16 June 2024 -- 11th Sunday "B"
Ezek 17, 22-24; 2 Cor 5, 6-10; Mk 4, 26-34
Homily
The two parables we have just heard, that of the patient farmer and that of the mustard seed, are part of a group of four parables, the other two being that of the sower (Mk 4:38) and that of the leaven (Mt 13:33). These four parables deal with the same reality: the failure of Jesus in his preaching, or at least the slowness with which the results of his preaching became apparent.
In the story of the patient vinedresser, the Kingdom of God is compared to the slow growth of the seed until it is harvested, and at the same time to the prolonged inactivity of the vinedresser before the feverish work of the harvest. God is the vinedresser who will be active at harvest time, but who seems to be inactive throughout Jesus' ministry. He leaves Jesus isolated, without success, increasingly rejected by his own people. The Jews challenged Jesus, if he was to claim messiahship, to provide the signs that would herald the kingdom. His answer was that there are no spectacular signs. God allows the seed to grow slowly, but there is nothing to lose by waiting: there is absolute continuity between the growing pains of the kingdom of God and its full manifestation.
The parable of the mustard seed therefore encourages us to trust in God by highlighting the contrast between the humble beginnings of the Kingdom and the dimensions of its eschatological future. With this parable, Jesus certainly wanted to provide a response to people who contrasted the weakness of their means with the glory of the expected Kingdom.
Through these parables, Jesus once again calls us to patience: patience with ourselves, with our brothers and sisters, with the growth of his kingdom and with our own growth. And he reminds us that accidents and failures, wounds and healings are normal elements of this process, and give it its beauty. They are part of our created beauty, our beauty as creatures. This, for us, is very difficult to accept. To accept that we are not perfect, that nothing around us is perfect: that our whole life must be a long pilgrimage from our fragility to a situation of perfect growth that is reserved for the time of harvest.
Perfect harmony is not a dimension of creation, and therefore not a dimension of human existence, not even of redeemed human existence. The grandiose description in the book of Genesis does not show us a world emerging from God's hands perfectly centred, in perfect harmony: on the contrary, it seems that at God's word, each of the elements - water, earth, sun and moon, animals and human beings - exploded. And so began the long process towards total harmony, perfection achieved, a process that leads to eschatological bliss, but which passes through grindings and accidents, failures and silent waiting. It is precisely in this that the beauty of our created world lies.
In today's Gospel, Jesus bases our hope on the assurance of the day of harvest, but he also invites us to endure the period of waiting with patience. In this Eucharist, let us ask and thank Him for these two things: hope and patience.
Armand Veilleux