18th Sunday A

18^th Sunday of the Year A

Readings: Isaiah 55:1‑3   Romans 8:35, 37‑39   Matthew 14:13‑21

            In our culture we tend not value those things which are offered free of charge.  Yet in today's readings God invites us to receive lasting nourishment “without paying and without cost.” As we listen to the proclamation of God's blessings through Jesus, let us sing in gratitude the refrain of our responsorial psalm: "The hand of the Lord feeds us;/ he answers all our needs" (Ps 145).

            In the Isaiah reading the prophet speaks for God in inviting the thirsting and impoverished Babylonian exiles to come to God and receive the gifts that will sustain their lives: water, grain, wine, and milk.  In a very practical way, the prophet reasons with them: "Why spend your money for what is not bread;/ your  wages for what fails to satisfy?".  The gift that God offers the exiles goes beyond mere material sustenance; our reading concludes with an invitation for the exiles to receive the fullness of life once promised to the dynasty of David.      

Come to me heedfully,

                        listen, that you may have life.

                        I will renew with you the everlasting covenant,

                        the benefits assured to David.

            We have been reading Romans 8 for the past five Sundays; today's selection is the lyrical conclusion of that chapter in which Paul praises God for his all powerful love manifested in Christ's death and resurrection.  This act has so united us with Christ that no power can separate us from him: neither sufferings for the sake of the gospel (trial, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger or the sword) nor the heavenly and astrological powers of the universe who were gods in the paganism of the first century A.D.  Christ has triumphed over all of these, and therefore, Paul concludes that nothing "will be able to separate us from the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord."

            In the episodes preceding Matthew's account of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, Jesus is continuing to experience rejection and hostility.  His native town of Nazareth could not accept his wisdom and mighty deeds because they knew him as "the carpenter's son" (13:54‑58).  Also, Jesus has just been informed of the death of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod (14:1‑12) which leads him to withdraw "to a deserted place by himself."  Despite his own precarious situation, Jesus' heart is "moved with pity" when he sees the vast throng that has followed him on foot from the towns. 

            The miracle of the loaves and fishes looks beyond a one-time feeding of a crowd in Galilee to the sustenance that Jesus will offer to the Church throughout the ages.  This is evident in both the disciples' role and in Jesus' actions.  The disciples are aware of the crowds' need for food and so they suggest to Jesus, “This is a deserted place and it is already late.  Dismiss the crowds so that they may go to the villages and buy some food for themselves.”  But Jesus does not want to disperse the crowd and therefore he tells the disciples, “There is no need for them to disperse.  Give them something to eat yourselves.”  Aware of their own paltry resources, the disciples reply, “We have nothing here but five loaves and a couple of fish.”  This is all Jesus needs to feed the crowd.  Through his life giving power, the five loaves and two fish are transformed into superabundant sustenance for the crowd so that "The fragments which remained, when gathered up, filled twelve baskets."  The verbs used by Matthew in describing Jesus' actions would have Eucharistic connotations for Matthew's church and they still do for us.

                        He took the five loaves and two fish,

                        looked up to heaven, blessed and broke them

                        and gave the loaves to the disciples,

                        who in turn gave them to the people.

Only in and through Jesus' power are the disciples able to satisfy the hunger of the crowd.  When the Church attempts to fulfill its mission on its own resources, it is powerless, like the disciples in today's Gospel. 

 

17th Sunday A

 

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time A

Readings: 1 Kings 3:5,7‑12  Romans 8:28‑30  Matthew 13:44‑52

            By our very nature we search for the secret of wisdom.  In today's readings God offers us the simple answer to that quest: the gift of the wisdom is to do God's will.  Let us make our own the prayer of the responsorial psalm.   
                                    For I love your command
                                    more than gold, however fine.
                                    For in all your precepts I go forward;
                                    every false way I hate.  (Ps119:127‑128)
            In the reading from 1 Kings young Solomon has just succeeded his father, David, as king of Israel, and God appears to him "in a dream at night," offering him the opportunity to have anything he may want.  “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.”   Rather than requesting the crass material rewards of a long life, riches, or military victory, Solomon has the insight to pray humbly for God's gift of wisdom to rule and judge the chosen people.
"O Lord, my God, you have made me, your servant,
                                    king to succeed my father David; but I am a mere youth,
                        not knowing at all how to act.  I serve you in the midst
                        of the people whom you have chosen, a people so vast
                        that it cannot be numbered or counted.  Give your servant,
                        therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people
                        and to distinguish right from wrong.  For who is able
                        to govern this vast people of yours?"
The Lord is pleased with Solomon's selfless request and promises him the gift of wisdom for which he became renowned.
                        "I give you a heart so wise and understanding that
                        there has never been anyone like you up to now,
                        and after you there will come no one to equal you."
            The second reading continues Paul's lyrical description of the basis for Christian hope in the midst of our lives of "groaning" for the completion of God's kingdom.  Our hope has its foundation in God's providential plan of salvation by bringing those who love him "to share in the image of his Son."   Just as we share in the image of Adam, the selfish and mortal one, so God has called us to be conformed to his Son, the selfless and resurrected one.  Paul uses a series of five overlapping verbs to describe what God has accomplished for us in his providential plan for salvation through his Son.  In Christ, God "foreknew," "predestined," "called," "justified," and "glorified" us.  Paul's language of "election" and "preordaining" should not be understood in the sense that God decrees salvation for some individuals and damnation for others.  Rather, Paul is applying the biblical tradition of election to the Christian community of his time that is made up of both Jews and Gentiles.  This inclusive community is the result of God's plan for salvation for the whole human family.

The Gospel reading continues Matthew's parable chapter with three parables addressed to the disciples about the nature of God's kingdom.  The first two, the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price, proclaim that the kingdom is the most valuable of all realities and that it calls for a single‑minded response.  In the case of the buried treasure in the field, the stress is on the surprise of what is found, not on the man's morality.  “Out of his joy” at stumbling on this treasure, the man hides it again, sells all he has and buys the field.  The joyful discovery that we are called to do God's will is such an experience.  In the pearl of great price, the discovery is the result of a diligent search: the merchant is “seeking” for fine pearls.  But his response is the same as in the first parable.   When he finds “one really valuable pearl,” he too is glad to “put up for sale all that he had” in order to buy it.                     
            The dragnet parable is like the parable of the wheat and weeds from last week's readings.  Although we are responsible for the way we personally respond to the gift of the kingdom, we are not charged with the sorting out “the worthwhile” and “useless” fish in the kingdom.  God has reserved that task for the angels at the end time.
            Jesus concludes the parable discourse by asking his disciples, “Have you understood all this?”  When they reply, “Yes,” he reminds them of their task and ours: to be scribes, learned in the reign of God, who can bring forth from their  “store(s)” the wisdom of Jesus' “new” teaching as well as “the  old” of the Jewish Torah.

16th Sunday A

 

                                     16th Sunday of the Year A

  Readings: Wisdom 12:13,16‑19  Romans 8:26‑27  Matthew 13:24‑43

            "Lord, you are good and forgiving."  The refrain from this Sunday's responsorial psalm (Ps 86) captures the theme of today's readings.  As we listen to the proclamation of the Lord's mercy, let us hear it as both an invitation to repentance and a call to show mercy ourselves.
            The first reading from Wisdom is a hymn praising and thanking God for his mercy.  Although God is mighty and just, the author of Wisdom is especially overwhelmed by God's clemency.     
But though you are master of might,
                        you judge with clemency,
                        and with much lenience you govern us;
                        for power, whenever you will attends you.
The lessons of God's mercy are twofold: (1) God's people must mingle justice with kindness and (2) always have hope for repentance.    
And you taught your people, by these deeds,
                        that those who are just must be kind;
                        and you gave your sons good ground for hope
                        that you would permit repentance for their sins.
            The second reading continues chapter 8 of Paul's letter to the Romans with an explanation of how the Spirit helps Christians pray while groaning inwardly in "weakness" as they await the completion of God's kingdom begun in Jesus.  Paul understands the Christian community as the first fruits of the harvest of God's kingdom.  Through Jesus' triumphant death and resurrection, we Christians have been given the gift of God's renewing Spirit which "makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be expressed in speech."  Although we may not even know how to articulate the deepest needs of our hearts, "He who searches hearts knows what the Spirit means, for the Spirit intercedes for the saints as God himself wills."

            The Gospel reading continues Matthew's great parable chapter from last Sunday's readings with three more parables: the weeds and the wheat, the mustard seed, and the yeast.  In order to understand the significance of these parables, it is helpful to recall what has preceded this chapter in Matthew.  In chapters 11‑12 Jesus has clearly presented himself to the crowds and leaders as the Messiah, the very Wisdom of God, and has invited them to respond.  Sadly, they have rejected Jesus' claims and have accused him of being possessed by Beelzebul.  Now Jesus speaks to his opponents in "parables" which "announce what has lain hidden since the creation of the world," but they do not understand them because their minds and hearts are closed to Jesus' message.
            Despite this depressing and potentially violent situation, Jesus' parables are filled with hope.  Both the mustard seed and the yeast parables contrast the small, even insignificant, beginnings of "the reign of God" with its triumphant growth and outcome.  The mustard seed “is the smallest seed of all, yet when full‑grown it is the largest of plants.”  The image of the birds of the sky building their nests in its branches connotes a traditional image of the triumph of God's kingdom (see Ezek 17:23; 31:6; Dan 4:7‑9,17‑19).  Likewise a little yeast is infinitesimally small in comparison with “three measures of flour,” yet when a woman kneads it into the dough, “the whole mass of dough began to rise.”
            Although the weeds and wheat parable also ends with the  hopeful image of a harvest in which the wheat is gathered into the barn, it makes another point for those who would like to  immediately eliminate all opposition to the kingdom.   This attitude is perfectly expressed in the speech of the owner's slaves who ask their master, “Do you what us to go out and pull them (the weeds) up?”  The patience of the master in the parable is the same as that of Jesus in his ministry. Rather than responding violently to those who have rejected him, Jesus exercises patience in the hope that they may change.  He also extends this lesson to his disciples who might be tempted to hasten the reign of God by sorting out the good and the bad.  The master answers his slaves:     
"No, pull up the weeds and you might take the wheat
                        along with them.  Let them grow together until harvest;
                        then at harvest time I will order the harvesters,
                        first collect the weeds and bundle them up to burn
                        then gather the wheat into my barn."
In Jesus' allegorical interpretation of the parable we learn that the judgment will take place at the end of time and it will be the work of the Son of Man and his angels.  This frees us, Jesus' followers, from the task of sorting out who are the saints and who are the evil ones.  That will be the Son of Man's job at the end; we are free to be about the more productive work of extending the kingdom by proclaiming God's mercy and inviting people to repentance.

15th Sunday - year A

 

 

 

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 (Genesis 3), "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.  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.