The Inner Propensity of the Word of God
Fr Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF
Claretian Publications, Macau
Today’s gospel presents three parables of the Kingdom of God: two of them coming from an agricultural backdrop, and one is from an all too familiar experience of the kitchen. When or why do we start using parables and stories to teach? They are required when a certain reality is not immediately perceivable to us. The Kingdom of God is one such. We are so immersed in this reality that we have lost a bird’s eye view of it. It is like a little fish in the ocean asking the mother, “Where is the ocean?” The mother replies, “The place you are swimming in is the ocean.” The baby fish says, “No, this is just water.” The baby fish does not have alternative perspectives and fails to comprehend the ocean. Alternative perspectives on reality is inevitable to perceive the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God is a reality in this life, not just an afterlife phenomenon. It comprises the Church and those who believe in the word of God. Each of the three parables on the Kingdom unveils a unique facet of the Kingdom.
The first one is about a farmer who scatters seeds lavishly in his field. Then he rests. The seed is the word of God. It grows with its own inner propensity. Growth in the Kingdom of God refers to growth in the number of people who live by the gospel values. After sowing the seeds, the farmer has to rest. I remember one of my follies in childhood. After a day of doing some garden planting, I used to pull them out to see if they had new roots. It took some time for my dad to convince me that if I disturbed the plant every day, it would not have roots but die. The one who witnesses the word of God needs to wait patiently for it to grow and bear fruit in people. This transformation requires people to change a familiar value system and learn a new one that the Word of God proposes. Sometimes, it takes generations. Learn patience. The one who tries to hasten the growth of the Kingdom believes in one’s own capacity rather than that of the Word of God.
The second parable is of the yeast and the dough. A woman places a small amount of yeast in the dough. It propagates itself by contact and fills the whole dough. It refers to the transforming capacity of a disciple by presence. They need not run around with megaphones to preach. Just be there, be present. By contact, by what people see in the life of the disciples, a culture will develop unbeknown to the disciple. The disciples are not many. But they can transform a whole community by the witness of life. Jesus did this himself. He had over 5,000 followers. But he chose to get a small group of people who personally experienced divine love from him. They, in turn, gave out divine love to those who were in touch with them. As the believers grew, societies of many nations and centuries carried on the transformation. The Kingdom of God consists of people who have experienced and believe in this transformative power of the word of God.
The third parable is of a mustard seed. It talks about the propensity of the small seed to grow so much as to shelter birds on them. It depicts how one person living by the gospel values can make the Kingdom spread astonishingly and give protection to those who are seeking shelter (birds nesting). I am familiar with a banyan tree that is spread around 16,187 square meters of land. It has about 3,000 aerial roots. I imagine this tree whenever I think of the growth of the Kingdom of God. These aerial roots make the tree healthier and capable of withstanding any storm. We are branches of the Kingdom Tree that send their own roots down into the nourishing ground of the Word of God and stabilize the growth of the Kingdom by witnessing to the gospel values.
© Claretian Publications, Macau
Cum Approbatione Ecclesiastica 2024
全属于祢 
您必须登录才能发表评论。