This is how it is with the kingdom of God

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time: Ezekiel 17:22-24, 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, Mark 4:26-34

The Kingdom of God is a loaded term. To the biblical world, it represents a divine reality that is universal, eternal, and all-encompassing. It evokes authority, power, and sovereignty. The contemporaries of Jesus believed that the Kingdom of God would break into history dramatically and abruptly in the imminent future. They held that the approaching arrival of the Kingdom of God would put an end to the existing world order as we know it, with supernatural forces overthrowing temporal powers, destroying the evil one, and restoring the rightful kingship of the Davidic monarchy to the promised Messiah. In stark contrast to this radical, overpowering, and politically charged conception of the Kingdom of God, today’s readings (Ezekiel, Psalm, and Gospel) propose alternative images of the Kingdom that, quite frankly, seem simplistic, ordinary, and even boring: cedars, palms, wheat, mustard (mustard seed), vegetables and seeds.

Kingdom’s alternative logic: 

These metaphors reveal something central about the reality of God’s Kingdom. They illustrate the incredible logic with which God acts within our history. Yes, he is the absolute, Supreme, eternal, and all-powerful authority. However, he is also the King who does not hesitate to step aside, give up his throne, bury himself in the soil like a mustard seed, or lose himself like the leaven in the dough. This same logic animates Jesus from his birth in the crib to his ministry for the outcast and his death on the cross. He is the self-sacrificing grain of wheat that does not produce fruit until it dies to itself. To Jesus, the Kingdom is not an apocalyptic reality that awaits a dramatic entrance. It is a divine reality that is already present here and now. It is a reality that is invisible but real, spiritual yet concrete, already and not yet. Although unrecognised by Jesus’ contemporaries, it had already been inaugurated in his life and ministry. Although crucial to history, it is concretised in anonymous silence. It grows secretly without much flair or pomp but with certainty. As Paul insists in the second reading, living this reality requires us to walk by faith and not by sight.

Kingdom is a process: 

The Kingdom of God is not an enigma but a reality that progresses at its own pace. Three key players animate this process: the seed, the soil, and the sower. Like the seed, the Kingdom is sown, cultivated, and harvested. When sown and scattered, the little seeds, with time and due process, “grow into a tree (the largest of plants), with large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade. In the maturation process of the seed, the fruit is invisible, hidden, and remains a potential. The seed germinates and grows without revealing the secret of its strength, without showing anyone its slow but sure development process. As for the sower, he needs to wait, trusting the seed and its capacity to grow. Secondly, he is also called to trust the soil and its scope to promote and support the growth process, through which the seed yields “first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear”. The one who sows has to wait with trust resisting the urge to control or manage the speed or destiny of the process. When we receive the seed of life and the gospel with trust, hope, and patience, the Kingdom takes root in our daily lives.

Kingdom is multifaceted: 

Pope Benedict XVI, (Jesus of Nazareth part 1) insists on three aspects of the Kingdom that reveal its multifaceted nature: 1. The Kingdom is Christological: The Kingdom “is not a thing, it is not a geographical dominion like worldly kingdoms. It is a person; it is Christ”. Christ is the seed who helps us realise that he is God’s presence, and in him, God himself is present with us. 2. The Kingdom is mystically personal: The Kingdom resides in the secret of our hearts, and as Church Father Origen writes, “those who pray for the coming of the Kingdom of God pray that the Kingdom is realised in themselves, and they pray that this kingdom might bear fruit and attain its fullness”. 3. The Kingdom is ecclesial: The Kingdom of God is present here and now, in and through the Church. The process is not about wishful thinking but working for the Kingdom values of justice, harmony, and equality in the present. Let us embrace God’s alternative logic of the Kingdom to engage in the secret but sure process of its fulfilment in our personal and community life realities.