Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church

 Lectionary: 321

This is how it is with the Kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit....

We should probably note that, nearly two millennia after Jesus's observation about the farmer's wisdom, we still do not know how the seed sprouts and grows. Biology has made incredible advances beyond my comprehension and yet we do not know how dirt becomes living tissue, or the basic processes of photosynthesis. It has something to do with sunlight. Maybe it's quantum! Whatever that is. 

A lot of people, thinking they know something about science, scoff at religion. They'll say it's not scientific, and therefore must be untrue. But real scientists know the limits of their craft. We might never know precisely how life evolved. Experimental, imaginative recreations of paleolithic scenarios in which life might have appeared, have failed to produce life. And even if one succeeded no one could say that it actually happened this way several billion years ago. 

Nor can we define the next great leap when biological life became human life. We hardly know what it means to be human! True, great apes act in some human-like ways, but none have ever composed an oratorio or staged an opera. They don't even know how to destroy all human life on this planet! Something we can and might do. 

And finally, how will the Kingdom of God appear? No one can imagine it. But some groups have experimented with Utopian societies both religious and secular. Others have tried to create ideal governmental and economic programs. They promise peace and prosperity but produce war and famine. 

But we must do something and so we tinker with the systems we have. We try to make our justice systems more just, our police systems less brutal, our educational systems more thoughtful, and our churches more sacred. We succeed by inches and fail by yards. 

We strive to enter through the narrow gate. To surrender to inertia is to die. If our efforts are not from God they'll disappear without a trace. If they are inspired by the Lord they will succeed beyond our wildest dreams even as we pass through a crucifixion of utter despair.