When Jesus spoke to his followers he used simple examples.
He spoke to ordinary people in ordinary words about the profound truths of life and love and our relationship with God.
In today’s Gospel we hear three different parables
They all speak about the Kingdom of God and these parables are as meaningful for us today as they were for the people who heard them from Jesus himself.
After a long winter a gardener can’t wait for the ground to thaw so that they can get their hands in the soil
In the early spring when life begins to pop up all over earth if you go to your garden you will see all kinds of green things breaking through the soil.
It is almost impossible to know which ones are weeds and which one will be flowers or vegetables.
The temptation is to simply pull everything out but that’s not what God would have us do.
It is only after a while sometimes a long while that you can figure out exactly what is really growing in your garden.
The gardener will always ask himself Is this wheat or is it a weed?
The land owner (God) does not want the us to pull out what seems to be weeds because they might actually be wheat.
The moral of the story is simply this.
We need to be patient
Patient with each other and patient with difficult situations.
You know a person might seem like a weed their whole life and than in one incredible moment of grace turn out to be a beautiful stalk of wheat.
You might be in a job which seems like a weed sucking the life out of you and everything around you but after a while it may turn into something life giving for you.
Your teenager might seem to be like a weed from another planet but… you just never know give him/her a chance and they may actually turn out to be the beautiful stalk of wheat you remember them as.
All of us have weeds in our lives.
Some of us may even be convinced that we live with weeds…
God wants us to be patient
We should never give up on a person God never does
And the most incredible thing to remember is this
God’s transformative love is so powerful that He can even change a weed into wheat whenever it is ready.
All of us need more patience.
We must never forget how patient God is with us…
The second parable speaks about a Mustard seed..
Mustard seeds are really small and seem pretty insignificant by any standard.
Yet they contain within themselves incredible power,
and when they are watered, nurtured and cared for they can become a huge tree.
Someone recently said to me there is so little good in the world and so much bad.
I’ll admit sometimes it seems that way.
And sometimes it’s just hard to cope.
We must never forget that as long as there is even the tiniest bit of good even good the size of a mustard seed There is something good to hope for.
As long as there is the tiniest seed of good in our marriage
As long as there is the tiniest seed of good in our job
As long as there is the tiniest seed of good in our relationships
There is something to hope for
God wants us to dare to hope.
The Kingdom of God is indeed present in this world
As this parish has faced some pretty significant challenges these last couple weeks we has seen God’s presence in a wonderful way this week.
At first goodness and hope seemed so small…
but now we know that God is here and the events of these last two weeks have brought us closer together rather than farther apart.
Finally Jesus spoke about yeast
Yeast which has the power to change….
We must be like the yeast.
Yeast which has the power to transform a glob of wet flour into a loaf of wonderful bread.
I used to live in a Friary with a bread machine.
When we first got the machine we baked fresh bread everyday. It was wonderful to wake up and smell it.
One day when it was my turn to set up the bread machine .
When we woke up the next morning the smell was different .
I went to the bread machine only to find a big mess.
I had forgotten to put in the most important ingredient… the yeast.
Just like flour and water need yeast to make bread
The world needs good patient people even just a few to build up God’s Kingdom
We are the yeast
By our sacrifice, by our forgiveness, by our devotion to truth and justice,bBy our generosity,
we can change the world into something wonderful just like the yeast turns a glob of dough into a loaf of bread.
So let us be patient with the weeds in our lives especially those weed which have two legs
Let us refuse to give up even when there is only the tiniest amount of hope. hope the sign of a mustard seed.
Armed with patience and hope we can indeed be like yeast for a world so desperate to be transformed into the Kingdom of God.
Amen
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