Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 103
Reading 1 Is 55:10-11
Thus says the LORD:Just as from the heavens
the rain and snow come down
and do not return there
till they have watered the earth,
making it fertile and fruitful,
giving seed to the one who sows
and bread to the one who eats,
so shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
my word shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 65:10, 11, 12-13, 14
R. (Lk 8:8) The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.You have visited the land and watered it;
greatly have you enriched it.
God’s watercourses are filled;
you have prepared the grain.
R. The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.
Thus have you prepared the land: drenching its furrows,
breaking up its clods,
Softening it with showers,
blessing its yield.
R. The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.
You have crowned the year with your bounty,
and your paths overflow with a rich harvest;
The untilled meadows overflow with it,
and rejoicing clothes the hills.
R. The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.
The fields are garmented with flocks
and the valleys blanketed with grain.
They shout and sing for joy.
R. The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.
Reading 2 Rom 8:18-23
Brothers and sisters:I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing
compared with the glory to be revealed for us.
For creation awaits with eager expectation
the revelation of the children of God;
for creation was made subject to futility,
not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it,
in hope that creation itself
would be set free from slavery to corruption
and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now;
and not only that, but we ourselves,
who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,
we also groan within ourselves
as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The seed is the word of God, Christ is the sower.
All who come to him will have life forever.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
All who come to him will have life forever.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel Mt 13:1-23 or 13:1-9
On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.Such large crowds gathered around him
that he got into a boat and sat down,
and the whole crowd stood along the shore.
And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying:
“A sower went out to sow.
And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path,
and birds came and ate it up.
Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil.
It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep,
and when the sun rose it was scorched,
and it withered for lack of roots.
Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.
But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit,
a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.
Whoever has ears ought to hear.”
The disciples approached him and said,
“Why do you speak to them in parables?”
He said to them in reply,
“Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven
has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.
To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;
from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables, because
they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.
Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:
You shall indeed hear but not understand,
you shall indeed look but never see.
Gross is the heart of this people,
they will hardly hear with their ears,
they have closed their eyes,
lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their hearts and be converted,
and I heal them.
“But blessed are your eyes, because they see,
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.
“Hear then the parable of the sower.
The seed sown on the path is the one
who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it,
and the evil one comes and steals away
what was sown in his heart.
The seed sown on rocky ground
is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy.
But he has no root and lasts only for a time.
When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word,
he immediately falls away.
The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word,
but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word
and it bears no fruit.
But the seed sown on rich soil
is the one who hears the word and understands it,
who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”
MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
Instruction, encouragement, and all that can be considered the truth comes from God. Through His words and through His presence we have the capability to structure our lives in communion with Him. When we become Receivers of His Word and react to the presence of it then positive results will be seen in all of our actions and all of our behaviors. We become open to a transformative experience. The vision of His words presented by the Prophet Isaiah describes how what He says has the capability to nourish all of His creation like water nourishes the earth. It is impossible that what God says will not have an impact on what He has created. We are part of that creation and through that connection, being God’s children, we are guaranteed to have everything provided to us to insure a joyful life in communion with Him as long as we respond to what is being given.
God cannot be defined and He cannot be controlled. For us to try and control that relationship or decide when to let God in and when not to let God in only leads to frustration and disappointment. A great dissatisfaction in what we are experiencing in this life can also set in which can then only lead to trouble and conflict. Being in right relationship with God and listening to Him leads to positive things and eliminates all that is negative. Being the seeds in the Parable of the Sower we actually have the choice of where we land and how we are nourished by the soil which is the Word of God. It is truly up to us as the receivers of what is being given. We can put it on a shelf, listen only part of the time, or we can let it encompass all aspects of our life. We are being offered everything and we are being asked to take it all. It is in our best interest to do what God is telling us because there is no deception with Him and He is looking out for us.
The Apostle John tells us in his letter:
“Children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and truth.”
This goes back to the transformative experience we are guaranteed to have when we become receivers of God’s word. What we receive will change us completely and part of that change will manifest itself in how we interact with other people. This too will fundamentally change. When God takes over His presence will be witnessed in how we treat other people and how we conduct ourselves around other people. This will become a natural occurrence if we take our will out of the equation and rely on God to steer us in the right direction. What was given to us is then given away freely to other people and we become a vessel of God. His light will shine forth within us and cannot be dimmed or turned off. There is a responsibility here to be keepers and doers of the Word. As the Letter of James further tells us:
“Be doers of the word and not only hearers.”
Both these quotes serve as reminders and are intended to help us keep our focus. Good acts and acts of charity are a byproduct of a life given over to God. When we follow His instructions we will find ourselves prioritizing other people and God’s will above ours. Communion with God and communion with our brothers and sisters in celebration of God’s love will take precedent over everything else. The daily obstacles and challenges rooted in this world will have less of an effect on us because in the end we answer to a higher power which is above all these other things. What might appear baffling or over whelming to some people will have a minimal effect on us because we know, as Christians, that we have an advocate and defender through Our Lord Jesus Christ. The path of our lives still might be riddled with obstacles but these things are easily surmounted through a right relationship with Jesus Christ. As long as the priorities of God are carried out before our own priorities then, in the end, we will be protected and safe; as long as we keep God as the predominate force in our lives.
Jesus Christ is the rich soil where we can imbed ourselves in. Being open to what He says and being open to a relationship with Him is the key to a fruitful life guided by our spirituality and not by material attractions. He does not have to be an enigma. He is ready and willing to reveal everything to us as long as we are a willing participant. The invitation stands open to us and it is up to us to receive what is being offered. When we take it we then become a benefactor of all that was promised before. There is nothing else that can compare to what Jesus Christ wants to give us. We do indeed have the capability of landing on the fertile soil to land elsewhere which will then determine ultimately what type of live here and in the future that we will have. As we should already know a life with our God is so much better.
Deacon Tom
MY BROTHERS AND
SISTERS
Who are we then? Here we are gathered in
Christian Community receiving spiritual food. But who are we really? We need to
ask ourselves how much has Jesus Christ really transformed our lives. Yes, we
are receivers of His Living Word and consume Him in the Eucharist but,
sometimes, there is still some resistance. Our humanness gets in the way and we
can easily take Him for granted. There is a temptation for us to use Jesus
Christ in such a way that we feel good in the short term but do not want to
fully commit to Him. We want to retain our free will and actually dictate how we
are going to enter into a relationship with Him. After all of our sufferings
and disappointments, we still want to be in control of what we want to say and
do.
Jesus speaks of
this in the Gospel Reading today. There of those of us who will be stimulated by
what He has to say. We will then react to the presence of the Holy Spirit and
make a tremendous effort to follow what Jesus wants us to do. But soon, we will
grow tired, reverting back to what is more familiar to us. We will take what is
given to us, squander it, and then revert back to what is more familiar to us.
We were scortched by the sun. Shallow was our faith and we actually used it to
heal us in the sort-term but, because of temptation and longings of the flesh,
we returned to our old ways. Then there are those of us who are drawn to the
Call of Jesus Christ but are embarrassed and forced to ignore what Jesus has to
say. He calls to us and we want to answer but find that we do not have the
strength. The birds have snatched us away. There are those who live among the
thorns who draw us away from Jesus Christ and back to where we find ourselves
lost and desolate.
The path of a
Christian is not easy. Everything that is offered by Jesus Christ will feel
right and perfect but getting there is indeed a burden. The world hates us for
what we are. The reason for this is simple: Jesus Christ offers us the Truth
without any preconditions while society, dominated by Satan, wants us to give
it everything in return for the temptations and allures of the flesh. We are
easily distracted and led astray. There is a comfort in what is familiar to us
which is sin. There are no demands for us to act out on the temptations of the
flesh yet it is the sins of the flesh which will ultimately destroy us. We are
our worst enemy. We are naturally attracted to the allures of the flesh and
ignore the consequences.
If we take a moment
to step back and actually contemplate what we are doing, the truth can be
revealed to us. We need to inhale a deep breath and pause for a moment. This
will enable us to contemplate what is the best thing for us and what is bad.
One of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit is Wisdom. It is through Wisdom that we can
ask ourselves What is the Wise thing to Do based on our past experiences,
present situation, and future hopes and dreams. Too many times we repeat our
same actions expecting a different result and then become frustrated when the
outcome is the same: disappointment and failure. It is very difficult to break
this pattern but that is exactly what Jesus wants us to do. He wants us to
receive what He is giving us and weigh it against what we have experienced
before. Naturally, we are afraid of anything new even if it the most beneficial
thing for us, but He wants us to take that risk just like we have taken so many
risks before to act out our desires of the flesh.
The risk that Jesus
presents is different. It leads to a fuller and more complete life filled with
joy and love. We have spent so much time chasing that which is bad for us. Why
is it so hard for us to actually chase after something that is good for us? The
Gift of Joy is free through Jesus Christ. He loves us completely. The challenge
is that, after we get this gift, what are we going to do with it?
Deacon Tom
And so it is that Jesus, being a rabbi and having that same kind of mission, he had come to preach the Kingdom of God was here and now, he turned to teaching them through parables.
A parable now is — and I think it needs a little bit of explanation because it’s really not familiar to our time — it’s close to riddling or giving examples and this, but it’s not the same.
Basically, a parable is an open-ended story. Open-ended stories leave you hanging and it means that you are supposed to, in a sense, close it. And you close it with your own understanding of each parable. So a parable is story, but it is a story without much conclusion, and it says to the listener, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
And these parables are rather interesting, because, in a group like we have here, you can use a parable and ask people what they thought of it and you might get fifty different responses to it.
And what is the use of that? Well, for Jesus, it was very important.
First of all, when I was in Maryknoll, we had a rabbi and he was part of our scripture class, being an expert in the Old Testament, and when we got to parables, he said this: he said that most of the scholars feel that Jesus was the master teller of parables and that is why in the gospels you will find page after page of parables.
Now, the other thing about parables is you do not explain them. And that’s why we didn’t read the second part of today’s gospel, because Jesus explains the Parable of the Sower. Some, though, feel that Jesus was not explaining the parable, but it was his disciples, later on, in order to help people unfamiliar with parables, to give them a start about how you might approach listening to a parable and allowing it to reach down deeply into your heart.
Supposedly, a parable is going to be about the Kingdom of God. Now the Kingdom of God is more, as Matthew says, the Kingdom of Heaven, because he, being a Jew, refused to use the sacred name of God, even in Greek, so he used the word “heaven.”
But the Kingdom of God doesn’t mean a place. The Kingdom of God is God Himself. It is a place in the sense it is where He is and where He is adored and where He is loved and where He is cared for and where He is listened to.
In other words, the Kingdom of God means that the listener to the parable has to have faith. You have to put your faith into the words. And, of course, the one who is giving these words and telling us these stories is Jesus, the Son of God.
And so it is that Jesus tells the parable and the people listen to the parable, but afterwards he goes into the house. You notice the house always plays a role in the gospel story, because when Jesus goes into the house it means he is with his disciples and he is preparing them for their ministry. And their ministry, of course, is his ministry.
And, so, the first thing he does is gives them a way of approaching the Parable of the Sower. Today, we have the Sower. Now we have just read to you what Jesus had read to the people.
The story is very simple. The sower prepares the field. He prepares the field to receive the seeds which are the word of God. The sower now sows the seed and here’s where it begins.
If you look carefully at the sower, he seems to have no negative emotion about what he is doing.
What he does is he has this huge bag full of seeds and he’s flinging them all over the land that he had to prepare. And he’s going up and down and flinging it, like showering the whole field full of seeds. And he thinks nothing of it.
And when he does this and he fills the whole area with seeds, he also includes the thorn bushes, and he also includes the places where the people walk, and he also includes the areas where the seed will find rocky soil and will grow just a little bit and then suddenly it will disappear because it has no roots.
And so it is that the sower is sowing seed even though any good farmer would say, “You’re wasting your seed. You must plant carefully like we do.”
You know, I worked on a potato farm and we used to plant potatoes. And you had to put the potatoes in very carefully. You had to measure them and put them down in the row and no potatoes could be lost. And you had this kind of a feeling that if they weren’t put straight down the line properly, and all the rest of it, that something terrible was going to happen.
Now this is in great contrast to the way Jesus describes the sower, because the sower is taking all of the seeds and throwing them up in the air, all in every direction, and they are falling into places where they don’t belong, and all the rest of it.
And why do you think that is?
Because the sower is more than a sower. He’s not just sowing seeds. Everybody knows that later on what you do is you plough all these seeds under if you belonged to that era in Palestine. You threw the seeds on the ground and all around and then you ploughed it under and that’s how it was done in those days.
But it’s more than that. He’s kind of prodigal. He’s kind of like almost happy to be in the field flinging these seeds around. And if you’re very carefully when you read this — now remember, you’re supposed to get your own impression — and one of the impressions that comes out is it is prodigal.
He wants to seed. It doesn’t matter if they only last a day. It doesn’t matter if they’re in the wrong place. It doesn’t matter as long as those seeds hit the earth some place, or even the sidewalks or what have you.
Why?
Because the seed is the word of God and the first lesson we learn from this parable is everybody should be covered by the word of God. You just don’t pick up with Catholics or Protestants, or this or that, all the things we think would be appropriate for this farmer to be doing.
He is prodigal. No-one is outside — even those who are choked, choked by the cares of the world, even those that are trampled down and they seem like people who nobody loves or cares for.
It’s not a place for the best of the best if we want a nice, huge wonderful harvest, you see. It’s a place where God comes. And He comes everywhere in every kind of way.
Why? Because Jesus is the sower and the seed is the word of God and the word of God gives life.
And then also is included in this now is that every seed must die. And Jesus, the one who is throwing all these seeds down, has told, at another time, the Son of Man must also die, for the seed must die in order to give new life.
Well, now we have a whole different understanding. We begin to realise that you can take a parable, a simple little story, and you can begin to see that behind it is an introduction to the heart of God.
God has no biases. To God, each and every seed is precious in His eyes, and each and every seed does not have to be tenderly cared for but it has to feel that it belongs.
And so what the Sower says, the Parable of the Sower says that the field is the whole world and everybody in it, and Jesus is there sowing the word of God.
And what is the word of God?
“Come to me, all you who are needy and tired and weary, and I will refresh you. I have come to heal you, to save you, to make you once again proud of yourselves and feel that you are indeed the children of God and not the riff raff that ordinary people (inaudible).
So that’s the first thing.
The second thing though is, if you’re thinking this way now, you can argue one way or the other, if you’re thinking this way, there’s a very important understanding that you also …
Say you bring this home and you read the whole thing about the seeds etc and you’re sitting there all by yourself in the living room. And then, if you’re wise like the old Jewish scholars were wise, you would know that Jesus is sitting with you and that God is in the room.
And, suddenly, the field is not this vast place that is being filled with the seed of God just for the whole world, but another interpretation is that the field is your own heart. Your heart, that is what the field is. And Jesus invites you to come with him and to ready the field for the ordinary work of the field. And then you’re to join as he sows the seed.
And he sows it through you, even more than through himself. And you are to shower your own heart with the seed of God and recognise that it can change you and it can change the whole world, if you recognise that the seed is God Himself.
Nice story, eh? It’s more than that. It’s the meaning of why Jesus came. It’s the meaning and understanding of what role God plays in our world, the meaning and understanding that we have a central part which begins in our own hearts, for to go out and save the world is not necessarily a good thing, but to go out filled with God’s love and knowing that to just walk and be with the people that you meet is like a light.
Remember, Jesus says this: Do good when the good that you do you must do, because the people will see the wonderful lovely things you do. And what will they do? They will turn to God in heaven and praise Him.
This is what you can do with a couple of seeds in a very poor country and by a few words. And it can do all this and it can change the world.
And this is why we treasure these words that have been
handed down by half-illiterate men two thousand years ago to poor people who somehow or other remember that, yes, the seed must die, but it is dying that creates new life, and in the new life the world is healed and saved.
I had something to read, but I forgot it.
Approach these parables on your knees and don’t be afraid of them. It’s not telling you what Matthew thinks or what someone else thinks. It means that you read them, each one, and say, “Yes, this is a mystery to be discovered, and I walk with Jesus into this mystery, and if I pray over it and if I listen to it again and again and I see different ways that it’s teaching me, it will give me a whole library of understanding.”
And Jesus said, “I have come to save the world.”
And he does it through parables.
Father Hanly
With this parable of the sower we have arrived at
chapter 13 in Matthew’s Gospel. This is just about half way through the gospel
of Matthew. This is also the third of five sermons that Jesus delivers in
Matthew. That we have reached a high point in Matthew’s gospel is also
indicated by the fact that there are 7 parables in this sermon, seven is the
biblical number for wholeness, perfection. We heard Js first sermon on the
mount before Lent; we did not have a chance to har the second one because of
the feasts after Pentecost But now we can settle down and listen to Jesus’
summer sermon as it were.
On our part we are well into the growing
season and so an agricultural parable like that of the sower and the seed fits
well into our own experience. There is a good possibility that some of the
things planted earlier are also bearing fruit and we are enjoying them at the
table. There is a touch of harvest already. And harvest is one of the key
elements in this parable of Jesus.
Jesus uses parables in this summer sermon
and so it might be a good idea to remember what a parable is and does. Parable
is first of all story; story taken from everyday life. Today the agricultural
world. But the local scene, the familiar household story is really meant to
pull us into the larger world of who Jesus is and what Jesus is all about. That
larger world, Jesus tells his disciples, is the Kingdom of heaven or the
Kingdom of God. Every parable no matter how short or how long; no matter how
simple and ordinary it seems is meant to wake us up to the larger reality of
what God is doing. Parables are Jesus’ way of showing us the big picture that
God is drawing. In reality a parable is about God’s way of doing and acting.
The name the way God sees and acts is called the Kingdom of heaven. It is not
so much a place, but the way relationships are between God and his world and
people and hence the kind of relationships we have with one another.
There is inevitably a shock value in all
parables. Today’s parable reveals two shocks, two surprises as it were.
In the parable things start off as usual, someone
sowing his field in typical Palestinian fashion. It is so every-day that we can
easily estimate the end of the story. In our case today, we see that 3/4ths of
the seed is wasted-it falls on the path, on the rocks and among the thorns. The
rest manages to fall on good soil; so maybe there will be a harvest of about
5%. Remember the Palestinian farmer is not a 21st century farmer who
sows with much precision and does not waste a seed on unfertile soil. The
Palestinian farmer sows in abundance everywhere. The seed will fall where it
will. Afterwards he goes back and tries to “plant” it in the traditional sense.
The natural expectation is that the harvest will be according to the little
seed sown on fertile ground. The shock is that there is a harvest that produces
100, 60 or even 30 fold. Never mind 5% yield! This is unthinkable. Of course
even Jesus’ listeners would be a bit taken back by the fact of so much loss of
seed, but they would not expect Jesus to say that the harvest was a 100-fold!
This is impossible.
But this is a parable about the Kingdom of God.
God’s Kingdom is built up by sowing the word, the good news of the Kingdom, but
the fact is that it doesn’t seem that Jesus’s sowing, his preaching is
producing much of a harvest. In terms of membership it is pitifully small given
the effort and time he has put into preaching the word. But this is the Kingdom
and it works in Kingdom ways. There will be a harvest that will seem all out of
proportion to the sowing. The disciples are worried that Jesus is not really
catching on with his listeners, especially among the religious leaders. So
Jesus tells this parable about sowing and harvesting.
Statistics today reveal that there are more
ex-Catholics in the USA than from any other Christian Church. Today the fastest
growing religious denomination according to one survey is labeled “None.”
Candidates for religious life and the diocesan ministry of priests are down;
some parishes are sharing priests or are amalgamating. And along comes Jesus to
say yes, you sow, you preach the word. No harvest. But who says there is no
harvest. On whose terms is the harvest counted. We are pretty much addicted to
success in the American culture and success is indicted by numbers. If we don’t
see numbers, we worry about the numbers.
But maybe we need to look at the situation from
the Kingdom’s point of view. Maybe we ought to focus on the sowing. Maybe the
task is throwing the seed. Throw abundantly and wildly like the sower. If the
word we sow is from God, we can afford to be like God who speaks his word
and knows that it will not return empty. Is the harvest what we need to focus
on as a church or is it the sowing? God sows and sows generously, he is not
stingy. We can join God in the sowing and then join him in the same hope that
the harvest will go beyond the sowing.
The second surprise in the parable is that
suddenly we become the soil. When Jesus sets out to give his view of the
parable, the focus is on the soil and we are that soil. Suddenly we find that
we do have some responsibility about how we receive the Word. It lies in the
mystery of God how he can make results come from a seeming waste of time and
energy and poor soil, but he does it. But there is our responsibility once we
have heard the word. Jesus offers 4 alternatives for receptivity. Some people
allow others to take away the gift of the word about the Kingdom; others just
have no time to allow it to even penetrate, their lives are hard a rock and
focused elsewhere; and some just toss it aside in favor of something else that
seems much more alluring and attractive.
The key to the Kingdom of God is that it is a
gift; it is given not earned. You either recognize it or you don’t. That is
part of its mystery. On the other hand everyone needs to connect with the
Kingdom in order to bear fruit, to live. Everyone needs the larger picture of
God’s way in the world in order to grow and mature. We are created for
something bigger than ourselves. We are created for the Kingdom. The word about
the Kingdom, the seed may look small, but don’t be deceived it contains the
Kingdom. It seems that for ¾ to whom the gift is given, its insignificance is a
deterrence. Yes, to step into the Kingdom means a full rich life. But the seed
must fall into the soil, lie buried and die there. Only then is there a
harvest. We are the soil on which the seed falls. We have a heart and there the
word of the Kingdom can work.
The sowing of the Word is gift; the
responsibility lies in its reception. Jesus calls it hearing the word and
understanding the word. That is the soil that can be cultivated. The Kingdom
grows into in harvest for those who listen and understand and in understanding
say “yes” now I see.
And how are we doing in cultivating the soil of
our lives this summer season?
Abbot Joel
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