A Homily for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

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+ “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

In contemplating the content of this familiar parable it is worth remembering that when Our Lord taught it he was—as it were—‘merely’ an itinerant preacher from Nazareth. He had not suffered the ignominy of the Cross, nor had he conquered it by His glorious resurrection from the dead. Yet these parables of Jesus of Nazareth attracted crowds. People found something in them that they did not find elsewhere.

Probably unknowingly, they encountered nothing less than the definitive revelation of God in human history Who, through His parables, taught and made plain than that which “has been hidden since the foundation of the world.” Through the Sacred Liturgy it is our privilege to encounter Him anew, just as did the crowds during His time on this earth. So too, it is our duty to attend carefully to His voice and to digest His teaching.

In so doing this morning we are confronted with the image of a mustard seed—one tiny seed, alone, planted in a field. It is in fact hard for anyone to do this: trees are more often grafted than grown from seeds. Years, if not decades, would pass before a shoot from a seed would grow even into a reasonable-sized shrub, let alone a viable and productive tree.

And yet this is the analogy Our Lord uses—a seemingly foolish practice is, in fact, the beginning of something truly great. No. It is more. It is the beginning of that reality, the Kingdom of God, in which all can come and find a home—indeed, an eternal home.

It is perhaps worthwhile recalling Our Lord’s teaching from the Gospel of John when, after triumphantly entering Jerusalem and knowing that His passion and death were imminent, He states: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (12:24) The mustard seed ‘dies’ in the same way, it is buried, and it rises again to bear great fruit.

So too, then, must we—at least in the sense of dying to oneself and living in and for Christ that St Paul explained to the Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (2:20)

The teaching is familiar. Just as our mustard seed must be planted in the earth in order to grow, just as the grain of wheat must fall to the ground and die, so St Paul teaches that we must be crucified with Christ in order that Christ shall live in us. No doubt few if any of us are particularly zealous for crucifixion, death or burial in the ground. And yet if the Kingdom of God is to live in us and grow through us, this is precisely what is required!

Before we recoil in terror, let us recall that this is precisely what has already taken place in us through our Baptism. This is easier to understand for one who is baptised as an adult, but even those (rightly) baptised as infants are in fact immersed into the saving death of Christ and are washed clean of all sin, original and, where necessary, actual. Baptism makes us members of the Kingdom of God and sons or daughters of God in our very being. The mustard seed has been planted in us. The grain of wheat has, through the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ, fallen to the ground and died. The very life of Christ has been implanted in our hearts minds and souls.

Of course, very often it may not feel like the life of Christ is at the core of our very being. We who at least try to live as members of God’s Kingdom know only too well how often we fail to live up to the dignity of our Baptism: temptation and sin is a reality which we must confront. Thankfully, though, in this we are not alone: Christ has conquered sin, and by His grace we can share in that victory through the Sacrament of Confession, which is a renewal of that of Baptism, if sin conquers us. By means of such renewal—let us call it a conversion of life, which is so often the case for those fallen away from the life of Christ, or for those who have never attempted to live it—the Kingdom of God can grow in us and through us anew.

Amongst those who heard this morning’s parable from Our Lord were the twelve apostles—the very pillars of the One, True Church He founded. They did not expect to become great apostles, but by their cooperation with God’s grace, the Kingdom of God spread to all corners of the world. We may not expect to work such wonders, but in hearing this parable this morning, here, before the altar upon which His Sacrifice shall be renewed, let us open ourselves anew to God’s grace (and resolve to remove what obstacles to it there may be) so that in us and through us, in ways perhaps only known to God, His Kingdom may grow in us and through us. +