Seeds of the Kingdom

11th Sunday, B

Today Jesus offers us two parables to help us understand what the Kingdom of God is like. To help us get into them, I thought it might be helpful to review what is meant by the Kingdom of God:

“The Kingdom of God is [Jesus’] presence among human beings calling them to a new way of life as individuals and as a community. This is a kingdom of salvation from sin and a sharing in divine life. It is the Good News that results in love, justice, and mercy for the whole world. The Kingdom is realized partially on earth and permanently in heaven. We enter this kingdom through faith in Christ, baptismal initiation into the Church, and life in communion with all her members.” (United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, 80)

The parables today offer us the image of the seed to help us understand how this Kingdom of God grows and develops. The seed is the presence of Jesus or in other words, grace. The good soil in which the seed is planted is ourselves as human beings, unique and unrepeatable creations of God. The seed of grace is planted in our inner selves—our heart, soul, and mind—beginning at our baptism, and from that point on it grows (if we allow it).

The first parable of the seed and the farmer teaches us that this grace grows of its own accord, or better, that God makes it grow. This is the call from God that we all have inside, inviting us to charity, to mercy and forgiveness, to mirroring the presence of Jesus to those around us. And this invitation is always with us—if only we listen—because grace, that seed, is alive just as God himself lives.

Yet even though it is God who makes grace grow within us, just as the seed sprouts and grows while the farmer in the parable sleeps, it’s not as if the farmer has nothing to do. The farmer must, of course, tend to his crops; he must irrigate them, prune them, and keep pests away. In the same way, grace invites our cooperation. Like the farmer, we must tend to it. We water the seed of grace within by prayer and tend it by our meditation on the presence of Jesus to us. And just like you can’t water a plant with a huge amount of water once in a while but have to use the right amount of water on a regular schedule, so prayer only truly bears fruit when we make it a practice of our daily lives. And just like the farmer readies the ground by plowing, so sometimes we have to shake up our hearts to make them willing to see the suffering around us that calls out for mercy, that our hearts might break open to a greater love.

The second parable, that of the mustard seed, as well as the vision of the prophet Ezekiel that we have in the first reading today, teach us that though the Kingdom of God is made of small beginnings it becomes something great. Ezekiel uses the image of the “majestic cedar” and Jesus that of the mustard shrub, which becomes a large enough plant for God’s creatures to find shelter within it.

The Kingdom of God is built of small acts, of the little moments of prayer, love, mercy, and forgiveness that the seeds of grace, planted within our hearts, call us to during the course of each day. And we are assured that these will bear great fruit, certainly in the fullness of the Kingdom of God in the world to come, but also here and now. Even the smallest moments of charity, mercy, and forgiveness put forth branches into the relationships and situations of our lives and make the world more of a home for everyone.

So let us be about the seeds of the Kingdom of God that are planted within us. Let us water them by our prayer and marvel as God makes them grow into the virtues of charity and mercy. Then our hearts will flourish beyond our imagining and become places of safe shelter for others.