Week 16 Saturday (Year 1)

Readings: Exodus 24:3-8; Psalm 50; Matthew 13:24-30

The trickiest dysfunctions in the history of the Church have come from individuals and groups seeking to be purer and more perfect than their ordinary, mediocre neighbours. Ronald Knox wrote about many of these movements in his great book Enthusiasm. Look at where enthusiasm has often led people, he concludes. On the other hand, where would Christianity be if, from time to time, there was not some enthusiasm for it.

Today’s first reading records a moment when the children of Israel were, once again, enthusiastic about belonging to the covenant. ‘All that the Lord has said, we will heed and do’, they say. How likely is it that they will be so perfect, heeding and doing all that the Lord has said? We do not have to read very much further in the Bible to see how difficult – practically impossible – it was for them to abide by their commitment. Rather than a record of perfect observance, the history of the people is a record of repeated failure and frequent renewal of the covenant.

The gospel reading is, then, more realistic about the moral and spiritual condition of God’s people. ‘Shall we make the place perfect?’ the slaves ask their master when they find weeds sown among the wheat. Why not root out all corruption, all badness, and all sin? We need a radical reform, a root and branch renewal. We need to cut ourselves off from anything connected with the weeds if we are to have a perfect crop growing perfectly.

But the farmer is prudent and experienced, and he understands the nature with which he is dealing. Let weeds and wheat grow together, he says, lest in rooting out the bad you uproot the good as well. When the time comes for the harvest, then we can safely separate the wheat and the weeds.

It is the Son who has established a new and everlasting covenant. He alone, we believe, is perfectly obedient. The first reading provides much of the imagery and vocabulary Jesus uses when he speaks at the Last Supper about his sacrifice: ‘this chalice is the new covenant in my blood poured out for you and for the multitude for the forgiveness of sins’. Moses’ act of sprinkling the altar and the people with the sacrificial blood is a type of Jesus’ sacrifice, shedding his blood on the cross for our salvation.

The cross is the judgement of God on the field of this world. It is the sword that divides wheat and weeds, reaching even into our hearts where the roots of both have become entangled. The redeeming blood of the Saviour dissolves that entanglement, drawing a line between good and evil, strengthening us in the one and rescuing us from the other. We believe that this process is underway in us but that we still need to be prudent with the Master’s own prudence lest in seeking to root out evil we tear up good as well. Then the last state of that ‘perfect’ soul would be worse than the first.

Week 16 Thursday (Year 1)

Readings: Exodus 19.1-2, 9-11, 16-20b; Daniel 3.52-56 ; Matthew 13.10-17

In the first reading today God makes his presence felt in no uncertain terms - lightning and smoke and crashing thunder. The people do not actually see God for the density of the cloud but there is no mistaking God's presence. The volume increases as Moses converses with God until eventually he disappears into the cloud for a more intimate encounter with God from which he will then report back to the people.

What a contrast the gospel reading is! There is no smoke or fire, no thunder or lightning, no trumpet blast getting louder and louder. Instead there is Jesus teaching in parables and then sitting with his disciples and explaining to them why it is that he does so. The puzzle of the parable takes the place of the cloud. To some the parables remain impenetrable, he says. Simple as they seem to us, perhaps we do not understand them correctly either, even when we think we do. Especially when we think we do.

So they (we?) see but do not perceive, hear but do not listen, receive his words but do not understand. Jesus quotes Isaiah saying that all this is in the first place a matter of the heart. The kind of perceiving, listening and understanding which allows us to penetrate the parables, to enter the cloud, to be in more intimate contact with Jesus and, through him, with the Father, is not a matter of bodily organs or human intelligence. It comes from elsewhere.

'O that today you would listen to his voice', we read in one of the psalms, which continues 'harden not your hearts'. In order to enter the cloud where God dwells we need an open heart, a tender heart, a docile heart. Any heart of stone, closed and hardened, needs to be replaced with an open heart, a human heart, a heart made malleable by God's Spirit, capable of believing and hoping and loving. Only in that way can we perceive, listen and understand. In a sermon for Christian unity Rowan Williams says that we will be disposed to hearing the voice of God when we are silent enough, free enough, patient enough and loving enough.

The way in which God reveals himself in Jesus is anticipated in the other great theophany of the Old Testament, the revelation of God's presence to Elijah which is no longer in wind and fire and earthquake but rather in the 'sound of fine silence', in the 'still, small voice'. The dark cloud in which God dwells now takes the form of parables. Let us not presume that they are easily understood, and certainly not without the voice of the Spirit whispering their meaning to hearts ready to receive it.

It gives us a programme if we want to hear the voice of God: work on your heart until it is silent enough, patient enough, free enough and loving enough for such an encounter. Then you will see and listen and understand.

Week 16 Wednesday (Year 1)

Readings: Exodus 16:1-5, 9-15; Psalm 78; Matthew 13:1-9

Sometimes the Lectionary edits the Bible readings in ways that are not helpful. With Matthew 13:1-23, however, the division into three parts over the next three days is very helpful. Today we hear a parable about a sower sowing seed. Tomorrow we hear a short discourse by Jesus about his method of teaching. And finally on Friday we will hear an interpretation of the parable which Jesus gave in response to a request from his disciples.

Hearing this parable today, detached from the rest of what follows, gives us an opportunity to let it speak more directly to us, perhaps in a fresh way, before we move on to hear the interpretations that came to accompany it. What would be the impact of this parable if we only heard it just as it is heard today? I suppose you might call it a 'phenomenological' approach to the parable - what does it present to our eyes and ears?

We hear about a sower and the seed he sows.  What happens to the seed is familiar, the experience of farmers and gardeners everywhere: some seed is lost to the birds, some seed falls on ground too rough to support it, some seed does well initially but is quickly entangled with weeds and briars, and some seed flourishes, having found good soil in which to grow. 'Listen, anyone who has ears!', Jesus concludes. Well we all have ears, but he seems to be calling us to perceive something deeper than the surface meaning of the story.

What would we make of it if we had just this part of the text, without what we will read tomorrow and on Friday? To what would we apply it, taking it for granted that a teacher like Jesus is telling the story to illustrate something important about human life and experience? There is the good thing that is scattered and there are the different ways in which it does or does not flourish. It seems to be beyond the sower's control whether the seed flourishes or not: he just has to make sure that the seed is so generously scattered that as much of it as possible falls on good soil.

It is the question at the end that alerts us to the need to seek the moral of the story, its deeper spiritual or religious meaning, 'listen, anyone who has ears'. Depending on our knowledge of the Bible our minds will go in different directions. We might think first of the land given to His chosen people by God, the land in which they were to settle, which they were to cultivate, and in which he promised they would enjoy prosperity and security. There is uncertainty about that prosperity - some seed sown does not flourish - and so there is a question about trusting in God to assure success.

We might think next of the Jewish way of referring to genealogy and descendants - the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, and so on. Perhaps the moral of the parable is to be found here. There will be some successes in the people's relationship with God and there will be some failures as well.  Seed carries the promise of life and the continuation of life from generation to generation but sometimes contexts and circumstances see to it that this promise is more or less fulfilled, sometimes perhaps not fulfilled at all. But the simple endurance of the people across the centuries - the persistence of their seed - is itself a confirmation of the presence of God with them. This is the sign given to Ahaz in Isaiah 7, for example, a young woman will bear a child. The continuation of his line is the sign - ordinary, undeniable, the birth of a child - that God has not abandoned the House of David.

These reflections might draw us back towards Deuteronomy and the promises God there makes to the people, that they will flourish, be prosperous and be secure, and the line of their descendants will be assured, if they are faithful to the covenant. In the middle of such texts we find this one which fits with what Jesus says at the end of the story about the sower:

You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt ... the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders; but to this day the Lord has not given you a mind to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear (Deuteronomy 29:4).

The people have seen and they have failed to see. They have understood and not understood. They have heard but have not heard. That is puzzling enough. Even more puzzling is the comment that 'the Lord has not given you a mind, eyes, ears' to understand, see and hear. Does it mean the sower has not done the work he should have done to prepare the ground so that there will be more good soil for the seed to find? Does it mean that it is God who must also prepare the ground for the reception of the seed, giving us a mind to understand, eyes to see and ears to hear?

But now we have moved into thinking of the sower as one who must not only scatter the seed but prepare the ground. And we begin to see what it might mean morally or spiritually: if we are to appreciate the gifts God gives us, to know what God is doing for His people, then we need the Spirit of God to enter our minds and hearts and to inform our eyes and ears.

As the Spirit entered into the prophets so the Spirit enters into all who are baptised. In this way the ground has been prepared, the soil has been made ready, and all we need do is clear away obstacles that remain to prevent the full flourishing of the life promised in the seed God scatters.

Lord that we might see! Lord that we might hear! Lord that we might understand the life you have already so generously sown in us!

Week 16 Monday (Year 1)

Readings: Exodus 14:5-18; Psalm 15; Matthew 12:38-42

What are we to do with this warrior-God who finds his glory in destroying armies? As the Egyptians repent of having let them go, the Hebrews show that their 'triumphant escape' is not so triumphant after all. At the first threat they too repent and say 'better the slavery we knew than the uncertain future into which this Moses is leading us'. They are not convinced either about the reliability of this warrior-God.

Perhaps we can draw a lesson already: do we prefer the dependencies and limitations we know to the promises of a future freedom not yet experienced? What would it take to carry us from those dependencies and limitations, enable us to persevere through the uncertain in-between times, and sustain our hope of being brought into a land of freedom and new life?

The warrior-God has his power to offer as a basis for trust and hope. If he is on our side, who can be against us? Certainly not the poor Egyptians whose defeat we still celebrate every Easter. What we really need, however, is not a God who knows power and can act from there but a God who knows powerlessness and can still act from there. God's providence is bringing the Church in many parts of the world to the point where it needs to realise this - not wealth, power, status but poverty, weakness, insignificance ... what can yet be done from there, perhaps more authentically?

This is the sign Jesus offers in the gospel reading, Matthew's version of the sign of Jonah. It is not the sign of a new manifestation of military might. It is the sign - ridiculous and absurd! - of a man trapped in the belly of a sea-monster for three days and three nights. It is the sign - ridiculous and absurd! - of a man hanging dead on a cross. So the Son of Man will be buried in the heart of the earth: conquered, defeated, not just weakened but rendered utterly powerless.

To rise form there is not a stronger exercise of any power known to humanity. It is the revelation of a power beyond our experience and comprehension. Our warrior-God, our hero, is not mighty in the way the warrior-God of the Exodus is described. In fact he is more like the Egyptians than the Hebrews in the crucial moment of their defeat. But he is greater than Solomon and Jonah, greater than Moses and David. His power is not just the most powerful of the powers we know, it overcomes all the kinds of power we know. His kingdom is not just one of a different kind to the ones we know, it is not of this world at all.

How are we to learn how to interpret this sign so as to live by it? How are we to embrace powerlessness in order to enter the new world Jesus creates? How are we to make the love of God, that new reality Jesus breathes into the world, to be the basis for all our relationships? We glimpse it now and then, the power of God's love, but we need his help if we are to trust it at every step. If we are to persevere through the times of uncertainty and doubt. If we are to leave the comfort of known slavery behind and venture out towards the promised land of freedom and new life.

Week 16 Sunday (Year C)

Readings: Genesis 18:1-10; Psalm 15; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42

'Mammy, Jane is not helping with the dishes.' 'Daddy, Sam has left me to do it all by myself.' We can easily imagine such a scene happening in the house of Martha and Mary. Jesus found himself caught up in a very ordinary, domestic, moment. One of his hostesses was busy preparing the meal and she complained that her sister was not helping out. She was just sitting, listening to him.

The story follows a pattern which is characteristic of St Luke's gospel. Many incidents and parables, as he recounts them, involve two people between whom there was some kind of conflict or separation, e.g. the Pharisee and the publican, the prodigal son and his elder brother, the rich man and Lazarus - these are all characters we only come across in the gospel of Luke. These parables put us on the spot because almost inevitably we find ourselves identifying with one or other of the characters. Who is the 'goodie' and who is the 'baddie'? But perhaps that is too simplistic a reading and what a parable really challenges us to do is to find all its characters somewhere in ourselves, in our attitudes or actions or aspects of our character.

The two sisters, Martha and Mary, show us two ways of being with Jesus, two ways of serving him. Martha wanted to welcome him into her house in the normal way, by offering him a meal. This was her way of loving him. Mary sat and listened to what he had to say. She was keen to learn from him and this was her way of loving him.

In the Christian tradition Martha and Mary were not the only pair of women to represent action and contemplation. Leah and Rachel, wives of Jacob, were also often used in the same way. Dante, for example, in Canto 27 of his Purgatorio, introduces us to Leah who talks about the difference between herself and her rival: 'she with seeing, and I with doing am satisfied'. These two women are found on either side of Moses on the tomb of Pope Julius II, made by Michelangelo. The way they are represented there is comparable to the representation of Plato and Aristotle in Raphael's famous painting, the School of Athens, Plato (Rachel) looking towards heaven, Aristotle (Leah) looking towards the earth.

Head in the clouds and feet on the ground, we might be tempted to say. Likewise for Mary and Martha. The sisters came to symbolise two ways of living the Christian life and stand for two paths to Jesus (or two ways of travelling with him). Martha stands for those called to serve Christ in practical and concrete ways - through acts of charity, through involvement in the life of the world. Mary stands for those called to serve Christ as contemplatives - through lives dedicated to prayer, through standing back from the world.

Many of the great teachers of the Church have used Martha and Mary to stand for the 'active' and the 'contemplative' paths. But unfortunately, too many have also decided that Mary's way was better. After all, Jesus does seem to dismiss Martha's complaint when he says that 'Mary has chosen the better part'.

Meister Eckhart, the medieval Dominican theologian, is the only one I know who proposed that Martha's way was better, because it was the more mature. Is he wiser than Jesus then? No, just that he understands Jesus' remark to mean 'Mary has chosen what, for now, is best for her'. Martha is the more grown up of the two. Her union with Jesus and her understanding of him make her ready for works of compassion and service. Mary is at an earlier stage in the Christian life. She had yet to grow and more to learn, she needed to spend more time absorbing what Jesus had to teach, before she could give herself, like Martha, to the generous service of her brothers and sisters. It was Martha, then, who was further along the path to Jesus, and this, says Eckhart, is what Jesus was helping Martha to understand.

But Eckhart was the exception that proved the rule. Most Christian teachers believed that Mary was following a better way than Martha. And others (Thomas Aquinas, for example) have suggested that a mixed way would be even better, a way that combines the prayerful attention of Mary with the compassionate service of Martha. To be a teacher in the Church, for example, not just contemplating but passing to others the fruits of one's contemplation.

Perhaps such a stark choice is not really necessary, not really possible. A complete activism would be no longer human. There has to be thought and prayer to support action, there has to be reflection and evaluation afterwards if our action is to be fully human. 'Don't just do something, sit there', we might be tempted to say to someone in danger of losing themselves in unreflective action. 'Don't just sit there, do something' is what we will be tempted to say to the Marys who prolong their contemplation when the needs of charity require them to turn towards their neighbour.

Perhaps the contrast between Mary and Martha, Rachel and Leah, (Plato and Aristotle?), is one we find within ourselves. Everyone who seeks to follow Jesus must have something of each within them. How can you be a Christian without listening to Jesus who is the Word, and without seeking to be with him in prayer? How can you be a Christian without caring for your neighbour in whatever practical way is needed (last week's gospel of the good Samaritan reminded us of this)?

The story of the two sisters encourages us to think about our faithfulness to these two aspects of following Christ. Whether we are good at praying or good at serving we should work at it with all our hearts and minds. We must also, of course, take care of Christ in the needy and the poor. We must use our gifts to serve others. But we must pray so that our actions have a properly human and Christian depth, we must pray and be with the Other if we want to be truly with, and for, others.

An earlier version of this homily appeared in Sunday Letter for 18 July 2004, published by Rollebon Press, Dublin.

Week 16 Saturday (Year 2)

Readings: Jeremiah 7:1-11; Psalm 84; Matthew 13:24-30

I still have the catechism we used in school over fifty years ago, 'approved by the archbishops and bishops of Ireland', with the imprimatur of John Charles McQuaid given on 2 February 1951. As in all catechisms since the Council of Trent the doctrinal part follows the articles of the Creed and the moral part is organised according to the commandments of God and of the Church. Among the sins forbidden by the first commandment of God are those against the theological virtue of hope summarised in three short questions and answers: 202. What are the sins against hope? The sins against hope are despair and presumption. 203. What is despair? Despair is the refusal to trust in God for the graces necessary for salvation. 204. What is presumption? Presumption is a foolish expectation of salvation without making use of the means necessary to obtain it.

The readings of today's Mass invite us to reflect on this virtue of hope since the first reading, from Jeremiah, is a warning against presumption, and the gospel reading we can take as an encouragement not to despair. All who regard themselves as specially chosen by God run the risk of one day presuming on that choice and thinking that they no longer need to bear the fruits appropriate to it. It is what is happening in Jeremiah's time and he sees what is coming as a result of the people losing contact with reality. No point, he says, in taking your stand on your election, running to the temple, and assuming that all will be fine. What is needed is a thorough reform of your ways and your deeds. The Lord is not impressed with your presumption. Rather what he wants to see is just action towards the migrant and the poor, that you give up adultery, lying and stealing, that you turn away from false gods, that you cut through the false persona you have made for yourselves to live in the light of the truth once again.

Jeremiah lives up to his name as a prophet of doom and despair. But the gospel reading about the wheat and the weeds being left to grow together until the harvest is a gospel of hope at least in the sense that there is still time. Yes, the weeds are allowed to grow along with the wheat, that is an interesting fact in itself and worthy of reflection. The weeds are not halted in their growth until the harvest, they are allowed to go on growing until the harvest. Does it mean evil too will increase as the kingdom is more strongly established? It seems so. But there is time for the thorough reform Jeremiah calls for. And the basis on which that reform can be carried through is not anything we will find in ourselves but is precisely God. That's what a theological virtue always has as its direct object and if we continue to hope in anything less than God we are not yet exercising this particular virtue.

My old catechism answer puts it this way: 'trust in God for the graces necessary for salvation'. And don't be foolish enough to presume on your salvation if you are not making use of the means necessary to obtain it. Between the two readings then comes this call to live in hope, a gift of God's grace which enables us to negotiate our way wisely between presumption on the one side and despair on the other. Just like Peter trying to walk on the water we need to keep our eyes fixed on God. If we allow ourselves to dwell on anything else, whether our own sins or our own righteousness, then we are in danger of sinking.

My old catechism also included 'A Short Act of Hope': O my God! I hope in you for all the graces that I need for my eternal salvation and for heaven itself, because you are infinitely powerful, good and merciful and because you are faithful to your word.

Week 16 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: Jeremiah 3:14-17; Jeremiah 31:10-13; Matthew 13:18-23

Finally, Jesus gives an interpretation of the parable of the sower. This interpretation is simple and well-known. The text from Isaiah which he quotes between the first telling of the parable and this interpretation speaks of seeing, hearing and understanding. It refers to different levels of appropriation of the presence and action of God - one can look but not see, listen but not hear, one can receive the word but still fail to understand.

The first reading today, from Jeremiah, speaks of how things might reach the heart or fail to reach the heart. This is the concern of the parable also. The word by the path, on the rocks, and in the thorn bushes, has the potential to bear fruit since it is the word of the kingdom, the Word of God, but for different reasons it fails to reach the heart. Only the seed that falls on the good soil, that is seen, heard and understood, bears fruit. It is seed that has reached the heart, has taken root there in knowledge and understanding, and so bears the fruit of the word.

'I will give you shepherds after my own heart', the Lord says through Jeremiah, shepherds who will help to find a way through the hardness of heart that prevents the word from bearing fruit. Later Ezekiel will carry it one step further, saying that the Lord himself will come to shepherd his people: he will give up altogether on human shepherds, it seems.

But the goal is the same in all these texts: to see how the word of the kingdom might find its way through the hardness of heart which is the final and most resistant obstacle to its flourishing. Heart wants to speak to heart (it is the motto of Saint John Henry Newman, cor ad cor loquitur) but the human heart is often blind, deaf, and closed to the appeal of the Word.

A salutary exercise for us is to meditate on what aspects of modern life prevent us seeing, hearing and understanding the Word of the Kingdom. Many of these obstacles are as ancient as human nature itself but there are surely some particular challenges in the times in which we are living.

What are the birds that whip away the seed before it begins to grow?

What is the rocky terrain that gives it a false start, growing quickly for a bit but soon perishing?

What are the thorn bushes - riches and distractions - most likely to suffocate the Word now?

Above all what are the things that harden our hearts, that lead us to close them down, prevent us from seeing clearly and hearing accurately, and so prevent us entering into the knowledge and understanding which alone will give us freedom, joy and conviction?

Week 16 Sunday (Year B)

Readings: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Ps 23; Ephesians 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34

Just in case we do not notice the first time, Mark repeats Jesus’ suggestion to the apostles that they go by themselves ‘to a wilderness place’ to get a break from the crowds (Mark 6:31, 32). By the time they get there a great throng has arrived and they are like sheep without a shepherd. Moved with compassion – this is one of the places where Mark uses a characteristic term – Jesus begins to teach them ‘many things’.

The desert is where many things are learned and it is where the sheep are likely to get lost. The prophets spoke about the need for a new kind of shepherd. In today’s first reading, for example, Jeremiah says that God will set shepherds over them who will care for the sheep (23:4). Ezekiel says that God himself will come to seek out and to look after the straying sheep (34:11). The same desert, where the lost sheep wander, and from which they need to be rescued, is also where Israel will learn again what it means to be faithful to her Lord (Hosea 2:14-15).

Is Jesus here setting a trap for the apostles in order to teach them something about teaching? Just before this, in sending them out two by two, he had not told them to teach or to preach (Mark 6:7-12). He gave them authority over unclean spirits and directions about their lifestyle on the road. We are told, however, that ‘they preached that men should repent’ (6:12) and on their return told Jesus ‘all they had done and taught’ (6:30). They are keen to be like him, and to do all that he is doing, not just casting out demons and healing the sick but, more profoundly, teaching people.

Perhaps we can understand what happens next as Jesus saying, ‘you want teaching? I’ll show you teaching’. Leading them away to a desert place by themselves brings them slap bang into the middle of human distress: a great throng awaits them, whose need evokes in Jesus the divine compassion. Jesus sets about teaching them many things and then says to the apostles, ‘you give them something to eat’ (Mark 6:37). Their impotence is clear for all to see. They do not know what to do. They are unable to meet the needs of the people and have nothing to offer. They cannot be the teachers they want to be. They cannot be the shepherds the people need. So what is to happen first? Jesus must teach them the lesson of the cross and they must learn it. Jesus must give them his Spirit and then send them out to preach in the power of that Spirit.

Is it true that to teach people is ‘more profound’ than to cast out demons or to heal the sick? It certainly seems less dramatic but does that mean it is more easily done? Augustine of Hippo believed that only God could properly be said to teach because it involves doing something within human hearts, not just presenting people with what is true but also enabling them to appreciate and to savour it as true. Thomas Aquinas says that Jesus of Nazareth is ‘the most excellent of teachers’, greater than Socrates, because he can teach interiorly and not just exteriorly as other human teachers do. When Jeremiah says (again in the first reading) that ‘the Lord is our righteousness’ we can understand this to mean ‘the Lord is the one who gives us our hold on wisdom, justice, and truth’. The Lord is the one who enables or empowers us in regard to these things.

Jesus is the ‘righteous branch’ foretold by Jeremiah who makes peace between Jew and Gentile. He did this by preaching peace to those who were far off and peace to those who were near, the second reading says (Ephesians 2:17). That peace, shalom, is made up of wisdom, justice and truth. What made his preaching effective when the preaching of so many others remains ineffective? It is because his is ‘a love-breathing word’ (he is himself the love-breathing Word). The lesson he enacts on the cross contains the power of its own being learnt, because in dying he ‘breathed forth his spirit’, the spirit of truth who leads those who follow him into all truth, the spirit of love poured into human hearts.

Augustine says that on the cross Jesus is like a professor on his chair and Thomas Aquinas quotes the phrase: ‘sicut magister in cathedra’. The lonely place where the scattered sheep are finally gathered is around the cross of Jesus. The lonely place where ‘many things’ are learned is at the foot of the cross of Jesus. The lesson is about love and truth, but not just as ideas, as realities. In today’s gospel, leading his apostles to a wilderness place where a restless throng need teaching, Jesus teaches them that there is a lot more involved in being a teacher like him than they yet realize.

Week 16 Friday (Year 1)

Readings: Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19; Matthew 13:18-23

The good soil on which the seed of God's Word falls must have three characteristics. It must have the capacity to hear the Word of God. It must have the capacity to understand the Word of God. And it must have the capacity to put the Word of God into practice. The earlier kinds of soil on which the seed might fall - by the wayside, on rocks, among thorns - all lack one or more of these characteristics and so the seed cannot take root, grow strong and bear fruit, in any of them.

It means there are three critical moments for the life of faith. When we reflect on the well-being of our faith - how strong, how healthy, is my faith? - it is useful to give attention to each of these moments.

Firstly the Word of God must be heard. So what are the difficulties, internal and external, that get in the way of hearing the Word of God? How can we hope to hear a Word from God if we do not put ourselves in the way of receiving such a Word?  Perhaps we rarely go to Church and rarely read the Bible. But life itself often conspires to wake us up, to bring us back to reality, and to get us thinking about it all again.

Our reflections will show that there are many things, very practical things, which we can do if we want to hear better the Word which God wants to speak to us. We need to dedicate time and space in order to be available to God. We need to be in places where we can hear or read the Bible. We need to clear our lives of distractions that will interfere with clear reception of the Word. We need to put to one side for the moment doubts and hesitations that might arise in our hearts and minds, undermining our confidence in what we are trying to do. All too often such doubts succeed in preventing us entering into the necessary kind of silence in which we can listen out for what God wants to say to us.

It can seem a bit spooky to say 'listen out for what God wants to say to you'. How can a human person actually hear the voice of God? It means reading the Bible or listening to it being read. It means attending liturgies where the scriptures are proclaimed and explained. It means attending to the ruminations in our hearts and minds to see what is on my mind? what is weighing on my heart? Such things might be distractions, getting in the way, but more often than not they are telling us 'where we are' and what it is we would like to speak to God about. Perhaps he wishes to speak with us about those things, or perhaps he wants to draw our attention to something we are forgetting.

Secondly the Word of God must be understood. Some of the less favourable soil succeeds in hearing the Word but cannot make the move to understanding it. This requires study and prayer. We must make some effort to understand the nature of the Bible, the different kinds of texts it includes, the ways in which the different books relate to each other historically and in regard to what they teach. We must put ourselves in the way of hearing people speak about it, see what the Church's tradition says about it, reflect on some representations of Biblical characters and events in art or in music.

The internet now offers countless commentaries on the Bible, many of them spoken, many of them written. Go surfing and see what you find. If there is a text you find difficult to understand put it in a Google search and see what comes up. Of course there will be a variety of interpretations, and not all interpreters speak with the same authority. But it is part of the richness of the Word of God that it evokes such diverse echoes in the minds and lives of so many people.

Don't be afraid to add your own interpretation, asking God's Holy Spirit to guide and inspire you. After all we are thinking now about what it is God might want to say to you in his Word. Be attentive also to what is happening in the world around you, in your own life and relationships and activities, as well as to what is going on in the world at large. God speaks to us also through things and events and people, often in combination with the Biblical texts we are thinking about at any particular moment.

Thirdly the Word of God must bear fruit. In his letter Saint James says we are to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. In saying this he is simply repeating the teaching of Jesus, that the one who builds his house on rock is the one who not only hears (and perhaps also understands) the Word but who puts it into practice.

Just as we must put to one side voices and distractions that would undermine our confidence in trying to hear the Word or in trying to understand the Word, we must do the same when those voices and distractions try to undermine our confidence in living out what the Word asks of us. A voice might tell us that we are hypocrites or pretentious, that we are looking for notice or acting out of pride, that is simply another form of egoism or of imposing ourselves on others. The demons are very inventive in the ways in which they try to upset us. But God is infinitely creative even if to ourselves we feel we are 'without form and empty'.

Just as the sower will presumably have to persevere through clouds of insects, sweat, challenging terrain and other physical distractions, so we need to persevere through these three stages in the life of faith: hearing, understanding, bearing fruit. We will discover quickly also that it is not a straight line, this journey of faith. Sometimes we are putting the Word into practice without fully understanding it or when, for some reason, we have become hard of hearing. Or we may be puzzled and perplexed by a Word, not yet understanding how it is a Word of God to me. But very often it is in doing the Word that understanding finally comes.

In the life of faith it is always the season for sowing, always the season for letting the crop mature, always the season for reaping the harvest. Let us give ourselves to its demands once again, listening in prayer and attentiveness, seeking to understand through study and reflection, putting it into practice in mercy and charity. By God's grace each one will bear even richer fruit, thirty or sixty or even a hundredfold.

Week 16 Sunday (Year A)

Readings: Wisdom 12:13,16-19; Psalm 86; Romans 8:26-27; Matthew 13:24-43

In the gospel reading for today Jesus offers three agricultural metaphors for the kingdom of heaven. Perhaps, to be more precise, at least for the first of these parables, it is 'the kingdom of heaven on earth' he is talking about, in other words the Church. Good and evil grow alongside each other in this stage of the kingdom's history. The 'puritan' temptation can be strong, at times very strong, the desire to root out the evil and purify the Church, make it to be only good like the heavenly Father in whom there is no shadow of darkness but only light.

But acting on such desires is not wise, Jesus says, because inevitably rooting out the evil will lead to undermining the good also. It is as if he were to say 'leave the work of separating to those who are expert in that work', 'leave the work of discerning between good and evil to those who are equipped to make such judgements'. Here he assigns the task to the angels, they are the harvesters of the parable who separate the wheat and the chaff at the end.

We might have thought that we had ourselves gained that ability to discern through eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It gives us experience of both, eating from that tree, in the first place in ourselves, and it is the confusion that this sets loose in us that makes it difficult for us to see now where to draw the line. Who are you to judge your neighbour? Who am I to judge anyone else when I cannot manage it for myself?

Best to leave judgement to God who sees more profoundly, who knows all things, and whose power, as the first reading says, is made perfect in mercy. The wisdom of the farmer in the parable is an expression of that mercy - give things time, be patient, wait. In another parable Jesus talks explicitly of the gardener's patience: 'give it another year, then we will see'. 

The second reading, from Paul's letter to the Romans, is along the same lines. God knows our weakness, not just in regard to discerning good and evil, but also in regard to praying (which may actually be simply another way of talking about the same thing). So the Spirit comes to help us in our weakness. It is the Spirit who knows thoughts and discerns intentions, and he will intercede on our behalf. The harvesting angels will be working under the supervision of the same Spirit.

The other two parables then testify to the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church. In spite of its many limitations and failures, and in spite of the evil that invariably gets entangled in its roots, it becomes a great tree in which the peoples of the earth can take refuge. The final parable is more culinary than agricultural, perhaps. The presence of the kingdom, at this stage of its history, is like yeast working its effect in flour. Small, quickly disappearing, it yet works a powerful effect in the whole thing. So holiness, wherever it is found, good people, wherever they are found, are working God's purpose out in the world.

We do not know for now where the lines are to be drawn. But we do know that holiness will make present in our world even now, however mixed in with other things it might continue to be, the kindness and patience, the mercy and even the power of God.

Week 16 Thursday (Year 2)

Readings: Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13; Psalm 36; Matthew 13:10-17

Mark Twain is quoted as saying that it was not the parts of the Bible he did not understand that bothered him, it was the parts of the Bible that he did understand. There is plenty that we do understand and that we can be getting on with. What Jesus asks of his disciples is very clear: the great commandment of love, the new commandment to love one another as He has loved us, the compassion of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Father, taking up one's cross each day to follow Him, praying as He prayed, being with others as He was with others ...

Perhaps we think that the parts of the Bible we do not understand contain a more sophisticated or profound truth than the many things we do understand. Faced with a statement like the one in today's gospel, that 'anyone who has will be given more but from anyone who has not even what he has will be taken away', we might just scratch our heads and say well it is some kind of poetic thinking, some kind of paradoxical wisdom, not making logical sense, let's get on with what we do understand ...

There is something to be learned by living with the paradoxical and puzzling teachings of the Scriptures but it seems to have more to do with the kind of pedagogy we need and the kind of ignorance from which we need to be saved than it has to do with the teaching itself. Jesus did not come to teach a public doctrine for the many and a private doctrine for the few. His doctrine is clear and well published and the whole world knows what it is.

The problem for us is entering into a living understanding and observance of that doctrine, and this is where the puzzling and paradoxical come into play. We can all relatively easily learn the answers to the questions in the catechism. But there are things from which we need to be freed if we are to live what we read and the only way to that freedom is through the paradox and the puzzle. Lest we think we understand. Lest we think we see. Lest we think we hear. For reasons to do possibly with creatureliness and certainly with sin, the medium of our formation has to include these moments of loss and exile, of falling into darkness and coming again into the light, of having nothing, not even a satisfactory philosophy of that nothingness.

Often we prefer to leave it to others to enter into the darkness of the divine mystery: saints, mystics, prophets, teachers. We join the crowd at the foot of the mountain, waiting to hear what they have to say when they return. But Jesus calls each of us into that mystery, to see in a new way, to hear in a new way, to listen and to understand. For that we need the new heart that he gives us, a heart softened by opening to the world's suffering.

Week 16 Tuesday (Year 1)

Readings: Exodus 14:21-15:1; Exodus 15; Matthew 12:46-50

Once again we must feel sorry for the Egyptians. What has this tribal God of the children of Israel got to do with them? Nothing, it seems. He is their enemy. He fights against them to save the Hebrews and to manifest his power and glory to them. There is a triumph, but at their expense.

For Jesus, by contrast, anyone who does the will of his Father is his 'brother and sister and mother'. He offers a new basis for relationships, a new kind of family, a new kind of society. It is no longer racial or national or ethnic differences and interests that set criteria for belonging. As Paul says later, there is no longer Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free. Our citizenship is now elsewhere, the equality we share established on a completely new foundation. The Father of Jesus, seen in the fuller light of the revelation brought by the Son, is the God of all people.

There is a second link between the two readings today: 'Moses stretched out his hand and said ...'; 'Jesus stretched out his hand and said ...'. Moses is the messiah (to use a later term), the saviour of the people, leading them out of slavery and on towards the promised land. Jesus is the new Moses come to lead all people, through the passing over that is his death and resurrection, on towards the promised kingdom.

Stretching out his hands in a sign of power and authority, Moses divides the waters of the Red Sea so that the people can cross over in safety. Stretching out his hands in a sign of power and authority, Jesus includes in his embrace all those who do the will of his Father. Later, stretching out his hands in a sign of obedience and submission to the Father's will, he embraces the cross, the means by which he gathers to himself a people from east and west, north and south. Lifted up from the earth, he draws all people to himself, and to the Father.