Confidence in God Sunday
Ezekiel 17:22-24; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-35
We are back to Ordinary Time of the Church, when our feasts are over with. But how are we to live our lives, as Christians, during Ordinary Time? The answer is simple: this Sunday is Confidence Sunday. Why Confidence Sunday? Well, we need to see God’s hands in our everyday activities. This period of Ordinary Time coincides with Spring or rainy season (in Africa). The rains water the earth, invite farmers to till the earth and plant the seed for harvest season. The trees that appeared dead few months ago are now green and full of life, because water, the rains are back! No wonder there are lots of images of planting and harvesting in our readings today.
What would the farmers do without water? Better put, what will happen, should God fail to send the rains upon earth? The answer is obvious — there will be death everywhere: plants and animals will die, and human beings too will die of hunger and thirst. Countries facing droughts at the moment understand this reality better! They realize the importance of water for existence, by seeing the negative effects of the absence of water — drought.
Our first reading calls us to confidence in God, because our God is a miracle worker. According to our first reading, God tells us about his power and abilities; he could create as well as destroy; he could cause trees to be fruitful and to wither. Fundamentally, God says that life and death are in his hands. Why will God be talking about life and death, the survival or destruction of trees: is God ecologically unfriendly? Well, Ezekiel speaks of God figuratively. Two important facts are in order here: 1) Ezekiel was a priest, and 2) this figurative speech is about human beings, the children of Israel. In his role as a priest, he had to talk to the people about God. Our first reading is part of his teaching about God.
To understand Ezekiel is to understand survival strategy and technics. Ordinarily, human beings think that they are alive by their on powers. We often believe that our intelligence and degrees provide us with jobs our survival strategy: true and false. Yes, our diplomas help us to find jobs, but a sick and hospitalized person can neither look for job or work: he/she is dependent on others and realizes that he/she owes life to God! The figurative speech of the priest Ezekiel was addressed to Israel of old, but speaks to you and me today, that we must trust and have confidence in God, when we are going through difficult times. When we remember that the moral decay of Israel was punished by exile, and that Israel considered her punishment as extermination, God invited them to confidence and trust, because with God everything is possible! As a matter of fact, confidence in God helps us to surmount tough times.
If our first reading remains still difficult to understand, our second reading makes it clearer. According to Saint Paul, the human body is comparable to a farmland or a tree. Whatever is sown on a land is what one reaps. The kind of care one provides for a tree tells whether a tree will survive or die. We need to extrapolate the same reality from a tree to the human body. The connection between Ezekiel (first reading) and Paul (second reading) is that, the core of their teaching is about human beings. Paul says that God gave us our bodies, so that we may bear good fruits like good farmers planting and taking care of seeds sown, in order for them to produce good fruits. The human body bears good fruits or virtues, when we avoid vices that cause spiritual drought and kill the body on judgement day. Each one of us is a farmer, our farmland is our body, the fruits God expects are virtues. But is that the case for you and me: do we produce virtues? Are we virtuous people, always doing the will of God?
Well, even if we are sinners, especially those of who admit being sinners and we are unable to bear good fruits, it is to us that the message of today is addressed: have trust and confidence in God, because our sins that appear insurmountable, will be conquered by God’s grace. Sin is not an extermination order, it is a call to recalibrate and re-strategize, because our former approach to holiness is not working and providing the requisite result of righteousness. Punishments and corrections are wake up calls, rather than condemnation. It is a strong confidence in God that keeps a sinner going, because he/she is not giving up on the possibility of conversion and change. It was their confidence in God and patience in suffering that brought Israel back to their homeland, after many years of exile.
The parables of our gospel too call us to confidence in God, away from self-confidence. God does way more than what the farmer does to make sure that the plant sown grows and yields a bumper harvest. While the farmer sleeps, God works on the seed sown, to make it fruitful. All the farmer needs do is to plant the seed! Likewise, all the sinner needs do is trust in God and keep doing his/her little best, and it will add up to conversion and repentance.
The second parable of our gospel adds a different kind of harvest to a successful planting season: “the birds of the air”. If the first parable invites the farmer to plant and go to sleep for God to do the rest for the farmer, the second parable says that, when we are of good moral comportment, our exemplary lives will help to convert sinners to righteousness. The birds that come to shelter on tree branches are these others who will become good people haven seen our good fruits. Therefore, there is a moral side to our three readings of today: 1) even if Israel was punished with exile because of sin, God forgave and brought them back home, the moment they trusted in God and repented of their sins. Their repentance was based on God’s grace. 2) The human body is a farmland for the cultivation of virtues and the extermination of vices. On judgement day, which is God’s harvesting season, each one of us must account for our sins and righteousness! 3) The grace of God is stronger than our sins, if only we can do our little best. By sowing or planting the good seed, we can go to bed, and God will do the rest. Are we even ready to do the very minimum? This is where trust and confidence in God is very important!
As we return to Ordinary Time of the liturgical year, may we see God in our everyday activities, have confidence in his grace of salvation, and keep trusting in him, despite our sins!
Assignment for the Week:
Show little kindness this week: let someone have something to eat through you.