OT XVI [A] Wis 12:13, 16-19; Rom 8:26-27; Mt 13:24-43

As in the case of the parable of the Sower, which we heard last week, today also we have the Kingdom Parables of Jesus. Kingdom in the Gospel does not refer to a place, either here or hereafter.  The Kingdom is primarily an environment, it is a set of relationships, and it is a situation where God’s values or His reign will prevail.  The divine values in practice are nothing but the deepest human values and aspirations as mirrored in the life of Jesus, who is himself the revelation of God to us in accessible human form.  These values include truth, love, compassion, justice, a sense of solidarity with all other human beings, a sense of trust in others, deep respect for the dignity of every other human person, and a holistic concept of human growth and development.

Jesus sketches the situation of the Church in the world with three parables. The grain of mustard seed that becomes a tree indicates the growth of the Kingdom of God on earth. Also, the parable of leaven in the dough signifies the growth of the Kingdom, not so much in extension as in intensity. It indicates the transforming force of the Gospel that raises the dough and prepares it to become bread. The disciples easily understood these two parables, but not so the third, the seeds and the weeds, which Jesus explained to them separately.

 St. Augustine explained that the field in this parable is the world, but it is also the Church, the place in which saints and sinners live side-by-side, and in which there is room to grow and to be converted. "The evildoers," he said, "exist in this way either so that they will be converted, or because through them the good exercise patience." Hence the scandals that every now and then shake the Church should sadden, but not surprise us.

There are weeds also in every one of us, not only in the world and in the Church, and this should render us less ready to point the finger. To Luther, who rebuked Erasmus of Rotterdam for staying in the Catholic Church notwithstanding her corruption, the latter responded: "I support this Church in the hope that she will become better, because she is also constrained to bear with me in the hope that I will become better." Perhaps the main subject of the parable, however, is neither the seeds nor the weeds, but God's patience.

Through this parable, the Lord wants us to understand that the sons of the Kingdom will, throughout their lives, be confronted with the evil sown in the world by the enemy, the Satan, the adversary of the Salvation of men!  From the time of their coming into the world, up until their very last breath, the men and women who hope in the Salvation of God in Jesus Christ will have to fight against the sons of the Evil One, those whom the devil has seduced through thousands of subtle and malicious artifices.  It is useless to try to escape this since even the Son of Man himself permitted the devil to tempt him, and since, in the end, it was the servants of the angel of darkness who put the Son of God to death, for the Salvation of all.

 

God knew this before time began. So, He did not create two worlds, one for the “righteous” and another for “sinners.” Instead, he allows all of us to cohabit together in this same world. Though risky, this might be of some benefit. The righteous learn from the sinners’ misery and continue to struggle to remain virtuous. While the sinner, seeing the triumph of the righteous, equally struggles to live a better life. However, Paul reminds us that: “Though we live in this world, we do not wage war as the world does” (2 Cor 10:3). Also, he warns us: “Do not be conformed to this world” (Rom 12:2).

Whether we would be willing to admit it or not, both wheat and darnel may be mixed up within every person. Goodness and evil, love and hate, prosperity and adversity, joy and sorrow all are so intimately intertwined. We may risk eliminating the good, in our zealous desire to root out the bad.

 Summing up the three parables, we see a specific development of God’s Kingdom among us.  The Kingdom of God is going to be, on the whole, a messy business in which the good and bad, the strong and the weak, the clean and the corrupt will rub shoulder to shoulder both inside the Church and its communities and outside it.  To try to create islands of absolute integrity is not realistic and is even self-defeating.  The conversion of our societies into Kingdom-like communities is a very gradual process.  The coming of the Kingdom, then is not going to be a neat and tidy process. What may seem to be a mess may actually be God’s way of providing a solution. The perceived curse is actually a blessing.

In God’s Kingdom, He is in charge. He sets the agenda, He lays out the path, and He determines the deadline. The problem is that the difference between wheat and darnel is not always going to be obvious and that there is the potential danger of mistaking the good for the bad, the will of man for that of the will of God. Everything may seem to be getting completely out of control. But God remains in control. God does not only tolerate the messiness but in fact subverts the messiness and uses it as the raw material of His Kingdom. He often chooses and uses the defective, the rejected, the marginalised, and the sinners to be His instruments of grace.

The Kingdom is built on the blood of martyrs, rather than on success stories. Let us never forget that persecution cannot destroy the Church; it can only make her stronger. Let’s pray today that the Lord may grant us tolerance, patience and understanding in seeing the kingdom become a reality. 

 OT XV [A] Is 55:10-11; Rom 8:18-23; Mt  13:1-23

Today, we are introduced to parables, and parables are really a form of writing and preaching that the ancient rabbis in Israel used in order to explain the closeness and the goodness and what God was like. And so it is that Jesus, being a rabbi and had come to preach that the Kingdom of God was here and now, he turned to teach them through parables.

One thing about parables is that 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.

Today, we have the Sower. The sower sows the seed. He has this huge bag full of seeds and he’s flinging them all over the land, going up and down and flinging it, like showering the whole field full of seeds. And when he does this, 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. 

People who live day-to-day, who practice subsistence farming as a matter of survival, would have treated seed with great care and caution. Seed was precious, expensive, and not to be wasted. A good farmer does not throw seed recklessly on hard-packed trails and into beds of weeds with no apparent concern for where it lands. No sane farmer in Jesus’ day or our day would treat seed this way.
But this is not the picture we get when we watch the sower in this parable. He is not careful or cautious. He is not meticulous. He is radically and irresponsibly reckless. This guy just throws seed everywhere! To a regular farmer, this sower is absolutely incompetent and should never be allowed to come close to any farmland. But for Christians who see this as a parable of how the Word of God is shared, this sower is bold, fearless, and generous.

The parable shows us a God who showers His graces generously and indiscriminately. Indeed, “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Mt 5:45). God is not to be faulted for favouring some over others. His seed falls on different soils as His Word is shared with different hearts.

Likewise, we, too, are called to imitate this seemingly reckless but truly generous sower, in how we share the gospel with others. The projected outcome, the likelihood of success, should not be the sole consideration that would limit our outreach and focus. Often, we are tempted to focus only on preaching to the choir, to the converted, knowing that our message would be well received. Common sense will tell us: don’t waste our time and effort with those who are obstinate and who refuse to listen. In fact, you may even come across as annoying and nagging. But we fail to recognise that it is those who are seemingly hardened of heart that need the liberating message of the gospel more than others because it is the sick who require a physician, not the healthy. The point of the parable is on the necessity of sowing.

We must not be stingy or overcautious with the sharing of the Word. Ultimately, we must learn to trust the efficacy of the Word and the Power of God to make His message take root in the heart soils of our audience and bear fruit. As St Paul reminds us, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow” (1 Cor 3:6). So sow! Sow generously! Sow with abandonment and hold nothing back! You will never know that where you have sown, the Word will produce a rich harvest, “some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Listen, anyone who has ears.”

The reception of the Word of God makes one fruitful. Reception does not depend upon God, the sower, not on the seed; it depends upon our decision. We are the kind of soil we choose to be.
When we hear the word of God read at Mass and or when we read it for ourselves, we need to ask God’s special grace to remove all types of blocks, like laziness, anxiety, worries, and the burden of unrepented sins, any of which can prevent the word of God from influencing and transforming our lives.

We need to keep our spiritual soil fertile and prepared for the word of God: We need to keep our hearts open to the word of God instead of closing it with pride, and prejudice, and, with God’s grace, to uproot the “weeds” of evil habits and addictions, evil tendencies, hatred, jealousy, fear, and greed. We should not allow the trials and tribulations of this world, the cares of this world, our ambitions, or our desires for worldly success and happiness to choke out the messages that God gives through His word. May the Holy Spirit help us to keep our hearts free of all the blocks that prevent the word of God from entering our hearts and minds and bearing fruit and also to have the willingness to share it with the hungry hearts.

  

OT XIV (A): Zec 9:9-10; Rom 8:9, 11-13; Mt 11:25-30

Most people that we know are carrying heavy burdens these days. Anxieties and fears burden us all, fears about our economy, the cost of food and fuel, home values and mortgages, what’s happening to our children, terrorism, our national debt, and so on. The list seems both overwhelming and endless. People are trying to stretch out paychecks, paychecks that never seem to go quite far enough. They are working on stressed marriage relationships they fear of breaking up. They’re unemployed, or they’re under-employed and are looking for a better job that will give them a reliable and adequate source of income.

Others are waiting for biopsy reports on certain abnormal cells that are growing in their bodies, filled with fear that they may have cancer. Or they’re trying to provide for and shape the characters of their children, children that are so influenced by all that is immoral and degrading in our culture.

All of us are laboring under burdens. In addition to the few things I’ve just mentioned, many folks have piled on to themselves burdens of self-doubt, self-blame, shame, and guilt. Then they say to themselves: “The predicaments I’m in are all my fault.” “If I were a better wife, my husband would notice me more, and be more sensitive, considerate and loving toward me.” “If I tried harder, I would have a better job or position where I work, and we wouldn’t be so strapped for money.” “If I were more loving, my teenagers wouldn’t be so hostile.” And on and on it goes, with those internal put-me-down tapes constantly playing in our minds.

Labouring under many burdens, we are here today to Mass, and we’ve just heard Jesus say to us: “Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will give you rest.” How could anyone not be attracted to what Jesus offers us? Why is He so ignored by so many who are not here?

The Christian faith is not magic. Christ’s life was not painless and totally free of burdens. Quite the contrary! But what He does offer us is His invitation to be yoked with Him, to pull our burdens and tasks through life with Him, sharing His yoke, drawing on His strength, and letting Him help us while we help Him accomplish His tasks. Christ doesn’t do things for us; He does things with us.

For those of us who are weighed down with shame and guilt, well… few of us have heavier loads to carry. Jesus’ mission in life was a mission of forgiveness. Christ never met anyone whose sins were so great that they couldn’t be forgiven. The only thing Jesus could not forgive was an unforgiving spirit… or a spirit that simply doesn’t care.

It is often said that Jesus’ love for us was unconditional. Well, yes…. but not quite. He did attach one supreme condition on His love for us, namely that in order to receive His forgiveness and be relieved of our burden, we have to forgive others. We receive forgiveness, and we have burdens taken off of our backs as we forgive and remove burdens from others. Carrying unforgiving resentments burdens us, not the ones we resent.

The Lord’s idea of getting us to rest in Him involves putting on a yoke. A yoke was not created for rest; it was created for work. It literally has nothing to do with rest at all. When our Lord invited the weary and heavy laden to come to Him and find rest, we would expect Him to say something like; Take off that yoke you’re wearing — you don’t need it anymore! But Jesus’ solution for yoke-weariness was not to cast off the yoke entirely; it was to yoke ourselves to Him, to walk in step with Him, to work in sync with Him.

If we take Christ’s yoke upon ourselves we will find our own burdens to be much lighter. A yoke is also something used to join two creatures together so that they act as one entity…

 Today Jesus says… "join yourself to me… and join your hopes and cares…, your fears and struggles to me…. And let me work with you as one…… and see what wonders will result….."

 Our Christian joy and hope is not a joy borne out of denying the reality of the struggles and pains of life….. Rather, ours is a joy that says…: "We are at peace, we are at rest… and we continue to love… even with the tragedies and tensions of sin and pain……." This is a message the world needs to hear more than ever. This is the faith we unite in witnessing in our lives.

 May God richly bless us and give us the joy, the rest and the relief that comes with this faith…, hope and love. 

 OT XIII [A] (2 Kgs 4:8-11, 14-16a; Rom 6:3-4, 8-11; Mt 10:37-42)

What seems to be the most common comparison made between Catholic parishes and Protestant churches is that the former lack the warmth and hospitality which you can readily experience in the latter. This has often been cited as the main reason why these Protestant churches appear to be more attractive than their Catholic counterparts. The readings today speak to us being hospitable to others.

In the first reading, the wealthy and pious woman did something remarkable in offering hospitality to Prophet Elisha when he occasionally passed that way. A piece of floor space, a mat, some food and friendship she offered and later asked her husband to build a little hut for the prophet on the roof of the house. In Biblical times hospitality was considered an important virtue. This was especially true when extended to someone doing God’s work. The reverence was extended to the office and not necessarily to the person. The woman’s kindness in making special arrangements for the Prophet was in reality kindness to God.  The prophet felt the need to reward her for her generosity and in return she now receives a reward beyond all proportions.  She was longing to have a son and in the name of God, the prophet promises the reward she wishes to have.

The foundation of Jesus’ request for commitment is recalled in today’s section of St Paul’s letter to the Romans. Christians in a world of sin must live out their Baptism. In Paul’s time, Baptism was by immersion.  This symbolized dying to sin so as to rise and live a new life that Christ intended: a life of liberation from the power of sin and death. This involves incorporation into Christ and into his Body, the church. Thus, a new creation takes place whereby we begin a lifelong process of dying to sin and becoming alive for God with the new life of the Gospel. By our baptism into Christ’s death, His death becomes ours. Christ’s story becomes our story. Christ’s strength becomes our strength. Christ’s body becomes our body. Christ’s risen life becomes our risen life. And for this reason, those who welcome us also welcome the One who sent us because they will be welcoming Christ. We, by virtue of our baptism, are that other Christ!

In today’s Gospel, we admire the total honesty of Jesus as he speaks to his disciples. He speaks paradoxically of being alive as involving such a degree of generous commitment to him as to be willing to let go of even those things we hold dearest in our life: our reputation, our physical well-being, and even our family ties if necessary.  Sometimes one has to choose between one’s closest ties on this earth and loyalty to Jesus. Those who would try to compromise as a way of keeping peace soon discover that keeping peace is not the same as having peace. Jesus says that whoever does not take up his cross and follow after him is not worthy of him.  The people of Galilee to whom Jesus was speaking knew very well what a cross was. When the Roman General Varus had crushed a revolt in Galilee in 4 BC, he had two thousand Jews crucified there and had the crosses placed by the roadsides as a lesson to others.  We may ask the question of what it means to be alive and what kind of life we obtain by carrying the cross. Jesus tells us that it is the only kind of life worth living. People who seek only themselves bring themselves to ruin. On the other hand, those who bring themselves to nothing for the sake of Jesus and give themselves to others discover who they are. A Christian who discovers his true identity spends his time, resources and energy in the service of others.

In a world of deep and divisive hostility like ours today, we truly believe a recapturing of the understanding and practice of biblical hospitality to be a key component of the renewal of our parishes. Hospitality is not optional to the Christian life. Our souls are measured by, among other things, how faithfully we provide hospitality to others. According to Christ, it is one of the conditions for salvation: “I was a stranger, and you made me welcome” (Mt. 25:35). The only way parishes become beacons of hospitality is for all of us to make hospitality our responsibility. Hospitality means acknowledging the presence of God in others and serving Him in them, especially those in whom we least expect to find Him. We, as individuals and as a community, are to look for opportunities to be hospitable–and, of course, there are plenty of ways of offering hospitality. Maybe hospitality is offered through a kind word to a stranger – or even a smile. A kind smile or a “hello” to someone waiting with us in a grocery line may be the only kindness that person encounters all day. We become fully alive as Christians through our generous giving of ourselves.

It is not just the ministers of hospitality who are responsible for extending hospitality to others at the Church. When everyone in a parish is welcoming, serving, blessing and being blessed, offering others the greatest gift which is the gift of salvation, then we can be sure that when we meet Jesus, He will show us the greatest hospitality by saying, “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mt 25:34).