Why starting small and growing slow is good for us (aka The Mustard Seed Strategy)

Mark 4:26 - 34 (11th Sunday OT, year B)

The Canadian Federal Election is over five months away and already ads are everywhere. Campaigning is in high gear. Though politics and governments have changed since the days of the Roman Empire - THE kingdom at the time of Jesus - much has stayed the same. The goal of leaders is still to gain as much power as quickly as possible. They want their kingdoms to start large and grow rapidly.

Jesus also came to build a kingdom, something He called the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God. He spoke of this kingdom in parables. In it, God is in control. The values, priorities and goals of the Kingdom of Heaven should reflect what God wants. As Christians, we are called to build up this kingdom. This is a two-step process. First, we look at our world - whether it is our country, parish or family - and ask ourselves, “if Jesus was in charge, what would He change?” Second, we go and make this desired change a reality. Eventually, at the end of time, the Kingdom of God will have full reign and authority. Until then, it is a work in progress.

The way that the Kingdom of Heaven grows is completely different to the way that a leader of a political party would want to grow their kingdom. Here is the strategy of a politician: gain maximum power in the minimum time possible. The Kingdom of God follows the strategy of the mustard seed: it starts small and grows slowly. Though this strategy seems counterintuitive, it is for our own good.

The strategy of the mustard seed is particularly evident in the early growth of the Church. The Church started small and humble. It had its roots in an politically insignificant part of the Roman Empire. From the start, those who joined the Church in the largest numbers were people who the rest of society viewed as irrelevant: women and slaves. The growth of the Church was slow and marked by many challenges and persecutions. Until the Edict of Milan in 313, Christianity was outlawed. Catholics were forced to practice their faith in the shadows. Many were martyred. When the Emperor Constantine became Christian in the 4th century, the Church became more and more influential. When the Roman Empire fell in the West, the Church stepped in and filled the vacuum, becoming the most powerful force for a time. By this time, the mustard seed had grown to be a large plant.

It took centuries for the Church to slowly gain influence with the rest of the world. This slow growth was necessary. Politicians want to posses the most power as quickly as possible. This can hurt themselves and others. Power can corrupt leaders. Corrupt and cruel leaders hurt countless people when they are given influence. God wanted His Church, which is working to build up the Kingdom of God here on earth, to exercise influence on the entire world. This power however, had to start small and be gained slowly. The Church had much to learn before it was ready to exercise such influence. The Church learned the importance of humility and always caring for the marginalized and outcast in society. The Church learned how power could be abused. The centuries of struggle taught her to always rely on God.

This slow, mustard seed growth is important not just for the Church as a whole but also for individuals within the Church. We learn much along our journey. God gives influence to those building up His Kingdom when they are mature enough to wield it. A powerful example of this is found in the life of Pope Francis, an inspiring example of someone working to build up the Kingdom of God. As Pope, he has incredible influence. He is able to do so much. It can seem like a shame that He was only elected at the age of 77. Could he not have done more if he were elected earlier? The truth is that Jorge Bergoglio was only ready to become Pope Francis at the age of 77. In his life he experienced many challenges and setbacks that formed him into the man he is today. Jorge Bergoglio was made a provincial superior in his religious community - a very important post - at the very young age of 37. For a decade he exercised great influence. His Church career was on a meteoric rise. Then, everything changed. He fell out of favour with his superiors, was stripped of his role and banished from any position of authority or influence. These were very difficult years for him but they were, by his own admission, necessary. He learned a lot through his suffering. He gained humility and grew in kindness to those who suffer. He became the man we now know as Pope Francis.

There is a very simple reason why the Kingdom of God must be like a mustard seed. It starts small and grows slowly because God is more concerned with changing our hearts than with changing structures. God is God; He could act in anyway imaginable. He could come into the world as a powerful King and make sweeping structural changes. He could create a tax structure that justly distributed wealth and eliminated poverty. He could physically force people to go to Church. He could make it utterly impossible for us to develop weapons and wage war. God could do this, but He does not because He wants to change our hearts and not just structures. He wants us to become the kind of people who want to give to the poor. God wants our hearts to change so that we desire to go to Church. He is working to transform us so that we never want to wage war. God wants to change our hearts to become like His own. This work starts small and takes time.

We often prefer the growth strategy of a politician over that of the mustard seed. When we see a problem, whether it is in our country, city or parish, we want some kind of change made quickly. Generally the kind of change we demand is external. Jesus, however, teaches us that the kind of change that matters is internal. Because this change is painful and difficult, we tend to flee from it. Today let us remember a fundamental principle of the Kingdom of Heaven: the world will change when our hearts change.

Corpus Christ: what it means to "offer it up"

Exodus 24:3-8, Hebrews 9:11-15, Mark 14:12-26 (Corpus Christi, year B)

During my second year at university I was going through a tough time, feeling overburdened with assignments and exams. I was stressed out and burnt out. In the midst of this, I sat down for coffee with a friend of mine. I vented to him for a half hour about the struggles I was facing. I was looking for a sympathetic ear and to receive some encouragement. After I finished speaking, my friend, who was quite a bit more religious than I was at the time, simply said “you need to offer it up”. Offer it up?! This was not what I wanted to hear. I felt like my friend had ruined my pity party. So, rather maturely, I responded (or perhaps shouted) back to him “why don’t you offer it up?!”

At this very moment each of us carries different struggles and burdens. An illness we are coping with. Stress related to financial uncertainty or difficulties with work or school. The pain of a relationship that seems broken beyond repair. Today I am going to suggest that we do as my friend advised me some years ago: offer it up. More than this, I will suggest we offer up whatever burden we carry whenever we are at Mass. Before you have the chance to respond strongly to my suggestion, as I did to my friend’s, I want to give some rationale supporting it.

Jesus was crucified on Calvary, in the shadow of the Temple. Early Christians explained that we cannot appreciate the significance of Jesus’ death on the Cross, unless we understand its connection to the Temple. For the 1st century Jew, the Temple was the epicenter of their religious life. It was the place where people came to encounter God and perform the central act in their religion: offering sacrifice. Sacrifices of grain and  and animals were continuously offered in the Temple. For us, the idea of sacrifice can seem foreign, barbaric even. It is as though sacrifices are meant to appease the hunger of some brutal deity. Jews viewed the idea of sacrifice very differently. They understood that in offering sacrifice they were taking a small piece of God’s creation and returning it back to Him. It was an act of thanksgiving. In the first reading, which describes the sacrifice offered by Moses, we see another purpose of sacrifice. Moses took the blood of the sacrifice and placed half on the altar and half on the people. This action was meant to unite God and the people. Sin separates us from God. In offering sacrifice the people tried to restore their relationship with God. As the author to the Hebrews makes clear, however, countless animal sacrifices could not achieve this task. All the sacrifices offered in the Temple find its fulfillment in Jesus’ offering of Himself on the Cross. The blood of Jesus does what the blood of animal sacrifices could never fully accomplish: it definatively re-unifies humanity with God.

Jesus gave us the Eucharist so that we would have a way to stay connected to the sacrifice He offered once and for all on Calvary. When we read the accounts of Jesus instituting the Eucharist at the Last Supper, we find that they are filled with the language of sacrifice. Take it; this is my body. This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many. Jesus is using Temple talk. He is making an explicit link between the Eucharist and His death on the Cross. Whenever we are at Mass, we are connected to Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross. The question is how? The answer is found in Jesus in other words at the Last Supper: “do this in memory of me”. To appreciate this phrase, we need to realize that Jesus and His followers had a radically different conception of “remembrance” than us.  If I look at a picture from an old holiday, I “remember” the experience by thinking about where I was and who was with me. The memory may evoke a certain emotion.  For Jews at the time of Christ, “remembering” meant much more. It was a very loaded term.  For example, at each Passover, the Jews remembered the Exodus, when God freed them from slavery in Egypt.  When Jews “remembered” the Exodus, they did not simply understand that they were thinking about it and celebrating the event.  They believed that they were actually made present at the Exodus; through remembrance, they really participated in an event that occurred over 1000 years before.

When Jesus said “do this in memory of me”, He meant it in the Jewish sense of the term.  Jesus followers understood that when they “did this in memory of Jesus”, when they celebrated the Mass, they were really present again at the Passion and Death of Jesus.   Because of this, when we do “this in remembrance of Jesus” He really becomes present in our midst.  At the moment of the consecration, the bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Jesus. At every Mass, we believe that we are really made present at the one sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary nearly 2000 years ago.

We are not, however, mere spectators to Christ’s self offering. The Mass allows us to participate in this sacrifice.  Any offering or sacrifice that we make to God on our own is just like the grain and animal sacrifices offered in the Temple. They are well intentioned but ultimately ineffective. The incredible thing about the Eucharist is that it joins us to Jesus. When we eat food, that food is digested and becomes a part of our body. With the Eucharist, it is just the opposite. The Eucharist is food which transforms us into itself. Whenever we receive Communion we are joined to Jesus. Because of this, when we offer our sacrifices at Mass, we offer them in union with Jesus. This gives our sacrifices value and makes them effective. Our sacrifices become true acts of thanksgiving which are able to really help others, bringing them closer to God. Together with Jesus, our sacrifices help to reunite humanity and divinity.

Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to almighty God, the almighty Father.  We hear these words each Mass but they often go in one ear and out the other. We miss an incredible opportunity. Each one of us in meant to bring our own personal sacrifice to the Mass, during which it is joined to the sacrifice of Jesus and so given meaning and made fruitful. What will your sacrifice be today? What suffering, challenge, inconvenience, or pain do you carry today? Offer it up. Allow God to use your sacrifice to help save the world.

Trinity Sunday: a preacher's nightmare

Trinity Sunday, year B

Trinity Sunday has often been called a “ preacher’s nightmare”.  What can we possibly say about the Trinity, the single greatest mystery of our faith? When we do pluck up the courage to say something about the Trinity, we easily risk falling into some heresy or another. Though I feel some of this pressure, I personally enjoy preaching on Trinity Sunday for one simple reason: I am a nerd. My preaching professor always told us that we should keep our homilies practical and down to earth. We were told to avoid Churchy and theological talk. But today, Trinity Sunday, is an exception. Today we get to be nerds! So let’s talk Trinity theology today.

If we want to talk about the Trinity we need to start with Jesus. Though you will not find the word “Trinity” in the Bible, it is Jesus who revealed to us this belief. During His ministry, Jesus was clear that He had been sent by the Father. This assertion did not differentiate Him from any other prophet like Moses or Isaiah. Jesus, however, went further. With His words and actions He claimed to be God. He forgave sins, something only God could do. He felt at liberty to add to the Law. God alone is the lawgiver. He said that He and the Father are one. After His Ascension, Jesus promised that He and the Father would send the Holy Spirit, who was not just a gift from God but was in fact God Himself. During His life, therefore, Jesus revealed to us our belief in the Trinity: God is only one, but He exists in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Jesus’ revelation of the Trinity, which we take for granted today, was extremely controversial among His contemporaries. His words were met with confusion and open hostility. For Jews, the single most important thing that they believed was that God is one. This is expressed in the Shema, the famous Jewish credal formula:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the Lord is one. And thou shalt love the LORD they God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. (Deut 6:4-5)

1st century Jews were their guard against any teaching that took away from the unity of God. Jesus’ words would have seemed like blasphemy to them.

For this reason, early Christians - most of whom were Jews - struggled to comprehend the Trinity. How could God be one and three? Reflection on this is already present in the New Testament. An incredible insight into this mystery is found in 1 John: God is love (1 John 4:8). It does not say that God, like us, loves or is lovable, but that He is love. From all eternity, before anything was even created, God is love. In order for God to be love, we should find in God, and in fact do find, a communion of persons: lover (Father), beloved (Son) and bond of love (Holy Spirit).

After the New Testament came into being, the greatest minds of the Church continued grappling with the mystery of the Trinity. St. Augustine of Hippo came up with one of the most helpful ways to understand this mystery, something we call the Psychological Analogy for the Trinity. Augustine’s starting point is how we are built as human beings. Since we are created in God’s image, we can learn about who God is by observing human nature. As human beings, we have two main abilities: thinking and loving. We find that every human being is able to create a mental image of himself or herself. We do this whenever we try to answer the question “who am I”? In answering this question, you create an idea of who you are. What you look like. How you speak. How you act. Though we may not be happy with all its aspects, hopefully on the whole we love this self image. After all, Jesus calls us to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:31). We are all, therefore, able to both create a mental image of ourselves and also to love this image. Augustine explains that when we consider God doing the same thing, we better understand how the Trinity arises. When God the Father thinks about Himself, His self-image is so perfect that it is not just an idea but actually a person, God the Son. God the Father, aware of this image of Himself, loves it perfectly. This perfect love is the Holy Spirit. We can therefore understand the Trinity by considering God thinking about and loving Himself.The Son comes about when God the Father thinks about Himself. The Holy Spirit comes about when the Father loves the Son, His perfect self image.

For over 300 years the Church discussed and struggled to comprehend the mystery of the Trinity. During this time, individuals often made mistakes in trying to explain the Trinity. Some would overemphasize the unity of God, neglecting that God is three persons. Others would overemphasize that God is three persons, downplaying the unity of God. Perhaps the greatest challenge to our belief in the Trinity came about in the fourth century. At this time, the teaching of a particular priest from Alexandria named Arius became very popular. In order to protect the fact that God is one, Arius downplayed the Divinity of the Son. Arius claimed the Son was not the same nature as the Father. The Son was the first of all creatures, ranking high above any other created thing. He was worthy of great respect, yet He was not God. This teaching of Arius became very popular and many Bishops believed it. It threatened to tear the Church apart. In order to head off the problem, the Emperor Constantine called a council in order to settle the matter. This council was held in Nicaea in the year 325. There, the Bishops of the Church resoundingly denounced the teaching of Arius, affirming that Jesus was indeed God. If Jesus was not God, His death on the Cross could not save us. The Council of Constantinople in 381 later reaffirmed the Divinity of the Holy Spirit. From these two great councils we derive one of the creeds we say at Mass, often called the Nicene Creed. The language of this creed defends our belief that Jesus is indeed God, one of the persons of the Trinity:

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the Only Begotten Son of God,

born of the Father before all ages.

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;

through him all things were made.

Thanks to the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, our belief that the one God exists in three persons was defended.

We may be tempted to think that the doctrine of the Trinity has no practical application to our life. It is a discussion for Catholic nerds alone. Nothing, however, could be further from the fact. We believe that we are made in the image of the Trinity. Therefore, in order to understand how we are to live as human beings, we must understand the Trinity. Here are just a few of the practical consequences of our belief in the Trinity.

• The Trinity is our origin and our final destination. We have been created out of the overflow of love in the Trinity. The end goal of our life in union with the Trinity.
• In our culture we place a great value on independence and on self sufficiency. God however, is not self sufficient nor forever on His own. God is a communion of persons united in a perfect relationship of love. We, therefore, are built to live in relationship with others, being interdependent on them. We are not truly human unless we are in loving relationships with others.
• In a special way, the family forms an image of the Trinity. Just as the love between Father and Son bring forth the Holy Spirit, the love between husband and wife becomes fruitful in the generation of children.
• In our spiritual life, we are able to relate in a personal way to each of the three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We cannot possibly overstate how central the Trinity is to our life. In addition to being theology nerds for a Sunday, Trinity Sunday is an opportunity to remind ourselves of this truth that we too easily forget. Everyday we make the sign of the Cross, an expression of our belief in a Triune God. Often we do this carelessly. When you make the sign of the Cross today, take a moment to pay reverence to the great mystery of the Holy Trinity.