{"id":3720,"date":"2021-07-24T16:44:49","date_gmt":"2021-07-24T14:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/predication.net\/?p=3720"},"modified":"2021-07-24T16:44:50","modified_gmt":"2021-07-24T14:44:50","slug":"the-growth-of-gods-kingdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/predication.net\/?p=3720","title":{"rendered":"The growth of God’s kingdom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
To point out that God has a fondness for small beginnings. A tiny, round mustard seed was considered the smallest of all seeds. It can easily slip between your fingers and get lost in the ground. Imagine a simple tiny seed buried in the background as it grows slowly in a plant large enough to provide shelter for a large flock of birds. Modest the beginning, the magnificent end. Beloved brothers and sisters! Isn’t God’s kingdom like that? Today we have heard these beautiful words to the gospel: “The kingdom of God is like mustard grain” (Mt 13:31). This parable shows Jesus’ love in humble beginnings with huge results. The gospel changed the world, but what it was like in Jesus’ inconspicuous entry into the world.2 Where God is active, there is such manifestation of the inner force of growth that extensive work will arise even from the minor beginning. Human scales do not bind God; it does not need a magnificent start, a strong organization. God’s works are primarily created in silence and secret. Jesus uses this well-known miracle of nature to draw attention to the transformation that will take place in our hearts when God’s word is planted in its roots. In baptism, we have received the greatest gift we can imagine – God’s kingdom, but only in its infancy. The seed of God’s kingdom grows with us all the day we pour it on with faith and obedience. The kingdom of God does not have a flashy form; on the contrary, it is close, but it has the form of a bit of mustard grain. And it is from this insignificance that something emerges big. God does beautiful things and uses the most straightforward tools and materials. St. Peter of Chrysologus says that the kingdom of God in Christ, whose God sown like a mustard seed in the womb of the Virgin Mary and finally ripens into a tree that will bear the most valuable fruit.