15th
Ordinary Sunday (Year A)
First Reading: Isaiah 55:10-11 Second Reading: Romans 8:18-23 Gospel Reading: Matthew 13:1-23
“THE SEED THAT FALLS ON GOOD GROUND WILL YIELD A FRUITFUL HARVEST.”
A professor in a college English class said to his students, “If you will just take a new word and use it 10 times, it will be yours forever.” Whereupon, a young girl in the class looked dreamily out of the window and sighed, “Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, …(10 times).”
Now, let us come to a
rather serious illustration ...
A
story is told about a famous first century rabbi named Rabbi Akiva.
One day as Rabbi Akiva was shepherding his flock, he noticed a tiny
stream trickling down a hillside, dripping over a ledge on its way
toward the river below. Below was a massive boulder. Surprisingly,
the rock bore a deep impression. The drip, drip, drip of water over
the centuries had hollowed away the stone. Rabbi Akiva commented, “If
mere water can do this to hard rock, how much more can God's Word
carve a way into my heart of flesh?” Akiva realized that if the
water had flowed over the rock all at once, the rock would have been
unchanged. It was the slow but steady impact of each small droplet,
year after year, that completely reformed the stone.
Today is the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time and the Scripture of Readings of today emphasize the constant and powerful action of the 'Word of God' to enlighten and to move our minds and hearts to believe in Him and to act accordingly. In the First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, Isaiah compares the power of the word of God with rain vis-a-vis its effect on us. Just as rain falls and makes the earth fertile and fruitful, so the word of God comes down to us and enriches our lives. If our lives are not enriched then we frustrate God. In the Second Reading from his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul refers to the fact that all humans and all creation suffer because of sin and he assures us that the present sufferings are nothing compared to future glory that awaits at the end of the process. In the Gospel Reading from St. Matthew, Jesus tells us 'The Parable of the Sower.' He emphasizes the variety of responses to the word of God. It is not due to God’s seed (word) that the harvest fails in some people’s lives, but the manner in which it is received. “The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.”
A MESSAGE OF HOPE:
In the First reading of
today from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, we have one
of the most beautiful and evocative passages of the Bible about the
power
and purpose
of the word
of God
to give life to those who receive it. Through it the
Prophet Isaiah brings a message of consolation to the people of
Israel in exile as he urges them to be hopeful of future glory. He
makes rain a symbol for the powerful word of God. Rain comes down
from above and makes the earth fruitful; the earth produces a good
harvest and also prepares the seed for future use; just so God’s
word rains down and enriches the world. The world like parched earth
is waiting for the rain of God’s word. The word of God has the same
dramatic influence on the spiritual landscape. Their lives in exile
were deprived of life and hope. All of that will change if they allow
the word of God into their hearts. The prophet is confident that
God’s word will find fertile ground in the hearts of the people and
transform them into a people equipped to nourish the nations of the
world spiritually. Even if they do not repent, God will still take
the initiative for life. His divine word will not return to heaven
without achieving the life-giving purpose. The prophet places before
them a message of hope. He recalls the efficacious nature of
God’s Word. Just as God spoke an efficacious word in the beginning
to accomplish the work of creation, so should Israel trust in the
continuing power of God’s Word to deliver them from exile.
“THE SEED THAT FALLS ON GOOD GROUND WILL YIELD A FRUITFUL HARVEST.”
Today's Gospel Reading
marks the beginning of the third long discourse given by Jesus in the
Gospel of
St. Matthew and
is a complex, metaphorical explication of the profound mystery of
God’s powerful Word. Over
the next few weeks, the Gospel readings will consist of the entire
13th
Chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, a lengthy teaching discourse. This
entire unit is sometimes called the 'Discourse
in Parables.'
Throughout
this discourse, Jesus offers several parables to illustrate for his
listeners what he means by 'the
kingdom of heaven.'
There
are three
distinct
parts in today's Gospel Reading: the parable, an interlude, and
explanation of the parable. A way of looking at this division is to
regard the parable as being close to the actual words of Jesus. This
is followed by a theological interlude on 'hearing'
and finally there is an interpretation of the parable producing
a related but distinct lesson or message.
Jesus begins with
'The
Parable of the Sower,'
which appears rather straightforward. He
gets his disciples thinking by telling them about a sower who is
prodigal in the sowing of seed - he throws it all over the place.
Some seed does fall in fertile soil but much is wasted. Seeds
that miss the soil, are sown on the path, or are sown on rocky
ground, or are sown among other plants will not grow. The surprise in
the parable is the enormous yield of the seed that is sown on good
soil. “The
seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.” In
the parable itself the emphasis is on God (the sower) who works and
produces results.
Jesus then explains
his use of parables. Jesus seems to suggest that he uses parables to
teach because the meanings of parables are not self-evident. The
hearer must engage in some degree of reflection in order to
comprehend the message of a parable. In this way, the medium - the
parable - models the point of the parable of the sower. Those who are
willing to engage themselves in the effort to understand will be
rewarded by the discovery of the message and will bear fruit. This
interlude or comment in between gives the key to our response and
subsequent fertility of the seed.
So
having provoked the disciples with the parable Jesus now explains it
with reference to his own preaching of the Word. He has been very
generous in teaching and performing miracles, reaching out to all
sorts of people especially misfits and sinners. The
interpretation of the parable puts the emphasis more on us (the soil)
and the ways in which we can respond. The
different types of soil in which the seeds are sown are metaphors for
the disposition with which each individual hears the teaching about
the kingdom of heaven. Some will be easily swayed away from the
kingdom of heaven. Some will receive it for a time but will lose it
when faced with difficulties. Some will hear the word but will then
permit other cares to choke it out. Yet some will receive it well,
and the seed will produce abundant fruit. “The
seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.”
HOPE FOR FUTURE GLORY:
The
text we have today in the Second Reading is among the most well-known
of this very famous Letter of St. Paul to the Romans. It describes
the profound hope
of the Christians who have engaged the messiness of life most fully.
St. Paul sees all of creation as joined to humankind in being wounded
by sin and in its present misery. We are God’s representatives in
his marvelous creation, and human destiny is intricately interwoven
with the world we live in - its sufferings, corruption and agony.
This suffering is a sign of how much all creation is damaged by sin.
At present, though, both humanity and nature suffer, but that is
nothing compared to future
glory that awaits
at the end of the process. St. Paul asserts that even suffering and
physical corruption, the messiest aspects of the created universe and
human life, can be changed by God’s grace and the power of God’s
hope-filled Spirit. Human words are inadequate, but God’s Spirit is
so profound as to make up for our language's inadequacies. A
believing Christian sees beyond the human reality and lives in human
reality supported by a confidence in God’s power to save and
redeem.
CONCLUSION:
In the whole of Scripture
God's word is not just a spoken word. It is a doing word, a creating,
life-giving word. It is like a life-bearing seed. And where do we
encounter that word? There
is clearly, of course, for us one place in particular where God's
word is more clearly experienced and that is in Jesus Christ. For
Jesus is the Word of God. Everything that Jesus said, everything that
Jesus did was God communicating to us through him.
Now, let us consider
today's parable – 'The Parable of the
Sower.' Here in this parable Jesus himself is the sower of
the seed. He is the Eternal Word incarnate, provides the seed and
sows it into the hearts of the hearers in order to provide a harvest
of thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold. The harvest depends on the
fertility of the soil/soul where it gets planted in. But the Word
himself will not make the soil fertile; it just depends on how much
seed falls on the soil and how receptive the soil is to the Word. The
Father provides Jesus with His Divine Word for the sowing, which in
turn bears fruit unto eternal life for those who are willing to
listen.
Again, Jesus, the Word of
God, was well aware that humankind was adept at not listening. He
knew, because he spoke to crowds of people, and many, especially
those who should have listened most carefully, were unwilling to hear
what he had to say. That’s why he often said things like, 'Listen,
anyone who has ears.' Jesus described four types of
listeners, three of whom were not listeners. They were the
hard-surface, the dusty-surface and the cluttered surface types.
People who either failed to hear him at all, or those who heard him
but had their hearts somewhere else. The hard-surface types were
perhaps like the religious people who thought they had no need to
listen to Jesus, because they already had the truth, and were not
going to allow him or any prophet to change their minds, especially
if it meant changing their privileged status. Maybe the other two
types were like the people who said they would follow Jesus, but got
a rather negative response from him because he could tell that they
were not really committed. But for all the reasons why some people
might not hear the Word of God, there are those who do listen, and
are transformed. They may not look very good material for welcoming
God’s kingdom, but they are used by God and they do far more than
they seem capable of.
Finally, we are the soil. And what kind of soil are
we on which the seed, the Word of God, is sowed? Are we disposed to
God's word and therefore embrace it, allow it to grow in us and make
us the person God wants us to become? Or are we so indisposed to His
word that we do not even allow it to sprout in us? Let us
not be pessimistic about ourselves; we have all of the failings which
are represented by the hard surface, the dusty surface and the
cluttered surface, but we can have hope,
because God who chooses to use us, is the miracle worker who even in
our hearts’ poor soil can bring forth more good than we could ever
have imagined. Let us keep in mind always, “The
seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.” And
this is the Good News of today.
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