Friday of the Third Week in Course 2025
Mark’s Gospel today gives us a little story that is found in no other place in the NT. Like so many of the Jesus stories, it is about agriculture. Jesus is describing the Kingdom of God, which on earth is the Church He deputized to continue His mission to the world. Remember, God wanted everyone on earth to live in right conduct and to relate to Him with right worship. Certainly, He could do this as a despot, with secret police and cameras everywhere, but that would trample on the free will He gave humans, a critical way in which He made us in His own Image. That’s not God’s way, and Jesus was never tempted to try it.
The image Jesus gives us is of a farmer, taking a bag of fertile seed and plants it in the ground. I know most translations say that he “scattered” the seed, but even in the first century farmers were more systematic than to be haphazard with costly seed. The farmer then goes about his normal business day and night, and watches the seed sprout into plants, and then, watered by God’s rain, it grows. Eventually you see a tall plant with leafy blades, then ears of the grain, and finally a ripe ear of grain that can be harvested for next season’s planting or sale or consumption. Once this ripeness is seen, he takes his sickle and harvests.
The key phrase in this parable is, I think, “he knows not how.” Just as the first-century farmer knew nothing about the biochemistry of maize or barley, or the genetics, or even the chemistry of the compost he used for fertilizer, so we know very little about the men and women we evangelize. But that means we must, like the farmer, plant the seed every year, and take care of what sprouts. Some men and women will believe the Word and become missionaries of a sort themselves. Others will reject the Gospel. All we need to do is work, and let the Holy Spirit massage the hard heart to make it soft and ready for faith, hope, and charity.
This mysterious process is a good reason for us to have prayed the psalmist’s words: “Trust in the LORD, and do good; so you will dwell in the land, and enjoy security.” We must not worry about results. Remember the favorite phrase of Mother Teresa of Calcutta: “God does not call us to be successful, only faithful.”
The author of the letter to the Hebrews, probably writing not too long after the middle of the first century, had lived through the struggle of the early Church. He (or she) encouraged readers to remember those hard times of abuse and affliction. “You have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God and receive what is promised” were the written words of encouragement. They were followed by a reminder to hope in the coming of Jesus, who was (and is) due any day now. We all must be disciples of Jesus in faith, hope and charity, so that we may be united with Him in the presence of the Father and all the saints forever.
