Mark 4:26-34 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Negativity has no place in the Kingdom of God
Mark 14:12-16, 22-26 Solemnity of the Corpus Christi
June 5, 2021
Mark 4:35-41 He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!” The wind ceased and there was great calm.
June 19, 2021
11th Sunday Ordinary Time
Ezekiel 17:22-24
2Corinthians 5:6-10
Mark 4:26-34
A. Text/Context
• Jesus has to tell stories in parables so it stir the minds of the faithful to reflect a little more about what he teaches
• Reflection and meditation help us obtain the light of understanding what God wants us to do
• In the gospel, Jesus describes how the seed is scattered on the soil and the farmer would sleep and rise and sleep and rise again to find out that the seed has grown
• When the seeds of the KOG is just freely scattered by God then we can conclude that the sower who scatters the seeds is so generous
• Such is the endless generosity of God to scatter His kingdom to all his children
• And obviously the KOG is for everyone and it is for our own individual taking
• We just have to choose by identifying ourselves as to how fertile and robust is the kind of soil where we belong
• That would mean that the KOG will grow in us if we are receptive to it. And most of all we are given two choices: to let it grow or to let it die
B. Human Situation
• Shall we say if we are a fertile soil there is very little effort for the seed to grow healthy because the soil is rich with nutrients
• A child who grows up in an ideal family where love and harmony is present in the household will surely have a very positive outlook in life for the future
• For sure, when the child grows, he or she will possess the values that are impressive in the life of a person
• But if the child is abandoned, grew up in an orphanage for example, without even knowing the parents, the child will not even know the concept or an idea of what is a family
• When the child grows, naturally, there is also the lasting imprint in his or her mind that life has plenty of troubles, that relationship is chaotic
• So the broken children have to undergo a lot of healing all because they have become victims of the social ills of our society or there are really irresponsible people behind that is why they are what they are now
• And there has to be plenty of efforts to heal a broken soul. There will be plenty of combinations
• A good seed but a bad soil, a bad seed but a fertile soil, a good seed and a good soil. The best combination produces the greatest harvest
• But what is beautiful in the KOG is not only the good seed and the good soil because the grace of God allows healing both on the broken or mangled seed and the infertile soil
• You can hear of beautiful stories like this that the person suffered so much from discrimination or poverty and has to work his or her way up in order to attain a higher education and that person now becomes the most generous and charitable in the community
• Why? Because the KOG has grown in his or her heart
• I also hear of families where the parents are so proud and arrogant and they are hardly the good models of virtues and values for their own children, but the son or the daughter is so patient, so industrious, so persevering
• They become very apologetic for the bad things their parents did and they sacrifice a lot and they became very successful
• Why is this so? Again, because God has also nurtured the seed of love and charity in their own hearts
• So God also nurtures the seeds he scattered even if they fall on dry land
• Sometimes the law of the opposites come very close in these situations
• Your partner is very silent because you are very noisy
• One friend is so against the decision but another friend is very supportive of your plan
• In that sense, the situation calls for a common agreement and so it strikes a balance. God knows what is best for all of us
• In other words, even if there are people coming from different unpleasant environments, they are not affected by negativity
C. Challenge
• So you see it’s a matter of nurturing and sustaining the seeds of faith that we receive from God
• There is a struggle for endurance, whether the seed is good or not, whether the soil is fertile or not
• There is still a struggle to nurture the seeds in order for them to grow into a full plant bearing fruits by the hundreds
• So the challenge of the gospel story is that we should not give in to negativity. There are so many negative things surrounding us
• Shall we say you are a student, and you want to study your lesson in the quiet of the evening
• But your neighbor plays their music so loudly it is impossible to concentrate
• What you will do? You can tell your parents to negotiate with your neighbor to tone down the sound
• If your neighbor is good he will consider your request. But if your neighbor is unpleasant he will be mad at you
• So you are not going to fight with a neighbor who is so inconsiderate. Just find time to study your lesson somewhere else in the school, in the library in your free time, in your friend’s house, etc.
• There are so many options you don’t need to wage a war with your unruly neighbor because it will complicate the situation, the negative will become even more negative
• So your last option will be the recourse to the rule of law; if your neighbor has the right to be noisy you are also entitled to the right of a silent environment
• That is what St. Paul in the 2nd reading is doing to encourage the Christians in Corinth to continue to be confident even with all sorts of trouble. We only to rely on Christ
• So we do not stoop to negative things so that the seeds of the KOG will grow. Just like a growing plant we need to water it
• The values of the KOG are all there, love, forgiveness, charity, patience, humility, etc.
• These are the values that we need to cultivate
• If your seatmate in the Church keeps on talking even during mass, that is negative do not let your own prayer life be disturbed with that
• This is one truth that I would tell you. Focusing on the negative is a tactic of the devil
• The devil wants to distract you from doing good by making situations that make you angry, that would make you hate others, that would make you disillusioned, hopeless and dejected
• If we give in to these, then the devil has won because the only motive of our spiritual enemies is destruction
• There is a need to struggle because life is a constant struggle and we can only continue to nurture the seeds of love if we protect ourselves from bad influence
• Let us not allow the negative things in life to overpower us. The positive outlook in life is an inspiration from God himself
• Shall we say you already have a terminal sickness and there is no more healing. The good in that is that if we accept it, offer our pains to the Lord then there is a spiritual healing even if the body is so sick
• In the end even if life is so negative God will find ways to make it pleasant and acceptable
• Ezekiel in the 1st reading says “It shall put forth branches and bear fruit, and become a majestic cedar. Birds of every kind shall dwell beneath it”
• Negativity has no place in the KOG
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Mark 4 verse 26-34
