God's inclusive love

17 June 2012 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time Princeton, NJ

Today I thought it would be best to place the Gospel in the middle of the homily allowing an
introduction into one of the literary vehicles you will be listening to over the coming months.

This past week I returned from traveling with Fr. Richard Rohr on his final European speaking tour.
Our two weeks together took us through five countries from Italy to Romania where we met people
from different lands, customs, languages and religions. The final four days were in a Romanian
Russian Orthodox monastery where 150 prison chaplains from all over Europe, covering a wide
variety of Christian faiths, gathered to discuss the challenges and blessings within the ministry of
visiting those in prison. The wide variety of listeners required simultaneous translations in five
languages.

Likewise, when Jesus was preaching he also had great diversity in his audience. He was not only
preaching to the Jews who spoke Aramaic, but also to the Roman occupiers who spoke Latin. He
was not only preaching to his followers but to his persecutors. He was not only preaching to those
on the fringes of society but also to those in power. He was not only preaching to the men and
women of his time, but was also preaching to you and me. Through it all his goal was to open our
eyes and ears so we can be transformed.

At times Christ would use a very straight forward and dualistic (either/or) means of communicating,
like his teaching that one cannot serve both God and mammon. But most often Jesus would use
non-dualistic (both/and) language through the use of parables in order to teach. Why? Because
these metaphoric stories allow and require the listener to enter into the story. They invite you to
become engaged. It doesn't matter who you are, your age, your social status, your nationality,
your political basis, or even your degree of faith. With different depths of understanding and
different levels of comprehension, parables encourage the seer to see with new eyes. While we
have heard these stories time and time again, in the words of G. K. Chesterton, we need to look at
the familiar until it looks unfamiliar. In doing so, we begin to see in a new way. It is then that the
parables stretch and pull and coax you into new insight, allowing them to be transformational
rather than just informational.

As you can tell from the green we are wearing today, our Sunday liturgies have returned to
Ordinary Time. And over the next six months we will hear stories of Jesus preaching with parables
in order to describe what is indescribable.

So with a renewed ear and an open mind, I invite you now to listen to these two parables
describing the Kingdom of God, in this gospel written to us by Mark:

Jesus said to the crowds:
1 Deacon Jim Knipper

"This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a man was to scatter seed on
the land and would sleep and rise night and day and through it all the seed would
sprout and grow, he knows not how.

Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain
in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest
has come."

Then Jesus said,
"To what shall we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it?

It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the
seeds on the earth. But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of
plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its
shade."

With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to
understand it. Without parables he did not speak to them, but to his own disciples
he explained everything in private.

So with this reading from Mark’s fourth chapter we hear Jesus trying to describe what God’s love it
like. You can almost get the sense that after the first parable the crowd is somewhat lost on what
he is saying. So you can almost hear Christ reaching for another metaphor, another parable and
then it hits him – ahhhh – the Mustard Seed!

Recorded by all three synoptic gospel writers, this well known short parable carries an easy and
popular interpretation. God plants within each of us a grain of faith that through God’s love and
grace has the ability to grow into great significance. I am sure it was a message that the disciples
needed to hear, and one we need to take to heart. A message to not give up. To have hope. To
have patience. The seeds have been sown. The kingdom will grow. God’s love is at work.

And for many, the comprehension of this parable stops there – which is all fine and good. But dig
a bit deeper and there is more, much more. But in order to break this open you really need to drop
it into 1st century Jerusalem context. At that time there was a rabbinic principle called “diverse
kinds” which was intended to bring order and harmony to the world. It was a simple principle: like
things were to be kept together with like things. This was intended to protect the distinction
between what was holy and what was unholy.

So there would be no way anyone following Judaic law would dare comingle the seeds of different
plants. And even more so, with the seed of the mustard plant which is a weed! This plant
geminates quickly and once rooted is hard to keep pruned and under control. Once established its


branches provide shelter for birds. Birds? What farmer wants birds nesting in the fields eating all
the good seed and wreaking havoc on the crop?!

So can you imagine now the faces on those who were listening to Jesus tell this parable? They
had to be wondering where this rabbi, Jesus, was going with this story. How can God’s love be
like a weed? How could the Kingdom of God be a place for the unwanted? How could God love
something that we have deemed to be “unholy” or “unworthy.” Sounds to them that Jesus is
teaching heresy.

But we know that Christ was not there to talk about Judaic legal issues, much less to give them a
lesson in farming. Instead, the parable to the Mustard Seed reminds us that God’s love is all
inclusive.

God’s love is like the seed that grows quickly within our being, with or with our nurturing.
God’s love is like the mustard bush that roots itself in the middle of the field of our lives, even when
we have no desire for it.
God’s love it like the branches of the bush that provide rest and shelter for all even those who feel
unclean or insignificant – even those in prison.
God’s love cannot be contained, nor measured nor granted by any human, even though we seem
to keep trying.
God’s love is not dictated by church doctrine or law or even new translations, try as we might.
God’s love unconditionally encompasses everyone – weed and wheat, and even those hiding in
the bushes.
God loves us because God is good…not because we are good.

This is what today’s parables are all about.

This is the good news Mark gives us.

This is the Gospel of the Lord.


God's inclusive love

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