A reading of the holy gospel according to Matthew. Jesus proposed to the crowds another parable. The reign of god is like a mustard seed, which someone took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest seed of all. Yet when full grown, it is the largest of plants.
It becomes so big a shrub that the birds of the sky come and even build their nests in its branches. And then Jesus offered them still another image. The reign of God is like yeast, which a woman took and kneaded into three measures of flour. Eventually, the whole mass of dough began to rise. All these lessons, Jesus taught the crowds in the forms of parables.
He spoke to them in parables only to fulfill what had been said through the prophet. I will open my mouth in parables. I will announce what has lain hidden since the creation of the world, and this is the gospel of the lord. The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
What we've just read is the ending of chapter 13 of Saint Matthew. It's a kind of a bewildering chapter, but it all has to do with the reign of god. That seems to be clear. But there are four parables here, one after the other. Dang, dang, dang, bang.
And the first one is the famous parable of the sower goes out to see to sow the seed. And if some of it falls on rocks, some of it falls on the pathway, some of it falls among weeds, and then the fourth bit of it falls on good soil and produces a harvest. Then the second one is where the sower went out and sowed a nice field of corn, which means wheat, and somebody, an enemy came that night and threw a lot of weed seed in it, and the whole business grew up. And the master's servant said, look, shall we go out and tear up the weeds? He said, no, no.
Leave the weeds alone because if you try to tear them up, you'll destroy the wheat. Let them both grow, and at harvest time, they will they will destroy the weeds, and we will, take the the, wheat into our granaries. Then the fourth one, still talking about the reign of god, and they come one after the other, is this one about the mustard seed being the smallest of seeds, and when you plant it, it becomes the the biggest of shrubs. And finally, our lord talks about yeast and bread. Now how you put all this together, that, one of the indoor sports, but some some things come very clear.
The first two parables has have to do with good seed producing very different results, and that it's only the good results which are cultivated and the others are lost or destroyed. That's perfectly clear. In the first one, only one fourth of the seed is good. I mean, it had produced the seed is all good, but only one fourth of it produces a crop. Only one fourth, 25%.
Now the set the last two seem to have to do with the quality of the message of the reign of God. That even from the slightest and the smallest beginnings, something magnificent can develop, can become. This is perfectly clear. You can no one can deny this. Now I want to bring in a a fifth element.
Our lord said, don't throw your pearls before swine. Now that's not a very nice sounding statement, but Christ said that. He also told the disciples to go up in the highways and the byways and to go into all the towns and the villages and to spread the good word. And where they don't receive you, kick the dust off your feet and get out. Christ said that.
Now I wanna put these things together, bring them down into our own lives. It's very easy. It's almost inevitable. I just received a letter, and I'm not manufacturing this. I just received a letter from a young man who's flying off with a Dwight D.
Eisenhower. He's over in Singapore. And he was describing life. He's only been flying, actually flying, for about two years now. I mean, in the service.
He's been flying for a long time. And from his letter, it's very clear he's asking himself, what's it all about? On this ship, there are 6,000 men. And, he said most of his, I must have said something in one of my well chosen replies about what does he do with his leisure time when he's not flying. And he replied is that in most of it it's it's writing out records, pushing papers around.
But you can easily see he's beginning to ask himself, what's it all about? Here he's gone through five or six years of extremely strenuous training for what? Now, any most of you are old enough here to know and have had experience enough in life to know that I don't care what kind of a job you have, sometimes under some conditions you say, what's it all about? Is it worth it? What point is it?
Why should I be pouring my efforts into this thing? What is it what does it where does it get anybody? Not where does it get me, but what is it what value has it for anybody? This is inevitable. This is inevitable.
And then also, if it's worthwhile that you're doing it, that is if if you are involved in something which you are you know by your intelligence, by your reason, by maybe other circumstances, is truly worthwhile. This passes. But there are moments when we ask ourselves, Is it worthwhile? And then we look into the other pasture, into the other pasture. Time and again, as I drive down to Davidsonville or Galesville, I pass a lot of horse farms.
And here you have some very beautiful pastures. As far I'm not a horse. I've been called other things but not a horse. And here's a very beautiful pasture over here. It looks great.
And all the blooming horses have to do is to go in there and eat it. And what do you find some of these dumb things doing? Going through all kinds of contortions to stick their heads out of fences to get out of the field into the grass that's on the other side of the fence because they know it's much better grass. Well, maybe it is because horses know more about grass than I do. But the effort that they go through and the trials and the troubles they go through.
They they even go through barbed wire to get at this very precious grass which is on the other side of the fence. Now the thought occurs to me, leaving aside those first two parables, taking these second two, the mustard seed and the yeast. If that little old yeast doesn't work in the mass of dough, which is circumscribed by some kind of a bowl, nothing happens. Nothing happens. Nothing.
And the same way with that little grain of mustard seed. Unless it operates, unless it functions, unless we say it attains its actuality from the potentiality of being a tiny little seed when someone plops down into the ground, unless it achieves its action, unless it develops in that particular area, it dies. It won't it can't move, it can't go someplace else. It can't say to itself, oh, I'd be a much better mustard seed if I was, if I were a foot away. It might well be that it would be a bit might be that more water over there, be closer to an irrigation ditch.
But it ain't there. It's here. It's here. Now this isn't far fetched. It's it's easy to be discouraged about our lives or about our efforts, especially when they don't seem to have results, or when we give our effort give our all and things don't seem to work out.
Not that they go bad, that's frustrating, but nothing seems to happen in any really big way. You know, some people cannot stand a certain amount of success because even that becomes boring. So what what does it all boil down to? Coming back to our lord and saying, don't throw your pearls before swine. A pearl was a very valuable jewel.
We all have potentialities. I I I that's not a good word, but we all are something. We we are something. God made us, and we have our roles to fill. We are pearls.
You ask what you're worth, look at the cross. That'll tell you what you're worth. You are a pearl of great price. What are you doing with that pearl? Are you looking into those other pastures?
Are you looking elsewhere where you could say, if only if only this were different, if only I were there, if only I hadn't done this, if only this would happen, if if if and all the time, you're missing the boat because the only reality you have of the of your life is the existing moment, not tomorrow and not certainly yesterday. It's what you do with the moment of the here and the now. And you give it your best. You are a pearl, but you don't throw that before swine. You don't butt your head against a stone wall where only thing gets hurt is your head.
Now, how do you know the difference? That's that's not easy. I'm not standing up here and telling you it is. But it's important to get the answer. Very important.
And in a certain sense, there's one way you can't possibly lose, can't possibly lose. You come back to this idea of the work of God, opus dei. That's what you come back to all the time. If what you're doing by former commitment, as a consequence of duty, don't be afraid of the word. If what you're doing is in line with being a good Christian in following and fulfilling your responsibilities, you know you're you're you're on the right track.
You know it is the work of the lord. And then you as if that's true, then you you give it your best. Not meteor. I don't care what the job is. You are a pearl of great price.
When you operate, it is the totality of yourself, of the ego. Don't talk about yourself as if you were two or three or four different kinds of being with some kind of a superego over the top of the mess. You are a unit of totality, and you give it your all not for you, but for God. And when you throw your pearls before God, you can't make any mistake about throwing them before swine. In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit.
Amen.