Homily

Reading the Gospels, we immediately realize how central the theme of the “kingdom of God” is in Jesus’ preaching. In that sense, Mark characterizes the preaching of Jesus from the beginning, when the young prophet of Nazareth proclaims to those he meets on the streets and squares of Galilee: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; Repent and believe the gospel “(1:15). He does proclaim not just the existence of the Kingdom - a truth well known to his listeners - but that the kingdom has drawn near to people. So there is no more time to waste: it is necessary and urgent to decide. Whoever does not get involved endangers his or her very own salvation. The Kingdom is not, as some might think, far in the future, a future event that does not personally affect its listeners. On the contrary, it is now near, even in the midst of men and women. In short, salvation is right now. Evil and its power are defeated at the root. The time of their triumph is over and their final ruin has started. This is the good news - the “Gospel” - that Jesus came to bring to people, inviting them to decide to accept it. The decisiveness of this proclamation pushes Jesus to use any means, including the literary genre of parables, so that his listeners understand the coming of the Kingdom and its work in the lives of men and women. Jesus knows that the salvation of his hearers depends on their understanding of the gospel of the Kingdom. This is the heart of his message; it is not one of many truths to learn. The parables, therefore, do not want to hide the mystery of the kingdom. On the contrary, they try to involve the audience more effectively through clear images. The concreteness of the images encourages touching the mystery that they conceal.
The Gospel passage shows two parables of the Kingdom. The first one speaks of an event that the listeners know well: sowing. “So is the kingdom of God,” Jesus begins to speak, “as a man who scatters seed on the ground.” When finished sowing, the farmer waits patiently and without too many worries until harvest time. The earth spontaneously (“automatically,” says the Greek text) bears fruit. The time of harvest will come and the farmer will be able to amass the harvest of his fields. Jesus draws the attention of the listeners to the “work” that the seed does, by its internal energy, from the time of sowing until the maturity of the plant. There is no doubt that Jesus wants to bring comfort to his listeners. We should probably think of the Christian community that Mark was addressing, and that was living in very difficult times of persecution. No doubt believers were wondering where the power of the Gospel was, and why evil and difficulties seemed to win over everything. Did Jesus die and rise in vain? Sometimes we too, although in conditions different from those of the community of Mark, think similar things. How many times, for example, we hear repeated phrases like these: “After so many years of preaching the gospel, why is the world so full of malice?” Or “‘Where is the kingdom of God and his strength?” Well - Jesus answers - like the seed, once thrown to the ground, springs up and produces fruit, so is the Kingdom of God. Believers must know that the Lord Himself is at work in our lives and in human history and they must put all their trust in him. The Lord promises that evil will not prevail. The Kingdom has started because the Lord is near. The Kingdom acts because the Lord is at work. Obviously Jesus does not intend to belittle our efforts; nor does he invite us to sleep and rest in the belief that the Kingdom grows and develops anyway. The Gospel only points out that the sovereignty of God over evil is now final.
The following parable continues to compare the kingdom of God to a small seed, even the smallest of all: that of mustard. Obviously the insistence on the smallness of the seed is not random. We do not do great things because we are powerful or great. In the Kingdom of God exactly the opposite occurs from what happens among people. “Who wants to be first among you must be slave of all,” Jesus says to his disciples. Those who make themselves small and humble will bear much fruit. When the tiny mustard seed grows, it becomes a shrub as high as three meters, and the birds can rest and sometimes even nest on it. Jesus says that the Kingdom of God follows the same pattern of this small seed. Therefore the Kingdom does not impose its external power and magnificence. On the contrary, it follows a logic different from that of the world: the Kingdom chooses the path of weakness to affirm the explosive energy of love, and favours the small, the weak, the sick and the marginalized to demonstrate the extraordinary power of mercy. Where the Kingdom comes, the hungry are filled, the afflicted comforted, the poor welcomed, the sick healed, the lonely consoled, those in prison visited and enemies are loved. The Kingdom is where there is love. This changes a lot of things. You could say that you do not go to Heaven through works of charity; rather you are already in heaven when you live charity.
The new aspect of the Gospel preaching is in the close relationship that Jesus puts between himself, his work and the Kingdom. Jesus is the kingdom; he identifies himself in it. Jesus is the seed sown in the land of people, a small, weak, ill-treated, abused, discarded, or rather thrown out seed. Yet, once this seed thrown to the ground died, it was resurrected and through the disciples, his mystical body has extended its branches to the ends of the earth. While in exile in Babylon, the prophet Ezekiel had foretold that a fragile branch, as weak as the tip of the cedar, would become a sturdy and renewed tree. “I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar” (Ez 17.22-23). To the extent that they get involved, indeed overwhelmed by the little book of the Gospels, the disciples can become part of the Kingdom of God and become its humble servants.