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.
We cannot understand our Lord Jesus until we begin to hear Him speak in parables and to use the Scriptures in ways to which most of us are no longer accustomed. So in order to understand Jesus and His message, we have to work perhaps a little harder than the people of His own time, who were accustomed to these ways of speaking. We have stories in our own cultures and need only to think of the stories that have been told to us. Some of us are familiar with farming and growing crops.
All of us can understand that a small seed might produce an enormous plant. That is the image of the kingdom of God that we find in the Gospel today. What are we supposed to make of it? Perhaps we can think that if we nurture the faith within us, it might grow. If we don’t nurture faith, generally it does not grow. If we nurture faith a lot, it can grow into a might plant within us.
Compare this image with that of the first reading, from the Prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel tells us that God can take life from anywhere and transplant it and it can grow into something mighty. The image that Ezekiel uses is taking the top of a cedar tree and transplanting it and watching that top grow into a complete tree, even a mighty and enormous tree.
Saint Paul in the second reading today, from the Second Letter to the Corinthians, reminds us that our hope is really in the life to come and not in this life. All of us love this life. That is normal. But we must learn to walk by faith rather than by the attractions of this world, the sight of this world. We must begin to think in a new way and live in a new way because the Kingdom is here in our midst now.
All the readings today speak of this capacity of God to make something out of nothing. They also speak of our response to God’s work in our lives. We can choose to walk by faith or we can choose to live just in this world. If we walk by faith, then God can do mighty things in us. Not making wealthy or powerful or even having lots of things. Rather God can let the Spirit change us from within so that our life of faith because the center of our life and we begin to walk only in the way of the Lord.
To follow Jesus Christ is always a challenge for each one of us. Sometimes we don’t spend enough time with the Lord and so we forget his daily invitation to live with Him and to receive His Spirit and to live for the Father. Instead, we get caught up in this world and our values become of this world. The readings today invite us to live in a new way because we know that the Lord can transform us if we hand ourselves over to Him.
My sisters and brothers, we are invited to make even a small choice today to choose the ways of the Lord.