Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time: 6/14/15—7:00 and 8:30 PM
I have here a bottle of mustard, a bag of grass seed, and a container of Roundup weed killer. But before I explain why I have them here, let me read this passage to you from a book entitled Your God Is Too Boring (by Jon Leonetti, p.19, from DynamicCatholic.com): God willed us into being for our own sake—he didn’t need us; we can’t add anything to him, make him better in any way, and yet he wills us and wills our good and longs to be with us. And his being with us is the best sort of gift we could ever get. You want proof that God loves you? Take a breath. Listen to your heart. Kiss your baby. None of this needs to be, and, if God stopped thinking of you even for a moment, it would all just disappear. That’s how much he loves us….The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ is the final proof of God’s existence, his presence in the world, and his love for creation….There, we find the truest sense of love, pure gift for the life of the world. There we find our salvation. What could possibly be boring about that?
Jesus says today, “To what shall we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it? It is like a mustard seed….” Mustard seed. Mustard. The taste of mustard. How would you describe the taste of mustard? The dictionary describes its taste as spicy, sharp, hot,pungent, penetrating, biting, stimulating, piercing, caustic. And I’m sure that anyone who puts mustard on a cut of meat or on a pretzel or in salad dressing would agree. However, the taste of grass seed would be very different. Who would want to put grass seed on a cut of meat or on a pretzel or in salad dressing? Grass seed is too bland, too nothing, too boring.
You and I are called to sow the seed of the Kingdom of God, but a good question for each one of us is: what sort of seed am I sowing: mustard seed, a seed of faith that is penetrating, spicy, stimulating, piercing, or grass seed, a seed of faith that is bland, ineffective, boring? I wonder if, by his use of mustard seed, Jesus is telling not only to sow the seed of faith but is also instructing us how to sow it. For us to sow the seed of faith like mustard seed, we need to first experience faith in that same way, as penetrating, spicy, stimulating, piercing. Do we let ourselves experience our relationship with God like that, like the taste of mustard, or do we tend to let our experience our relationship with God to be too much like the taste of grass seed, routine, ordinary, common like grass seed?
A bottle of mustard, a bag of grass seed, and a container of Roundup weed killer. Opportunities such as going on White House retreats and other special weekends, or listening to Lighthouse Catholic CDs, or good spiritual reading like the 4 Signs of a Dynamic Catholic we gave you at Christmas, or experiences like our Men’s Club’s Good Dad Evening next Saturday, or trips to the St. Louis Science Center, or visiting places of great beauty on vacation can help us to discover that mustard-like side of faith. Discovering that mustard-like side of faith can even restore a grass-tasting faith into a mustard-tasting faith. And discovering that mustard-like side of faith can especially help us to throw away the spiritual Roundup of boredom.