OMELIE / Omelie EN

17 giu 2018

17/06/2018  11th Sunday of O. T. – B 

17/06/2018  11^th Sunday of O. T. – B 

Reading 1, Ezekiel 17,22-24 * Psalm 91 * Reading 2, Second Corinthians 5,6-10 * Gospel, Mark 4,26-34

“This is what the kingdom of God is like”, Says Jesus introducing many parables. He speaks through parables: in this way everybody can understand something, nobody is lacking some teaching; somebody, whoever loves Him, can begin to understand even the main message, the revelation of God that it wants to spread, and they start understanding who He is. We too are commendably willing to get to know Him. What would Jesus have possibly wanted to make clear, first of all to His disciples, and then also to all the others, little by little while in them was growing the love for Him and their availability to follow Him? “This is what the kingdom of God is like”: we already know that he will show Himself as the king of the kingdom, then the Kingdom of God is that particular change in society that appears when there are people welcoming Him as the Lord of their life. The content of the parable, then, regards first of all His own self and His task in the world.

Today's first very short parable tells us that the kingdom is like when “a man scatters seed on the land”. That seed it is not a pebble, it is living and bearing life. The seeds sprout and grow, even if nobody knows how this miracle could possibly happen. What can those who love Jesus understand? He is the seed thrown on the ground. Nobody knows why and nobody knows how, but it is there and it will bear fruit, there will be people following Him and loving Him, obeying Him and doing what He does: here is the kingdom, a new society, a society where love is not only a dream any more. In today's world, where we can see huge social disasters, young people fooled and addicted to alcohol and drugs, grown up in the dissolution of their family, in this very world, if Jesus is sown, we can see germinate and grow the novelty of a new society.  We do not know how it will be able to happen, that lost youngsters or vicious men would be able to change their life, but yet those as well, meeting Jesus, will be able to re-build a society more human and even become disciples of His.

The second parable is telling us again about a seed, and Jesus is describing the smallest seed He knows. The size does not influence the result: the plant that grows is big enough to be chosen by “the birds of the air” in order to build their nest. With the expression “the birds of the air” some passages of the Bible describe the peoples on Earth! Jesus is small in the eyes of the great men in the world, even insignificant: who out of their number is listening to Him? And yet, He starts a reality big enough to benefit the peoples on Earth. The Church, in fact, is the place welcoming and comforting, thanks to the love of its members, all the peoples that firstly enjoy benefits coming from it and then learn to take care of the weak, solidarity, the value of human life, the beauty of the family, the attention to the little ones, to take care of the sick.

The kingdom of God is the center of Jesus' attention, and He is the center of the kingdom itself. This is mysterious and small, but necessary. The disciples and the crowds need to get to know it, desire it, and, above all, become part of it. The kingdom that sprouts and grows, in fact, does not refer to a person alone, but to the reality this person is starting with the cooperation of others. Jesus is the first, the king, but the kingdom needs the presence of many others, and these are the faithful disciples. We, disciples faithful to Jesus, are the ones who form the Kingdom. Now we consider ourselves in exile, Saint Paul is saying, because we are in the world, far from the Lord. Our desire is to reach Him becoming estranged from this world. The apostle's words make us aware that the perfection of the Kingdom of God is not visible and not enjoyable on this Earth, but only after our death, when we will be completely with the Lord.

Two are then the ways to think about the Kingdom of God: we can think about its perfection that we will enjoy after death, but we start from now, even if we are hindered by sin, to put together that society that lives obeying the Lord Jesus, the king of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God in the world is immersed in an environment that is exactly trying to suffocate that kingdom which has been built in order to give life and foster peace and safety, in order to transform men's ways of living, suspicious, envious, violent and suffering men, to become peaceful, trustful and fraternal. In God's Kingdom, as a matter of fact, there are not officials competing against each other, only brothers. We are already busy and available in order to allow God's kingdom to grow like a tree: today's parables help us to get hope and to proceed with confidence, notwithstanding the fact that our effort seems huge to us, exceeding our possibilities and our skills. The very small seed and the one growing in the night destroy the resistance and the rush, and are an encouragement for us to persevere.