The Parable of the Seed

Today’s Sunday gospel reading is about the Parable of the Seed. Our Lord Jesus Christ explains to his disciples why he teaches them by using parables perhaps because it was one easy way for them to understand what he is talking about. Although he explained everything to them so that they would clearly understand his teachings. You can read this gospel in Mark 4:26-34.

“26 [Jesus] said [to the crowds], “This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land 27 and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. 28 Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.”

30 He said, “To what shall we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it? 31 It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. 32 But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.” 33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to understand it. 34 Without parables he did not speak to them, but to his own disciples he explained everything in private.”

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Let’s start this talk first at the very beginning of this reading then move straight at the end of this gospel reading. First, this gospel tells us that Jesus was speaking or addressing the crowd and then right at the end of this gospel he said, “With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to understand it. Without parables he did not speak to them, but to his own disciples he explained everything in private.”

My take on this statement is when our Lord Jesus talks to a large crowd, he talks to them in parables. When with his disciples, however, he explained everything. Perhaps this was the game plan of our Lord knowing that after he returns to the Father, the task of interpreting the gospel is left to his disciples. This is why he explained to them everything in private. Perhaps when someone in the crowd failed to understand the Lord’s teaching, some of his disciples could interpret the parables for them.

Notice how our Lord goes to the extreme detail on how a small mustard seed would grow? Surely many people in those days who worked in a farm knows how seeds grow. Yet he uses this parable to describe the Kingdom of God, which I can interpret from the point of humility. A small seed is totally insignificant. But even a seed that small would grow into a large plant where even the birds can take shelter.

You can say that the Parable of the Mustard Seed is a metaphor for the Catholic Church, which in truth started with 12 Apostles, although one of them, Judas Iscariot, betrayed our Lord and was replaced by St. Matthias. Christianity supposedly evolved from Judaism because as our Lord Jesus Christ said in Matt. 5:17, “Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the Law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.” Since our Lord Jesus was the Son of God, Judaism should have embraced his teachings and turned Christians. But alas, they did not believe.

In the end, of the 6.7 billion people on planet Earth, there are approximately 33% or 2.2 billion who call themselves Christians. Of this figure, there are 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, although I question this number because there are just too many people who call themselves Catholics but do not practice their faith. Many of them even believe in abortion or the use of contraceptives or support a divorce bill or same sex marriage. Anyway, Catholics are the dominant or largest Christian denomination worldwide and no other Christian sect comes close to this number.

So this is food for thought, 2,000 years ago, there was a man from Nazareth who claimed to be the Son of God, who gathered 12 Apostles to question the established church of the Jews. The Nazorean was crucified for blasphemy, but hundreds of years later, his followers, called Christians, who suffered from decades of persecution by the Romans, ended up being embraced by Rome to be their official religion. That is the Catholic Church.

One of the promises of our Lord Jesus Christ which he revealed in Matt. 16:19 is… “The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against her.” Though we live in the times of the Apostasy in our church, but we cling on to that promise by our Lord Jesus Christ that he will be with us till the end of time.

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