Gospel (Mk 4,26-34) - At that time, Jesus said [to the crowd]: «This is how the kingdom of God is: like a man who casts seed on the ground; he sleeps or wakes, night or day, the seed germinates and grows. How, he himself does not know. The soil spontaneously produces first the stem, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear; and when the fruit is ripe, immediately he sends the sickle, because the harvest has come." He said: «To what can we compare the kingdom of God or with what parable can we describe it? It is like a mustard seed which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds that are on the ground; but, when it is sown, it grows and becomes larger than all the plants in the garden and makes branches so large that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade." With many parables of the same kind he announced the Word to them, as they could understand. Without parables he did not speak to them but, in private, he explained everything to his disciples.

The commentary on the Gospel by Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia

Jesus does not speak of the work of the farmer, but of the "work" of the seed which develops through its internal energy, from when it is sown until it ripens, without the farmer's intervention. With this image Jesus seems to want to comfort his listeners. Perhaps - so the scholars of the text think - we must think of the Christian community to which Mark was addressing, the community of Rome, which was experiencing difficult times, including persecution. And those first believers in Rome wondered where the power of the Gospel had gone, because evil seemed to be winning. The Lord does not abandon the disciples to the power of evil. With the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus wants to show the style of the kingdom, the way in which it is achieved. And he insists on the smallness of the seed. You don't do great things because you are powerful. In the kingdom of God the opposite happens: "Whoever wants to be first among you will be the slave of all", says Jesus. In short, whoever makes himself small and humble becomes a shrub even three meters high that can even welcome the birds of the sky. Already the prophet Ezekiel, while he was an exile in Babylon, had predicted that a fragile branch, like the tip of the cedar, would become a robust and restorative tree: «A twig I will take from the top of the cedar, from the tips of its branches I will I will pluck it and plant it on a high mountain, imposingly I will plant it on the high mountain of Israel. It will put out branches and bear fruit and will become a magnificent cedar" (Ez 17,22-23). The kingdom of God grows like this small mustard seed, like the small top of the cedar: they do not impose themselves by their external power, it is the Lord who makes them grow. And love is the lifeblood that sustains them. Where the poor are satisfied, the afflicted consoled, strangers welcomed, the sick healed, the lonely comforted, prisoners visited, enemies loved, there the kingdom of the Lord is at work.