Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jan 30 2025

Seeds of Hope

I watch most of the children in my three brothers’ families growing into what is called “emerging adulthood.” It must be very difficult at times for parents, only being able to watch, hope, and pray as their children start to move away from home and begin to make their own way into the world. Will they be safe, make the right choices, be happy?

Making use of images from nature, scripture reminds us that God gives the growth, whether it is to mighty cedars springing from small shoots, ripened grain sprouting from the blade, or a fully grown mustard plant emerging from the tiniest of seeds to offer its large branches as housing for the birds.

Such poetic language calls us to reflect on the mystery of the kingdom of God, whose seeds were found in the various covenants extended to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, and then fully enfleshed in Jesus so many millennia ago. This kingdom continues to sprout in our day, often where least expected.

Sometimes it breaks through like a mighty cedar, but more often it is a quieter blossoming, suddenly emerging like stalks of grain, or the first signs of life carried in a mother’s body. I am sure God has worried for all the children of every age who have filled the earth. The kingdom of life won by Christ continues to have the power to carry all God’s sons and daughters into the loving arms of the God Jesus taught us to call Father.

Consider/Discuss

What do you see around you that speaks of the mystery of growth? What encourages or discourages growth?
What is God presently calling to grow to fullness in your own life? In the life of your parish community? In our world?

Responding to the Word

God of all life, we thank you for the many ways life continues to flourish in our world and in our land. Bless the life you have entrusted to our care. Guide us in raising it to harvest. Remove any obstacles we place in its way. We ask this in Jesus’ name.

Jan 30 2025

Scripture Study for

Ezekiel pronounces an oracle of salvation employing a fable about a cedar tree. The tender shoot is destined to be planted on the heights of Israel, the very place from which the Davidic dynasty ruled. The words of the Lord describe a reversal performed by God. The twig that was once insignificant and vulnerable will be exalted on a high and lofty mountain. The messianic character of this image is obvious. The divine force of these prophetic words is underscored in the very last verse: The Lord has spoken it, and it is done. The transformation of the tender shoot is but another wonder performed by the sovereign Lord.

Paul instructs the Corinthians on how to live in a time when, though committed to the Lord, they do not see the Lord face to face. This sermon draws a clear distinction between this life and the next. It emphasizes the need to live by faith now, because we cannot live by sight alone. During this life believers are at home in the body, but away from the Lord. In the next life, they will be away from the body and at home with the Lord. Paul ends his exhortation with a sobering thought. At the end of this life, all will stand before Christ to be judged according to whether or not they did in fact live lives of faith after his example.

Jesus’ first saying characterizes the reign of God as a seed that takes root, grows, and produces its plant in some secret place within the earth. The seed itself may be quite inconsequential, but deep within itself it possesses great potential. The amazing qualities of a seed are the focus of the parable that follows. The passage ends with a summary statement about Jesus’ teaching in parables. They forced his hearers to stretch their imaginations and to make connections that they might not ordinarily make. The presumption was that those who followed Jesus were always willing or able to do this.

Jan 27 2025

Grow—Now!

In the children’s book Frog and Toad Together, Toad admires Frog’s garden. Toad wants to grow flowers too, so Frog gives him some seeds. But, Frog warns him, gardening is hard work. So Toad runs off and puts his seeds in the ground. Then he jumps up and down and shouts for the seeds to begin growing immediately!

As I read that story aloud to my grandson, I chuckled at Toad’s unholy impatience to get his seeds to grow. But then I went outside and saw my bed of carrots. I also wanted to yell at the seeds to start growing immediately. To germinate in our sandy soil, I have to keep them evenly moist for three weeks. Three weeks is a long time to look at bare dirt. I want to shout with Toad, “Come on, already!” Gardening is hard work.

Seed science is extraordinary. Germination is a tenuous process: not all seeds germinate, some rot, some never come up. Under ideal conditions, the seed coat swells with moisture and begins to transform. Two leaves erupt (in a dicotyledon), looking nothing like the hard seed. The tiny plant relies on the food stored within the seed. The dampness of fungus can wilt it. Dryness can kill it. When the second set of leaves erupts, that is a sign that the plant has developed its own root system. It will grow.

Jesus says that the kingdom of God is like the seeds that grow of their own accord. We do not know how the kingdom of God grows. Some days we might want to jump up and down and bellow, “Hey God, get working now!”

We are not in charge of transformation. But we can water. We can tend. In the grace of the Holy Spirit, we work hard while allowing Divine Mystery to be mystery, God to be God.

Consider/Discuss

It is hard to wait. Sometimes we want to jump up and down and shout, “Hey God, get going!” We want to be in control. We want to make things happen already. How do excess worry, unproductive fretting, and unholy impatience reflect our lack of trust? On the other hand, how does a healthy dose of concern keep us watering and tending? Where is the fine line between the two?
Just because the kingdom of God is a mystery does not suggest that we be lazy, settle for mediocrity, or excuse ourselves, in our efforts to further the Kingdom. Soil conditions are up to us. If we offer too heavy a clay, too shady a spot, and give too much or too little water, seeds can die. We are partners with God in the growth of the Kingdom. What tending does God want me to do today?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, your friend St. Paul tells us that we feel far from you while we are in this human body. We have to walk by faith because we do not see you. And yet you are also here. You are a constant gardener, present among us, planting and reaping in ways that we do not see or know. Even as we jump up and down in fret and worry, grant us the grace of inner calm that all will be well. We are willing to work to make your kingdom come. But only you can make it happen. Help us to trust in your timing.

Jan 27 2025

Scripture Study for

Just before today’s reading, Ezekiel speaks a prophecy about the divinely ordained exile of the Davidic king to Babylon, in which a great eagle plucks the crest of a cedar and transplants it (17:1– 4). But now the new Davidic king has appealed to Egypt for help against Babylon, attempting in effect to circumvent the divine plan of judgment against Judah. Now God affirms that divine power alone “will take from the crest of the cedar” and plant it. In other words, not the Davidic kings but God will rebuild the dynasty, and only after the time of judgment ends. It is God, not the kings, who raises up and brings down, who withers and who restores life. The oracle both affirms God’s plans for restoration and warns that only God will carry it out.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul is pondering the fact that discipleship brings with it many trials, yet these same hardships “produce for us an eternal weight of glory” (4:17). While we are in our earthly bodies, we can only groan in anticipation of this glory (5:1–5). This is why we must be courageous; although we are now “away from the Lord,” this is only temporary, a truth that can only be discerned in faith. This distance from the Lord must not lead us to falter in our discipleship, because in time we will appear before Christ, who will judge us precisely on what we have done during our time “in the body.”

Jesus gives two parables to explain the mysterious nature of the kingdom of God, both drawn from the natural world and focusing on the hidden process by which plants grow, which human beings cannot control. There is something inherent within the grain and the mustard plant that allows them to grow, in their own time and manner, independent of human will or power. At the same time, humans are involved in the process by sowing the seeds in the first place. The parables suggest that while the kingdom is indeed God’s, and cannot be manipulated by humans, human action is nevertheless part of the dynamic of the growth of the Kingdom.

Dec 16 2024

Grant to Us, O Lord, a Heart Renewed

Nathan’s message to King David could not have been any more pointed: God says, “I have given you all that you have, and you have taken away all that your devoted soldier Uriah had: his wife and his life.’” David acknowledges his sin, confessing his guilt, and God shows mercy, forgiving him.

After hearing Jesus preach, a woman responds with repentance to his message announcing the coming of God’s reign. She comes to the house of Simon the Pharisee to express her grateful heart for all to see. Simon, however, is a harder nut to crack. As Nathan did with David, Jesus tells a story, hoping to penetrate Simon’s judgmental heart. Simon gets the point, but we don’t know whether it stays in his head without reaching his heart.

God sent Jesus to liberate people, to bring them to a fuller life. We see Jesus trying to free both men and women from what imprisons them, and to bring them out of the darkness and into the light of communion with God and with each other. We see how quickly God responds to David’s confession and how appreciatively Jesus speaks of the woman to Simon.

One hopes that Simon came to himself at some point and was able to receive the good news of God’s kingdom so near to his grasp. One hopes he came to know God’s generous forgiveness for his sins, whether many or few, great or small. One hopes he came to recognize Jesus as truly God’s prophet and Son.

Consider/Discuss

Do our “little” sins lead us to be judgmental of others?
Do we know that no sin is beyond God’s forgiveness?

Responding to the Word

You are our forgiving Father who desires to lift any burden caused by sin. Give us the courage to confess honestly what we have done and what we have failed to do. When we sin, save us from despair and keep our eyes on your merciful love, revealed to us by your Son, Jesus.