{"id":13524,"date":"2021-06-13T00:00:32","date_gmt":"2021-06-12T23:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/turski.blog\/?p=13524"},"modified":"2021-06-13T00:00:32","modified_gmt":"2021-06-12T23:00:32","slug":"11th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/?p=13524","title":{"rendered":"11th Sunday in Ordinary Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent interview, a celebrity-turned-farmer said: <\/span>\u2018I thought farming was a part-time thing; you just put seeds in the ground, weather happens, food grows then you sell it.\u2019 <\/span><\/i>Which is in line with today\u2019s gospel reading and its first parable. Except it isn\u2019t. Because, as the newly minted farmer continued, <\/span>\u2018it\u2019s a full-on, twenty-hours a day, seven days a week [job].\u2019<\/span><\/i> His experience, like most other farmers’, seems to contradict Jesus\u2019s words: <\/span>\u2018A man throws seed on the land. Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting and growing; how? he does not know. Of its own accord the land produces\u2026\u2019<\/span><\/i> Whose statement should we trust then, Jesus\u2019s or farmers\u2019? It depends. If we want to know anything about farming, those with knowledge and experience are our port of call, not the Bible\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Before you start protesting, let me explain such a sacrilegious verdict. The clues are in fact in today\u2019s gospel. Let\u2019s start with the first one: <\/span>\u2018This is what the kingdom of God is like\u2026.\u2019<\/span><\/i> Jesus talked about the subject that his Jewish contemporaries understood or interpreted in many different, sometimes incompatible ways. No small proportion of Jesus\u2019s audience, as well as His opponents, assumed that \u2018the kingdom of God\u2019 was a political project. We surely remember that Jesus was falsely accused of fomenting political opposition to, or even uprising against the establishment. That leads us to the second clue in today\u2019s gospel: <\/span>\u2018Using many parables like these, [Jesus] spoke the word to them, so far as they were capable of understanding it.\u2019<\/span><\/i> In other words, He utilised images, ideas and views familiar to His audience even if they were factually incorrect. Jesus wasn\u2019t teaching farming, fishing or any other specific trade. When He used parables, He taught them <\/span>\u2018what the kingdom of God is like.\u2019<\/span><\/i> The third clue is this: <\/span>\u2018[Jesus] explained everything to his disciples when they were alone.\u2019<\/span><\/i> This closing sentence helps us to understand that Jesus\u2019s parables weren\u2019t top-end, fine-detailed theological lectures; this kind of in-depth teaching was reserved for a small group of His disciples, the future leaders of the Church.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go back to the parables and try to find the message Jesus wanted to convey. Both are answers to this question: <\/span>\u2018What can we say the kingdom of God is like?\u2019<\/span><\/i> I\u2019ve been explaining this ad nauseam but it\u2019s crucial to understand the highly volatile political context of Jesus\u2019s public ministry. From day one virtually everyone – followers and opponents – perceived Him as a political leader of the upcoming uprising. Jesus\u2019s followers made plans to bring it about while His adversaries plotted to stop Him from doing so. In such a<\/span> context, the kingdom of God was seen as a political project based on religious law, or in short: theocracy. A glimpse of such thinking can be found in the gospel of St Luke, when <\/span>\u2018once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming.\u2019<\/span><\/i> His answer was very telling: <\/span>\u2018The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, \u2018Look, here it is!\u2019 or \u2018There it is!\u2019 For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.\u2019 (Luke 17:20-21)<\/span><\/i> Then Jesus gave a much longer explanation but – echoing today\u2019s gospel – addressed it to his disciples, not the Pharisees (see Luke 17:22-35).<\/span><\/p>\n

Incidentally, this short sentence – <\/span>\u2018the kingdom of God is among you\u2019<\/span><\/i> – is the key for the interpretation of the two parables in today\u2019s gospel; or for that matter, for every parable on the kingdom of God that we can find in the gospels. The core message of those two parables is the humble beginnings and great impressive outcome. The mustard seed can be an individual with no worldly power or influence, insignificant in the great scheme of things; namely, you and me. At the same time, the mustard seed can be a tiny act of charity, so small that<\/span> it<\/span> might be almost imperceptible to others. But once planted, it brings out more similarly tiny acts of charity, so we can compare it to the field mentioned in the first parable. Each one of us is the ground where the mustard seed of charity was planted when<\/span> we were baptised. At the same time, we plant the seed of the kingdom of God every time we live out our faith and testify to it. That includes our readiness to apologise for our misdeeds as well as our willingness to forgive those of others. The transformation of the world starts in our hearts. If we want to live in a Christian society, we must build it up, from the grassroots, where people willingly and freely adopt and live in line with the Christian law. History teaches us that the alternative – a forcefully imposed top-down theocratic legislation – can only lead to misery, oppression and a caricature of the kingdom of God. That\u2019s not what we are called to build. The only kingdom of God that is our mission is <\/span>\u2018a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love, and peace.\u2019 (Preface for Christ the King)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

Image by kangbch<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent interview, a celebrity-turned-farmer said: \u2018I thought farming was a part-time thing; you just put seeds in the ground, weather happens, food grows then you sell it.\u2019 Which is in line with today\u2019s gospel reading and its first parable. Except it isn\u2019t. Because, as the newly minted farmer continued, \u2018it\u2019s a full-on, twenty-hours a day, seven days a week [job].\u2019 His experience, like most other farmers’, seems to contradict Jesus\u2019s words: \u2018A man throws seed on the land. Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting and growing; how? he does not know. Of its own accord the land produces\u2026\u2019 Whose statement should we trust then, Jesus\u2019s or farmers\u2019? It depends. If we want to know anything about farming, those with knowledge and experience are our port of call, not the Bible\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-b"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}