First Reading
Ezekiel 17:22-24

Thus says the Lord GOD: I, too, will take from the crest of the cedar, from its topmost branches tear off a tender shoot, and plant it on a high and lofty mountain; on the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it. It shall put forth branches and bear fruit, and become a majestic cedar. Birds of every kind shall dwell beneath it, every winged thing in the shade of its boughs. And all the trees of the field shall know that I, the Lord, bring low the high tree, lift high the lowly tree, wither up the green tree, and make the withered tree bloom. As I, the Lord, have spoken, so will I do.

Second Reading
2 Corinthians 5:6-10

Brothers and sisters: We are always courageous, although we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yet we are courageous, and we would rather leave the body and go home to the Lord. Therefore, we aspire to please him, whether we are at home or away. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil.

Gospel Cycle Cycle B
Mark 4:26-34

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.” He 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.” With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to understand it. Without parables he did not speak to them, but to his own disciples he explained everything in private.

Our Lord speaks to us in parables. Over and over in the Gospels we hear stories that the Lord is speaking as He tries to instruct us about following God. Only if we are walking with Jesus in His way will we be able to understand the meaning of the parables. It is not because Jesus does not want us to understand, but because there is only one way to understand stories: to be with the one who is telling the stories.

The first reading today from the Prophet Ezekiel and the Gospel both speak about starting a new plant, about sowing seed, about making something grow. The kingdom of heaven is about something new growing, in us and in the world around us. God is at work and makes new things happen. God is giving us His live and that is entirely new.

Perhaps today we take it for granted that God has become one of us in order to save us. We must stop for a moment and realize how incredible that is! God promises us His life and so He takes on our life and even dies so that we can have life. The challenge for us is the same as it was in the time of Jesus: do we want new life?

Quite often we are content with the life we have. We only want to have enough food to eat and enough please to enjoy and we don’t want to be bothered with all the obligations of religiosity. This is sad. It means that a person has not encountered the living God but has only encountered religion in a bad way.

Once we begin to be aware of the new life that can be ours, we begin to want it more and more. It is not any obligation of religiosity that brings us to celebrate the Eucharist or to take part in the Christian community. It is the encounter with the risen Lord. The Second Letter to the Corinthians today puts it this way: we aspire to please Him, whether we are at home or away.

Most people give up on Church or on religious practice because they have never met the Lord. You and I need to find ways to invite people to meet the Lord. If we ourselves have not met Him, then we cannot preach Him or give witness to Him. May this new life that God promises us take place in our lives and may we be able to share it with others.