How might your
potential grow in the kingdom of God?
When the prophet
Ezekiel speaks of God’s promise to the people of Israel in exile in Babylon, they
may well have a hard time believing all he has to say. After all, God is promising that they will
once again bear fruit; Ezekiel
assures them that the Davidic line, reimagined as a tender shoot taken by God from
the crest of the cedar, will be restored. Although the people may feel utterly bound by
the limitations of exile, God himself has no limitations: he can bring
low the high tree and lift high the
lowly tree. They may not recognize
their potential, but God does. In Psalm 92, we hear that God’s will is that we bear
fruit even in old age. Thanks to God’s kindness and faithfulness, there
is always a reason for hope.
Jesus will
likewise turn to the metaphor of agricultural growth in Mark’s Gospel as he
assures the crowds that they themselves are seeds,
created with great potential, planted by God, that they might bear fruit. It is God who sees the
potential through to the harvest; we are simply to participate in the potential
God has placed in each one of us. Jesus’
second parable, about the mustard seed, extends the metaphor: we are created with potential by God, but we
are planted for the sake of others, as the mustard tree puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in
its shade. We were made to be
community; our gifts are meant not for ourselves, but for other.
On earth, as Paul
tells the Corinthians, while we are at
home in the body, we are away from the Lord. Therefore we must remain courageous, living for the life we hope for, not for the life we
are in, yet taking every opportunity to live up to our potential here on earth,
while we can. To be courageous is to
know in the depth of our being that God is there, no matter what we are
experiencing – to know that God will pull us through, seeing our potential and
helping us to participate in the growth of God’s kingdom, as we walk by faith, confident in God’s
presence with us at every moment of the journey, helping us to bear fruit until, one day, we go home to the Lord, where we will know
the fullness of the kingdom of God.
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordle.net
No comments:
Post a Comment