Monday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Today's gospel impressed two themes upon me that I think are poignantly opposed to our expectations and experience today. We expect things that be as close to instant as possible and we expect to see it. However, Jesus parables seem to communicate that the Kingdom involves patience and invisibility.
These expectations of immediacy and visibility can infiltrate our expectations. For instance, I remember going fishing once on Lake Michigan, it was one of the best and worst fishing trips I have known. It is phenomenal because in no time at all we caught our maximum number of fish and had to go back to shore. We turned around so quickly that when we called and said that the lake was too rough and that we turned around without fish, we were believed without question. It was one of the worst because I had to spend several fishing trips after teaching myself to be patient again.
The Kingdom though is like yeast that must be mixed and requires time to rise. It demands that we be patient with God's timing and patient with the people around who don't even realize that they are leavened yet. And yet we want immediacy. We want people to change overnight. And we expect visibility. We want to see the Spirit of God making every little change and hear this person sharing everything about their growth. But the yeast first becomes invisible in the yeast before it rises and the seed is hidden under the earth before it brings forth life.
We must be patient with the invisible Kingdom of our God, for to God we surrender our mastery of time and our control. This is why I hate baking because I not only have to be patient but after a certain point, I have not immediate control. Baking isn't the problem, it just breaks down the illusion that the Kingdom of God asks us to surrender.
God is in control of both all we can see and can't see and God is the Lord of time
- Spencer Hargadon