DAILY MEDITATION: "What is the kingdom of God like? To what shall we compare it?

Liturgical day: Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Gospel text (Mk 4,26-34): Jesus said, "In the kingdom of God it is like this. A man scatters seed upon the soil. Whether he is asleep or awake, be it day or night, the seed sprouts and grows, he knows not how. The soil produces of itself; first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when it is ripe for harvesting they take the sickle for the cutting: the time for harvest has come".

Jesus also said, "What is the kingdom of God like? To what shall we compare it? It is like a mustard seed which, when sown, is the smallest of all the seeds scattered upon the soil. But once sown, it grows up and becomes the largest of the plants in the garden and even grows branches so big that the birds of the air can take shelter in its shade". Jesus used many such stories or parables, to proclaim the word to them in a way they would be able to understand. He would not teach them without parables; but privately to his disciples he explained everything.

"In the kingdom of God it is like this. A man scatters seed upon the soil"

Fr. Faust BAILO
(Toronto, Canada)

Today, Jesus gives us two parables about farming: the parable of the scattered seed, and the parable of the mustard seed. These were images that the men and women listening to Jesus could relate to, since most of them spent their days in the fields planting, watering and reaping. Our Lord told these parables using something they knew —agricultural work— in order to teach them something they did not know about: the Kingdom of God!

Indeed Jesus teaches something about his spiritual Kingdom. In the first parable He says: "The kingdom of God it is like this. A man scatters seed upon the soil" (Mk 4, 26). And He introduces the second by saying, "To what shall we compare [the kingdom of God]? It is like a mustard seed" (Mk 4, 30).

Most of us today have little in common with those farmers; yet these parables can powerfully resonate in our modern minds because we can still understand quite a lot about planting, watering and harvesting, and somehow we sense through his words, that God has planted something in our hearts that will not allow us to move completely away from him.

What is the Kingdom of God? It is "Jesus himself", as Pope Benedict XVI reminds us. And our soul "is the essential location of the Kingdom of God". God wants to live and grow inside us. If we seek God's wisdom and obey his commands, our life will become as steady as a rock and acquire a power that we can barely imagine.

If we patiently correspond to his grace, his divine life will definitely grow in the soul the way seed grows in the field or, as the medieval mystic, Meister Eckhart, has beautifully expressed: "The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer and a diligent field hand, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly its fruits will be God nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God seed into God".

Source: evangeli.net