homily notes: eleventh sunday of ordinary time

There's a preview for a movie that's been on TV lately and in it, one of the characters says, "Big things have small beginnings." In the movie, I'm pretty sure he's talking about aliens, but that statement is true. Big things have small beginnings.


That's the story of the Church and the story of God's relationship with humanity. God works in small ways and from those tiny, humble beginnings, he does great things. It's in the places that we least expect it that God does something amazing.


In the first reading, the prophet Ezekiel is speaking to the people of Israel and they are suffering. They've been captured by the armies of Babylon and taken away from their home. Worst of all the temple was destroyed. They felt abandoned by God.


But in the midst of this, Ezekiel comes preaching a new beginning, using the allegory of a small branch that is planted and becomes a great tree. God will restore his people - he will raise up those who have been humbled and make them great again.


Jesus uses similar imagery in the parables we hear in today's gospel. He compares the kingdom of God with seeds, which start out as small, seemingly insignificant things, that by the grace of God grow into something great - crops that feed whole families of people or great trees where birds come and make their home.


That's how God works. His kingdom is with us now. It is God working in our lives, transforming us and making us into a people after his own heart.
That work is often hidden.


The life of St. Therese of Lisieux is a perfect example of this. Therese was a nobody. She entered a Carmelite convent when she was 15 and then died nine years later at the age of 24. How could this girl, who spent her short adult life behind the walls of a convent do anything great.


Therese spent her time in Carmel learning to love like God does. Everything she did was an act of love towards God, whether it was sweeping the sisters' dining room, taking on responsibilities she did want, or being especially kind to sisters who really annoyed her.


When her diaries were published, they traveled all over the world. Her writing has been translated into over sixty languages. All because she quietly worked at loving God with her whole heart.


The history of our faith is full of stories like that: God working in small humble ways, and then changing the world. 
Though he was the king of kings, Jesus came as a little baby.
Though he was life itself, Jesus suffered and died on a cross.
The faith that would go out and change the world started with some fishermen in a backwater corner of the Roman Empire.


So, any time you think, "who am I? What could God possibly do with me?" remember that he uses the small, the weak, the humble. He uses the situations that seem like failures and transforms them into victories.

Big things have small beginnings.