Do you trust in the promises of God?
God calls Ezekiel when the soon-to-be prophet is already in exile in Babylon, and Ezekiel’s message is not, at first, a promising one; much of it has to do with the destruction of Jerusalem. But eventually the prophet does deliver a beautiful, hope-filled image in which God promises to restore David’s kingdom: I, too, will take from the crest of the cedar, and plant it on a high and lofty mountain so that it can become a majestic cedar, God says. And what God plants, flourishes, giving shelter to all: Birds of every kind shall dwell below that majestic cedar. God promises that God’s kingdom will embrace all the earth, and all shall be aware of God’s power. Psalm 92 confirms that power: They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. We only have life when we are in relationship with the Lord, in proximity to our God, when our lives are planted by God and nurtured by God, entrusted to God’s own dwelling, living in hope of God’s promises.
Jesus likewise uses the image of planting to give the crowds a sense of the potential for God’s action to establish God’s kingdom. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus speaks first of a man who scatters seed on the land and then… goes to sleep! The man has no consciousness of the power of God at work until it’s time to harvest, yet he seems to intuit God’s promise of bounty: And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once. That man knows that God sees our potential through to harvest; we then participate in that potential, cooperating in God’s life with God.
The kingdom of God will take root, as God promises, producing fruit in the most unlikely of places, from the most unlikely of beginnings – witness the lowly mustard seed. We are called to be witnesses to the power of God’s love at work, living with courage as we trust in God’s promises. We are always courageous, Paul tells the Corinthians, for we walk by faith, not by sight. And so we need to live for the promises we hope for, ever open to transformation, ever open to restoration, ever open to the power of God’s love, active in our lives.
This post is based on OLMC’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
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