Today Jesus is speaking again to the crowds and uses more parables about the growth of the kingdom of God.
In both of these parables the one who causes the seeds to grow, whether it be a crop or a mustard seed, is God.
And Jesus even notes that the one who plants goes to sleep, and wakes up day and night after day and night, and he sees the resultant growth, but does not know how it grows or who makes it grow.
He just sees that it does grow.
When it reaches maturity at harvest time, out comes the sickle — and cut, cut, cut — all because it has grown to full maturity and is ready for harvest.
The mustard seed also grows seemingly of its own accord.
Tiny becomes huge, and it is all basically a mystery of how and who.
Or maybe it is better put to say who makes the how happen.
Focusing everyone on God — the who in these parables that makes everything happen, the who that grows the kingdom within and among us.
Jesus is really calling upon us to see just how active and powerful is our God and the life that he gives us, that kingdom life!
+Paul notes the same thing in both of the letters provided today to Timothy and Titus, respectively.
These bishops, upon whom Paul laid his hands in an ordaining way, have both been recipients of God’s grace in abundance.
Paul affectionately recalls how Timothy received faith from and through his grandma Lois and his mama Eunice.
These two women passed it on.
God made it grow, and we see how beautifully that happens when people are open to God and wake up day after day longing for that faith. Seeking that kingdom-growth. And determined to see and hear and live the gift of that life comes from God.
To Titus, Paul encourages, reminds and calls forth a responsive faith and trust in God.
A willingness to live their call as presbyters in Crete, and in all of the towns to which Paul had traveled.
And to those many places where Paul had planted the seeds of faith with total confidence, God will bring about growth, and maturity.
People could nest their hearts in God’s love.
And like the psalm proclaims today, “Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations.”
