Homily, Ordinary Sunday 11B
Patience is a virtue. We’ve all probably heard this saying, and at some point, we’ve probably been annoyed at someone for saying it. We usually hear it in situations that make us feel impatient and angry. I’ve often wondered what it is about driving that is such a test of patience for me. Usually, I think it’s because of all the other drivers on the road, because obviously, I know how to drive, but I can’t control the actions of the people in the other cars. I’m in control of my own vehicle, but almost constantly, traffic lights and other drivers present themselves as obstacles between me and my destination. On the road, I’m constantly confronted with factors that are out of my own control.
In our Gospel today, Jesus presents the farmer as the model of patience. After whatever preparations he is able to make for the seed and the soil, at some point he is left waiting, at the mercy of so many elements outside his control, waiting for signs of the imperceptible growth that only God can provide. In those parts of our state and areas of the world where irrigation is still limited, if it doesn’t rain, there’s not much the farmer can do to force the plants to grow. And even when they do grow, there’s the threat of hail and wind and disease and pestilence that can destroy crops fairly quickly. There’s a natural appreciation for providence and plenty of opportunities for exercising patience for those who live close to the land.
As in the life of the farmer, the kingdom of God and growth in the spiritual life often comes through patient acceptance and cooperation with forces that are outside our control, growth that God provides invisibly, underneath the surface, through the many trials and crosses of this life. In our first reading today, the Prophet Ezekiel was writing during one of the most difficult times in Israel’s history, the Babylonian exile. The leaders of God’s people had been forcibly taken away from the promised land. The Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. They found themselves unable to live out their faith the way they wanted to, the way that God Himself had commanded them to by sacrifice in the Temple.
Yet through this trial, God promises that He is preparing something even greater for them. Not only will He restore Israel, but all the nations of the world will be gathered to the Lord under the branches of the tree of life. In John’s Gospel, Jesus says that when He is lifted up, He will draw all people to Himself. First, Jesus was lifted, upon the wood of the Cross, the New Tree of Life, freely submitting Himself to suffering and death for our sake, to gather the nations under the branches and standard of His Cross. Still today, Jesus is lifted up at each and every Mass, to draw each one of us to His Eucharistic Heart, as He feeds us with His own Body and Blood.
But who would have survived, to return from the Babylonian exile, if the Jews had not trusted in God’s mysterious and difficult plans? If instead they had constantly rebelled and started wars and insurrections, to try and free themselves from their captors, instead of waiting on God’s time and His deliverance, how many—do you suppose—would have ever made it back to Jerusalem? How often do we rebel against the trials and crosses of our lives and refuse to accept them with patience, even when God is trying to bring us new life and something greater through them?
I often think of parents trying to teach their children to drive, and how stressful that can be. It often feels like that, when we finally allow God to sit in the driver’s seat of our lives. When we start to see where God is taking us, we want to slam on the breaks, grab the wheel, and say, “No, God, not that way!” We treat God as if He’s still too young and inexperienced to hand over the reins to Him completely. But no matter how many times we’ve refused Him in the past, God still wants to give us the grace and strength to really trust Him, to be able to relax and enjoy the ride, no matter how rough it gets.
Today and during this week, I invite us to try and identify just one rough area of our life that God has been trying to get us to go through but that we’ve resisted. Maybe it’s an area of sin that we’ve grown comfortable with; maybe it’s a relationship that has become easier to avoid, a conversation with someone that we should have had a long time ago, an area of excess that God has been calling us to simplify. Jesus, draw us to Yourself in this Eucharist. Help us to fully trust in Your direction for our lives, to grow in real patience, to know—in a new way—that God’s will is our peace.
The Word Proclaimed 