Homily for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) 2021

Introduction

After the Sign of the Cross, the first prayer that most of us were taught was the Our Father. We pray the Our Father at every Mass and at many other times throughout the day, such when we pray the Liturgy of the Hours or our daily Rosary. The frequency with which we pray the Our Father means that it becomes very familiar, sometimes too familiar. I often catch myself praying the Our Father superficially, without really appreciating the words that I am saying. The Our Father consists of seven petitions, seven different requests we make to God. In the second petition of the Our Father, we pray: “Thy kingdom come.” The kingdom to which we refer in the Our Father is none other than God’s own kingdom, the Kingdom of God. It is to this kingdom that Jesus frequently refers, including in today’s Gospel. To understand what Jesus means by the Kingdom of God, we need to delve into the Old Testament.

Israel becomes the Kingdom of God

Kingdoms as we know them usually consist of three key features: a king, subjects, and a definable physical and geographical territory where king and subjects live together. When God brought the Israelites out of Egypt and gave them their own land, the Israelites accepted God as their King. Israel literally became the Kingdom of God. God appointed stewards to govern the people in his name: people such as Moses, Joshua and Gideon governed Israel on behalf of God, who nevertheless remained the true King. In having God, not a man, as their King, the people of Israel were unique in all the world. Israel a sign to the pagan world of God’s plan for all humanity. The Kingdom of God was coming.

Israel rejects God as King

Which was fine until Israel got bored of being special. In time, the Israelites began to demand a human king whom they could see, touch and hear. All the elders of Israel gathered together and came to the prophet Samuel and said to him, “Appoint for us a king to govern us like the pagans.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel: “Listen to the voice of the people… they have rejected me.” At God’s instruction, Samuel reminds the people that earthly kings can be pretty appalling. But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; and they said, “No! We want a king over us, that we may be like all the nations.” And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to their voice, and make them a king.” God relents with a heavy heart. In becoming the kingdom of Saul or David or Solomon, Israel is no longer the Kingdom of God.

God plans to refound his Kingdom

Although he has been rejected by Israel, God announces through the prophets that he is determined to establish his Kingdom. The prophet Ezekiel announces in our first reading that God will take a shoot from the top of the cedar and plant it on a very high mountain. Anyone familiar with gardening will understand that Ezekiel is describing the process of propagating a cutting. Like a gardener who salvages a cutting from a beautiful but dying plant, so God ‘will take a cutting’ from the unfaithful people of Israel to establish his new Kingdom. The new Kingdom of God will be what Israel was mean to be: the place all humanity would come to know, love and serve God.

Jesus refounds the Kingdom of God

God sends His Son to refound His Kingdom. Jesus begins his public ministry by proclaiming: “The Kingdom of God is at hand!” Jesus refounds the Kingdom of God with one important difference. Originally, the Kingdom of God was a geographical realm to which one belonged by birth. By contrast, Jesus refounds the Kingdom as a spiritual territory to which all can belong by faith.

As founder, Jesus is also the first member of the new Kingdom. The Second Vatican Council explains: “In the words, in the works, and in the presence of Christ, this kingdom was clearly open to the view of men… [T]he Kingdom is clearly visible in the very Person of Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus is the first and perfectly faithful subject of God’s reign, and is therefore the first and best exemplar of the Kingdom.

Whereas the original Kingdom of God was known as Israel, the refounded Kingdom of God is known as the Church. The Second Vatican Council teaches that the Church is "the initial budding forth of the Kingdom of God.” In the Gospel, Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed which at the time of its sowing in the soil is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet once it is sown it grows into the biggest shrub of them all. Nothing was smaller or more humble in its beginnings than the Church. Yet, from a very tiny seed sown by Christ in the hearts of the apostles, the Church has gradually become that gigantic tree described by Ezekiel, extending its branches into all regions of the globe.

The Kingdom is the place where God reigns. Ultimately, God does not reign in a land or a building: he reigns in souls. Thus, Jesus teaches: The Kingdom of God is within you. The reign of God within our soul begins as a tiny seed of grace. The parable of the man who throws seed on the land describes how, in Baptism, God plants the first seed of santifying grace in the soul. Then, through the Sacraments, the moral life, and prayer, the land of our soul produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. God truly reigns in the soul that perseveres in a state of grace and responds generously to the inspirations of grace. The Sacrament of Confession restores to grace souls that have rejected the reign of God and deprived themselves of grace through mortal sin. The aim of our life is to allow God to rule our whole being. Each time we pray the Our Father and say Thy kingdom come, we are not principaly asking God to rule in our spouse or our friend, but in me: Thy kingdom come in me!