gathered in your name, you are there – meaning there is prayer power in numbers! Therefore, we ask for your blessings to be poured out upon those who have asked for help and for your healing. We would also ask the same for all of us here tonight who have gathered here to learn more about your Word. Please bless our lives, our families, our friends, our work, our health, and, most of all, our relationship with you. Finally, we ask the Holy Spirit to fill the Zoom Air between us and open our ears so we can discern your words correctly; open our minds so that we might achieve greater wisdom and understanding; open our spirits so that we may receive and reflect your love upon all those who cross our paths, and open our hearts so that the compass of our behavior points ever nearer to you. We ask these things through your merits of your Son, and as he taught us to pray:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespassed against us. Lead us through our trials and temptation and deliver us from evil. Amen
The Lord’s Prayer – note the flow from the Father to us and back again.
Our Father in Heaven
Father because creator, but now also as adopted sons and daughters because Jesus became one of us and took his/our humanity back to the Trinity.
Heaven - not a place; it is everywhere but it begins inside of us where all our minds, consciences, and souls are; i.e., “God is in the hearts of the just.” Everywhere: think of a colorblind man standing in a beautiful meadow with wildflowers galore, birds of all kinds, and a blue sky filled with the sun. The colors are there, even though he doesn’t see them. So is the spiritual realm all around us, filled with angels and saints all trying to help, but also with fallen angels whispering all the wrong things. We have a foot in heaven, but the 6th Day beckons us. We need to complete the move into the 7th Day. As Paul says, our current lives are on earth, but we are citizens of heaven.
Our – when I first left my atheist years, I prayed MY Father in heaven. It was just me and him. It wasn’t later until I learned that love had something to do, and unity had something to do with love, and all that eventually led me back to Our Father. My is perfectly fine in the sense that you absolutely should have such a personal relationship with Him, but then it needs to graduate to be part of his prayer, because his prayer is about the journey of all mankind. Btw, in spite of the divisions among Christians, ‘Our’ is the common patrimony among all the Baptized, regardless of our other differences.
Conclusion: Praying to Our Father should develop in us the will to be more like Him – more humble, loving, and forgiving.
After we have placed ourselves in the presence of God, our Father, the next 7 petitions and blessings are all about the Spirit of our adoption being fulfilled.
The first three are about God flowing to us (thy name, thy kingdom, thy will); the last three are about us flowing towards God (forgive us, lead us not, and deliver us), and in the middle connecting us God to us and us to God is the God-human, Jesus Christ.
Next week: the first three.
Gospel Reading for this Sunday: 2 See Parables
Parable of the Growing Seed - Mark 4:26-29
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 through it all 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.”
Whoever said Jesus used parables to simplify things is crazy. His parables are riddles. He used it to teach, and teaching requires the hearer to think and engage. It may also mean different things to different people depending on where they are in their lives spiritually. Sometimes they reveal a truth, sometimes they conceal a truth, such as in the case of those Pharisees who wanted to kill him.
Q: Why is the story of the seeds like the kingdom of God?
The key is “he knows not how.” It is not in man’s power to make the seed do what the seed does. Likewise, the Kingdom of God is not something man has power over. It is something only God controls, and we can’t stop it. We can run from it or avoid it, but we can’t prevent its coming.
In yet another sense, the Church fits this profile. Twelve uneducated apostles spread God’s church which took over the Roman Empire and now has a billion people. Who knows how?
Q: What is the point of spelling out the process of: “first the blade, then the ear…. When the grain is ripe, the time for the harvest has come”?
Humans are given this time on earth to seek God and get right with Him. The time of harvest is the final judgment and then their time will be up.
It may also be Jesus’s message of patience to his Apostles: not only patience with people once they take over for Jesus, but also patience regarding the end of times. It’s not coming quickly.
Parable of the Mustard Seed - Mark 4:30-32
Jesus said,
“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.”
One gets the impression that this mustard tree is some kind of majestic tree, like the tall Cedars of Lebanon that Solomon used to build the first Temple. In fact, the Cedars of Lebanon had become a metaphor for greatness no matter what the comparison.
Here is what the Cedars of Lebanon look like, and what the audience would have expected Jesus to reference:
Not so the mustard tree. Indeed, the parable of the mustard tree is one big twist of a story, and would have sounded very strange to his audience. It is true that the seed is very small and it does grows into a large bush; but for the most part, the mustard tree is a large, ugly, invasive weed.
I present to you … the Mustard Tree
Q: So, why on earth would Jesus use the mustard seed in his parable to compare the Kingdom of God?
Consider everything about Jesus. He is God and yet he came here as an insignificant human by worldly standards, did he not? He was born into a poor family in an occupied country, did not have a formal education at the Temple, he selected a motley crew of unremarkable, undistinguished men for his Apostles, he hung out with outcasts and sinners, and he allowed himself to be crucified as a common criminal. That’s about as mustardy-tree as one can get.
The Cedars of Lebanon indeed represented the great human kingdoms. But the kingdom of God comes through humility. The mustard tree hovers low to the earth. Its very commonness is an invitation to everyone who wants to enter, as long as they take off their crowns first.
This is also how the Church started with 12 “nobodies” and grew to 2 billion Christians today.
Q: We’ve discussed how the growing seeds and the mustard tree apply to our understanding of God’s kingdom in the lives of mankind. But what about us specifically. We’re part of this “kingdom,” aren’t we? What is its application to us?
Christ trying to explain our circumstances now and the life we are being invited into is like a 3D person explaining 3D to a 2D person in a drawing. It’s kind of out of our mental reach. Just like it would be hard explaining to a seed what life as a tree will be like. So he uses parables as analogies. Think of the caterpillar. It has no concept that, if it plays its cards right and doesn’t get eaten by bird, it will become a beautiful butterfly. A million caterpillars couldn’t convince him of it.
Of course, the tree and the butterfly don’t need to be convinced. This is one of the reasons Jesus came back for 40 days after he died. To show us what glorified bodies look like and can do. It’s why he uses, as best he can, true, living analogies that his audience can understand.
Yet something is missing in our analogy.
Q: We must first ask, what is the cause of the seed’s new life? The seed needs good environmental conditions come alive and it needs nourishment to grow: good soil, reasonable temperatures, just enough rain, just enough sunshine (too much or too little of any of these things will kill it). What would these conditions be for humans?
A: God breathes into us the spirit of awareness and free will. This gives us the conditions associated with higher beings, like the angels. This spiritual nature give us not only awareness of ourselves, of existence, of time, of meaning and truth, and even of God, but the power to do good or evil. This is the life of the seed. This is the beginning of our journey.
Because humans chose Satan over God, we almost lost the kingdom. However, God gave us this life to get our relationship back to where it was. We were incapable and therefore He came himself – Jesus Christ – to reopen the path to the kingdom. Yet we still have free will. So we have to make the choice to follow Jesus – which is represented in our Baptism – and then Heaven is ours to lose. We have all the tools to rebuild our lives and relationship with God.
Q: The seed also needs to escape various outside threats, such as birds eating the seeds, weeds choking off its growth, deadly insects, pestilence, earthquakes, etc. What threats do we have?
"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." – Mt 26:41
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” – Mt 6:13
“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.” – Eph 6:11
“Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. – James 1:12
“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” – 1 Peter 5:8
Q: How do we protect ourselves from spiritual these spiritual traps?
It is in building this relationship that transforms our human journey. It is by the putting God’s wisdom we get along the way into our lives that causes ourselves to advance spiritually and change the world. It’s doing the trial and error of this with Christ that we develop our 7th Day skills. We build the Kingdom on earth every day of our lives. It is part of “Thy Kingdom Come.”
Just as God put his spirit into human/worldly play, we must also. But we do it with Him. Remember the yoke.
Jesus gives us these examples that are real and right under our noses so we can first understand and then believe that we also have another life after we, too, lay lifeless.
But the one who gives us security with you in Christ and who anointed us is God; he has also put his seal upon us and given the Spirit in our hearts as a first installment. – 2 Cor 1:21-22
Closing Prayer
Father, thank you for loving us into existence,
and for coming back for us when we turn our backs on you.
Lord Jesus, thank you for coming here and walking in our shoes;
for showing us the way; for paying our way; for leaving yourself behind;
and for sending your Holy Spirit to help us the rest of the way.
Holy Spirit, fill every space inside of us. Leave no room for our selfishness to act.
In our encounters, enable us to see you with your eyes,
hear with your ears, and speak with your words.
Hail Mary
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
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