The mystery of the presence of God in our lives and in the world is like a seed that looks average and ordinary, but not without significance and promise, that somehow gradually unfolds and grows to maturity and brings about amazing fruitfulness (Mark 4:26-34).
The seed and earth in growth
Parables are a literary form that uses the familiar to point out the unfamiliar, the material to lead on to the spiritual. It takes something from our world of experience to make a point and level up to “something like” in another realm. It imaginatively describes something to focus on and illumine another dimension of our life. Its figurative language is open-ended brain-teaser, admitting of deeper levels of understanding and interpretation. When the connection is made, it feels like making a personal discovery and receiving a revelation at the same time. Metaphors and comparisons are at times the only way we can go beyond the surface of things and leap even into the mystery of the reign of God.
The first parable about seed and soil depicts to us the natural process of growth and urges us to trust it. When the contact is made between the seed (God’s word) and the good soil (the welcoming human heart), a process of development sets in, a process that is mysterious and beyond our sight and control. The sower sleeps and rises night and day, and through it all he knows not how but the seed is sprouting and growing. God who sustains all things allows them to follow their natural courses. The trusted working of seed and good earth (Mark 4:20) together is according to a pattern of gradual, unfolding development, “first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the stalk,” finally ripeness and harvest. We may plant the seed and watch it grow and harvest its yield, but the seed works its own wonderful way, the secrets of its growth incomprehensible.
The seed that grows huge
This process of gradual growth picturing the reign of God is further illumined by the image of a seedling that takes years to grow into a magnificent tree, or of a rather negligible seed like that of mustard that eventually develops into a copious tree that gives shades and roost to many birds. It is not an overnight development, but needs some time to grow trunk and branches and to become the remarkable plant it is. The reign of God similarly begins in very ordinary circumstances and grows gradually until it has spread itself far and wide. We can count on the phenomenal growth of the reign of God and its universality providing shelter to all.
Although the parables can, indeed, lead us into a deepening of consciousness, we still need the teacher to guide us into changing our consciousness in a permanent and radical way. Each person has “eyes to see and ears to hear” (Mark 4:9, 23), but greater growth comes only with more personal encounter with the teacher. So, after Jesus has spoken the word to the public with as many parables as they are able to understand, He reveals their deeper meaning to His disciples in private. This ongoing interpersonal process with His disciples means Jesus shares His own consciousness to them, to stretch their imagination more and to make connections beyond what they may ordinarily do.
Alálaong bagá, the fellowship with Jesus in the reign of God works mysteriously. It takes root, grows, thrives and produces according to its own way, in the way of divine grace within the concreteness of human experience. It may be found where least expected and in what appears inconsequential, among the poor and the suffering and the despised, but its potential is wonderful and its results amazing. Among the followers of Jesus, continuing personal encounter and sharing with Him means simply more, more life force, more presence and love of God.
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