[The readings for today's Mass can be found here at: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/proper-6b/ for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost]
I have been remiss for several weeks posting reflections on the Sunday Mass texts. During that time I had been in Southern Europe visiting Barcelona, Gibraltar, Marseilles, Pisa, and Rome. The highlights of the trip included visiting several of the notable or really OLD churches in those cities, such as Barcelona's Mediaeval Cathedral of St. Eulalia, the more recent Notre Dame de la Garde in Marseilles, and the late Antiquity Basilicas of Sta. Maria Maggiore and San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome. These all speak of a time when the Church had spread like wildfire across the Roman world. While many negatives are associated (and rightly so) with that spread, it also signifies that along with the negative came also the seed of the Word of the Gospel, finding whatever fertile soil it could.
Today's readings all point to the pervasive spread of the Kingdom of God. In the Gospel reading our Lord speaks of the Kingdom of God being like seed that a sower casts on the ground. The planter does not exactly know how, but the casting of small, insignificant granules eventually grows into something great and marvelous and whose benefits are there for anyone to gather. Similarly, the mustard seed parable speaks of a most insignificant seed eventually becoming a huge shrub that provides rest and shelter to any passing by. The reading from 1 Samuel regarding the choice of a young David to be the next King of Israel likewise shows that the King who loomed largest in the collective consciousness of Israel came from an insignificant beginning.
The message here is one of both hope and perspective. Often we look at the world around us and the problems that beset it and think how pointless any of our efforts are. But as God gives the growth to the seeds in the Gospel or picks the lowliest of the low in the Old Testament, we should keep in mind that anything we do in faith may later result in great things. We do not necessarily know what the final result can be, nor how permanent it will be, but nothing done for the Kingdom of God, if it is God's will, is ever too insignificant. Thanks be to God.
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