TWO VERY DIFFERENT TAKES ON LIFE

“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.” Mark 4:26-34

What do we have here?  Two stories of planted seeds that Jesus says give us clues about the true nature of the Kingdom of God.

In the first parable a bunch of grain is thrown in the ground. Then, according to the parable’s scant details, the sower – a man, not God – lets nature take its course, hoping for the best that the land and the weather conditions can provide, will produce a decent harvest.

Might the point of this parable be that this is one way that we can (and often do) approach our lives – as a somewhat mundane existence  – just “ordinary” days that come and go?  We do what we have to do.  We see “ordinary” things. We make “ordinary” decisions:  grab a bunch of seed here, throw them on the land there.  What happens, happens.  And, if the “results” are worse than what we had hoped for, less than a peaceful and just world, we point to others as the persons “responsible” for these misdeeds.

Would our God really do this to us? Did our God throw us, like a bunch of seed, onto this earth to spend our days in this “ordinariness” that we, humans, are creating using our own myopic visions of this world not being capable of being the kingdom of God? Are we letting our own vision of our lives and our world rob us of whatever it is that God had and has in mind for our everyday existence?  Let’s look at the second parable for insight.

In this story, one seed, like each one of us, is chosen and “sown in the ground” and, even though the details go unmentioned, you get the idea that the sower is a loving God who is attentively protecting the seed as it “springs up” and matures into the fullness of its potential.  Surely there are going to be storms and dangers along the way, but somehow, we expect that, with God’s being there and the seed’s full cooperation in the process of development, all will be right with this world.

THE CHOICE IS OURS TO MAKE

Which is the parable of your life and mine?  Do we see and cooperate with God’s companionship and partnering in the here and now?  Is this the “ordinary” life that has been “thrown” upon us? Or is it a graced life?  Would God have just left us here and gone back to the “kingdom of God” or is this meant to be the “kingdom of God”  – all the parts and pieces put in place by God and awaiting us to find the joy that comes when we choose to use our God-given talents to assemble it, with God’s guidance and help along the way.  “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth. . . “

In both stories, God does most of the work.  The difference is in what “we” put into the process. And that determines what we and God (and everyone else) get out of the process and our engagement in it.

Let’s reflect on the “work” and “play” of the past week to see if there were situations where we were almost absent, or haphazardly present and engaged, in what we could have accomplished had we cooperated with whatever our loving God was allowing.

THIS GOSPEL’S FINAL WORDS

This Gospel ends with “to his own disciples Jesus explained everything in private.”   Let’s also increase the amount of time we spend listening “in private” to what Jesus is trying to communicate to us.

Now what do you think might happen to us and to this world were we to allow ourselves to do this?

 Sister Loretta