The Relentless Growth of the Kingdom
Ezekiel 17:22-24
Psalm 92
2 Corinthians 5:6-10
Mark 4:26-34
If I were going to tell a Kingdom of God parable that might follow the ones from our Gospel reading, I know now that it would be about pregnancy. The point of the first parable seems to be that the Kingdom grows of its own accord, while the man who plants "knows not how" (Mk 4:27). The point of the second seems to be that the enormous Kingdom life can grow from the smallest bits of Kingdom faith. Both of these ideas are incredibly familiar to me at the moment, having spent some time thinking and worrying about the little boy growing inside of me. The act of growing a child seems like one of the most significant, productive, creative things I might ever do in my life, and yet I am nearly powerless in the process. Apart from keeping myself healthy, I have almost no control over how this little person grows. And yet I've spent a good deal of time worrying about whether he's moving enough, or if something I've eaten will make him sick, or if his source of sustenance isn't working anymore because I slipped on the ice and fell flat on my back. And if any of those happened, I still would have so very little power over the situation. But through all my worry, after each imagined threat to this little life dissipated, I realized that, though all life is fragile in a certain way, life in the womb is not nearly as fragile as I think. It is more like an unstoppable force, a strength characteristic of the things in life that we would have no power to create on our own if we tried. Even those babies that are miscarried or stillborn seem to be an inexorable mystery of life that moves straight back into the arms of God.
All of our readings are so reassuring in this way, when we think about the Kingdom and our part to play in its growth. We are the man who scatters seed, our faith is the grain of mustard. The Lord is the one who takes the tender shoot and grows it into a majestic cedar. And if you're worried about how to allow this Kingdom growth to happen in and through your life, what you can actually do (because that's me-- I'm a very concrete person and love a good application), I think the verse from our Psalm directs us: "They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God" (92:14). All we can really do is to be connected to our Savior, to be in his presence, to "aspire to please him" (2 Cor 5:8). But then we must remember that in all our passages, overwhelmingly the primary action, the doing that really matters in our lives, is the Lord's.
And this work of the Lord is relentlessly productive. Each metaphor ends with some produce, with a harvest, with a space for even more life to flourish. And I think if we're worried about what we should be doing, even in the smallest decisions in our lives, from moment to moment, it helps to consider what actions and pursuits are life-giving, life-supporting. When we are selfish or proud or jealous, whatever possible or imagined benefit there is ends with us, and we wither-- because life begets new life. It cannot exist for itself, but flourishes by supporting more life. And because the Kingdom of God, the growth of all life, springs forth relentlessly from the power of the love of Christ, it is something that has been growing from the beginning of time and will continue to grow to the end, whether or not we choose to participate. But what a privilege we have before us, to spend our lives choosing to be a hand that scatters seed and with faith and amazement watches it grow to something we could not have imagined, by a power that we cannot fully understand.
The Kingdom of God is like a child in the womb,
Who grows to great strength unseen, without his mother's aid.
She knows not who he will be, nor when his time to be born will come.
And yet he grows, attached to her, but just out of her reach,
from microscopic to an infant,
Later to become a man who himself grows life in ways
She could not have imagined.
Psalm 92
2 Corinthians 5:6-10
Mark 4:26-34
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| St Anne conceiving the Blessed Virgin Jean Bellagarme the Elder |
All of our readings are so reassuring in this way, when we think about the Kingdom and our part to play in its growth. We are the man who scatters seed, our faith is the grain of mustard. The Lord is the one who takes the tender shoot and grows it into a majestic cedar. And if you're worried about how to allow this Kingdom growth to happen in and through your life, what you can actually do (because that's me-- I'm a very concrete person and love a good application), I think the verse from our Psalm directs us: "They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God" (92:14). All we can really do is to be connected to our Savior, to be in his presence, to "aspire to please him" (2 Cor 5:8). But then we must remember that in all our passages, overwhelmingly the primary action, the doing that really matters in our lives, is the Lord's.
And this work of the Lord is relentlessly productive. Each metaphor ends with some produce, with a harvest, with a space for even more life to flourish. And I think if we're worried about what we should be doing, even in the smallest decisions in our lives, from moment to moment, it helps to consider what actions and pursuits are life-giving, life-supporting. When we are selfish or proud or jealous, whatever possible or imagined benefit there is ends with us, and we wither-- because life begets new life. It cannot exist for itself, but flourishes by supporting more life. And because the Kingdom of God, the growth of all life, springs forth relentlessly from the power of the love of Christ, it is something that has been growing from the beginning of time and will continue to grow to the end, whether or not we choose to participate. But what a privilege we have before us, to spend our lives choosing to be a hand that scatters seed and with faith and amazement watches it grow to something we could not have imagined, by a power that we cannot fully understand.
The Kingdom of God is like a child in the womb,
Who grows to great strength unseen, without his mother's aid.
She knows not who he will be, nor when his time to be born will come.
And yet he grows, attached to her, but just out of her reach,
from microscopic to an infant,
Later to become a man who himself grows life in ways
She could not have imagined.
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