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15th Sunday in Ordinary Time A
Readings: Isaiah 55:10‑11 Romans 8:18‑23 Matthew 13:1‑23
"The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest." As the response to the psalm proclaims, this Sunday's readings are both promise and challenge. We are assured of the fulfillment of God's word in a fruitful harvest, but we are also questioned about whether we have been receptive ground for that life‑giving word.
The Isaiah reading is part of a hymn of joy and triumph which concludes Second Isaiah's prophecy announcing the good news of Israel's return from Babylonian exile. Despite the apparent hopelessness of the exiles' situation in Babylon, the prophet assures them that God's word has decreed their return and will bear fruit as inevitably as "the rain and snow" do not return to the heavens "till they have watered the earth,/ and made it fertile and fruitful. . .". Just as in nature "the one who sows" and "the one who eats" are dependent upon the rain from heaven, so Israel must learn to trust that God's word will accomplish his saving purpose. “It (my word) shall not return to me void,/ but shall do my will,/ achieving the end for which I sent it” (Isa 55:11).
The Romans reading continues Paul's lyrical description of the saving effects of Jesus' death and resurrection for both the Christian community and the whole of creation. Using the Jewish apocalyptic tradition that a period of great suffering and turmoil would precede the completion of God's kingdom, Paul assures his fellow Christians: "I consider the sufferings of the present to be as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed in us." Because of Adam's sin "Creation was made subject to futility," but "not without hope." It "will be freed from its slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God." In the present order, however, "creation groans and is in agony even until now." We Christians also "groan inwardly while we await the redemption of our bodies." But this common fate of "groaning" is not without hope. "We have the Spirit as the first fruits" of the harvest of God's kingdom.
Matthew's parable of the sower also affirms the triumph of God's kingdom despite opposition from both outside and within the Christian community. Matthew draws a sharp contrast between the crowds who refuse to accept the mystery of God's kingdom (see the preceding chapters 11‑12) and Jesus' disciples who are open to it. After Jesus has spoken the parable, his disciples ask him, "Why do you speak to them in parables?" He answers that the reason the kingdom of God is hidden from his opponents is their own hardness of heart—“seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” In them the terrifying prophecy of Isaiah has been fulfilled. In contrast, the disciples are the “blessed” who are witnessing and hearing what “many prophets and righteous longed to see.”
Jesus' allegorical interpretation of the parable warns the disciples, and us, of the various ways they and we too may reject the kingdom, but ends with an assurance of its eventual triumph. Some disciples, like the seed along the path, “hear the message about God's reign without understanding it.” Like the birds eating the seed along the path, “the evil one” steals away “what was sown in the mind.” Others, like the seed upon the rock, hear the message with joy for a while, but because they have no root, last only for a time and falter in times of persecution and trial. Still others, like the seed choked by briars, allow worldly anxiety and the lure of money to choke off the seed. Despite these failures, God's word does find good soil: those “who hear the message and take it in.” Let us pray that we may be that receptive soil.
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