July

A long time ago I began to search for some way to understand death as continuous with life. Otherwise dying is merely a cancellation. And suffering is just a smaller version of it.

Jesus seems to imply that we needn’t worry about it, just come close to him. "Come to me all who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest," he says in this week’s Gospel. But in Holy Week we experienced Jesus’ passion and death on the Cross, which do not seem restful, at least to this writer.

And how about 9/11, and Iraq, and AIDS, and the tsunami and earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and such? Yes we turn to the Lord and we do find comfort, many of us, but it doesn’t really seem restful.

And, of course, there are clergy who abuse children and young people, even though these same men took up the Lord’s life explicitly and made themselves public witnesses of it. Have these men ever slept an undisturbed sleep since their crimes? Even if they have, clearly the survivors have not.

Long ago I began quoting with gusto the words of Dylan Thomas, that ragged poet, who if rumor is true drank himself to the death he dreaded. He wrote this to his father who was upon his death bed.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old Age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Yes, rage.

And in his great poem, "Fern Hill," the same poet says,

Oh as I was young and easy

in the mercy of his means,

Time held me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Time steals away the life and liveliness of human beings, whatever of it the world has not already plundered, and death puts an end to it all. How does Jesus give us rest from these kinds of weariness and burden? In what way does he make death easy?

"I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves," he says. Read it in the Gospel. Can it be true? How can we welcome a savior who is meek and humble instead of fiercely opposing the disastrous wrongs?

Jesus’ words do bring some fledgling kind of calm in the face of all this. Somehow he compels us, consoles us. Actually you might say that he reveals one of life’s secrets that we might never have guessed. What can it be?

Seek it in me, Jesus says. "I am meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass" (First Reading). Watch me on the sad height of Calvary and see. I have let it all go—belongings, beloveds, repute, all. But one thing remains. Make it your life, in the midst of sorrow, in every act of living and of dying. It is the center of my life.

Love. Love of God and neighbor.

If you can let go into the arms of the Great Love, give your life away instead of raging, you will know rest from your burdens; you will see how death is the ultimate act of giving yourself away, as Jesus did, burdens or not. 

Here I want to start with the question, what is the source and goal of them both, life and death?

An Invitation to a Deeper Virtue

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart;

Perhaps the most misunderstood text in all of scripture is the one where Jesus says to us: "Unless your virtue goes deeper than that of the scribes and the pharisees, you will never enter into the kingdom of heaven." 

We generally misunderstand that because we wrongly think that Jesus is referring to the vices of the scribes and pharisees, not their virtue. We look at the hypocrisy, jealousy, double-standard, and rigid legalism of the scribes and pharisees and easily distance ourselves from that. But it wasn't their vices that Jesus was referring to, but their virtues. 

What was the virtue of the scribes and pharisees? In fact, they had a pretty high standard. The ten commandments, strict justice in all things, compassion for the poor, and the practice of hospitality, constituted their ideal for virtuous living. What's wrong with that? What's required beyond these? 

In Jesus's view, what's wrong is that, in the end, it's still too easy. Any good person does these things, simply on the basis of decency. What's wrong is that ultimately we still give back in kind, an eye for an eye - dollar for dollar, goodness for goodness, kindness for kindness, slight for slight, hatred for hatred, murder for murder. Nothing is ever really transformed, moved beyond, redeemed, transcended, forgiven. 

Simply put, if I'm living the virtue of the scribes and pharisees, I react this way: If you come to me and say, "I like you! You're a wonderful person," my response naturally will be in kind: "I like you too! Obviously you're a wonderful person!" What I'm doing is simply feeding your own good energy back to you. But that has a nasty underside: If you come to me and say, "I hate you! You're a charlatan and a hypocrite," my response will also be in kind: "I hate you too! Clearly you're a very petty person!" This is ultimately what "an eye for an eye" morality, strict justice, comes down to. We end up feeding back the other's energy, good or bad, and replicating the other's virtue, good or bad. That's the natural way, but it's not the Christian way. 

It's precisely here where Jesus' invites us "beyond", beyond natural reaction, beyond instinct, beyond giving back in kind, beyond legal rights, beyond strict justice, beyond the need to be right, beyond even the ten commandments, beyond the virtue of the scribes and pharisees. 

Indeed the litmus-test for Christian orthodoxy is not the creed (Can you believe this set of truths?) but this particular challenge from Jesus: Can you love an enemy? Can you not give back in kind? Can you move beyond your natural reactions and transform the energy that enters you from others, so as to not give back bitterness for bitterness, harsh words for harsh words, curse for curse, hatred for hatred, murder for murder? Can you rise above your sense of being wronged? Can you renounce your need to be right? Can you move beyond the itch to always have what's due you? Can you forgive, even when every feeling inside of you rebels at its unfairness? Can you take in bitterness, curses, hatred, and murder itself, and give back graciousness, blessing, love, understanding, and forgiveness? That's the root invitation inside of Christianity and it's only when we do this that we move beyond "an eye for an eye". 

Admittedly, this isn't easy, either in theory or in practice. Much inside of conventional wisdom, pop psychology, and contemporary spirituality, will object to the very theory of it, pointing out that carrying tension isn't healthy for us, telling us that we have a duty not to enable abusive behaviour, and challenging us not to be doormats and victims, but mature persons who claim the legitimate space that's needed in order to be free, giving persons, responsible to God, others, and self apposite to developing our innate potentials and bringing our gifts to the world. All of these objections are right, of course, though none of them negate Jesus' challenge. His invitation, cleansed from overly-simplistic interpretation, remains: Don't be a victim or a doormat or an enabler of abusive behaviour, but do consider, willingly and without resentment, laying down your life for others by living this more sublime challenge. 

And it's exactly on this point, to do this willingly and without resentment, that its practice grows difficult. It's not easy to do this and not grow resentful and manipulative. More commonly, we carry others' crosses - but end up being bitter about it and sending them the bill. The scribes and pharisees had this down to an fine art. That too was part of their virtue. Growing resentful or manipulative while serving others is a perennial danger, though, as Goethe says: "The dangers of life are many and safety is one of them." 

And so the invitation of Jesus to what's higher, more sublime, more noble, remains; as does the gentle, understanding, faithful, non- threatening, non-coercive, non guilt-inducing, but persistent and uncompromising, presence of God. 

First Reading (Zechariah, Chapter 9, Verses 9-10)

1. What ideas do you associate with the word king? Is “meek king” an oxymoron? What ideas do you associate with the word meek? Can meekness be a strength? Can it win wars or put a stop to fighting?

2. Would it be easier to approach a king who is meek? How approachable are you? Do humility and meekness have any bearing on a person’s approachability? When did Jesus enter the city “riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey”?

Second Reading (Romans, Chapter 8, Verses 9, 11-13)

1. At the Incarnation Christ took on human flesh with all of its burdens and delights. What do you think the Incarnation does for the worth of human flesh?

2. “The Spirit of God dwells in you.” What does this imply about the wonder and holiness of your own spirit? Could it help you in reverencing your neighbor?

Gospel (Matthew, Chapter 10, Verse 37-42)

1. Carpenters used to make a yoke by hand to fit the animal that would wear it. Is your “yoke” handmade for you? If yes, who “makes” it? What does Jesus say about this in Sunday’s Gospel Reading? 

2. Does Jesus have the meekness of the First Reading’s king? If he had never labored or been burdened, would you still feel he could understand you? Discuss Pope Francis’ statement about this Sunday’s Gospel: 

The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew (Evangelii Gaudium, 1).

• For the Church:: that we may learn dependence upon God and surrender our attempts to control our lives through knowledge, power, or possessions, that God will help us take up the yoke of Christ and follow him in speaking the truth lovingly, offering forgiveness to those who wrong us, and praying for our enemies
• For the grace of humility: that we may live like Christ, knowing that all we are and all we have are gifts from God
• For a greater appreciation of the Sabbath: that God will show us how to disengage from our busyness and technology so that our minds and spirits can be refreshed through prayer, engaging in relationships, and appreciating nature
• For a fuller life in the Spirit: that God will free us from self-absorption and selfishness so that we may allow the Spirit to lead us into a more authentic and virtuous life
• For the grace to surrender control: that we may let Jesus ease our burdens and journey side by side with him in every event in our lives
• For freedom from fear: that God will help us surrender our fear and anxiety into the hands of the One who loves us and strengthen our confidence that God will provide for us in every circumstance
• For all who are weary in body, mind, or spirit: that the Spirit will restore strength to the physically exhausted, hope to those who are emotionally worn out, and energy to all who are weary from offering loving service of others
• For all who struggle to sleep or with getting rest: that God will free them from worry, help them to trust in God’s providence, and grant them restful sleep
• For legislators and municipal council members: that God will give them wisdom in addressing current challenges, courage to work for the greater good, and openness to innovative approaches for the good of those whom they serve
• For all who are traveling: that God will guide them safely to their destinations and protect them from all harm
• For an end to injustice and discrimination: that God will change the hearts and minds of those entrapped in judging people by externals, and help everyone to recognize the God-given dignity of each person
• For all who are working to provide healthcare to Ebola victims or food to those who are starving: that God will give them strength, speed the resources needed, and protect them from burnout
• For peace: That God will help all leaders recognize the pain and destruction of warfare and turn hearts to honest dialogue and sincere desire for resolution of conflicts
• [USA] For our nation: that God will guide us in living the values which we proclaim so that all may experience life, liberty, and justice
• For a deeper appreciation of God’s gifts of bountiful harvests, magnificent mountains, fresh water, and abundant wildlife in our country: that we may protect these gifts, use them well, and share with those in need
• For God’s guidance into the future: that we may further develop the civic virtues of justice, equal opportunity, common respect, and equality before the law

Commentary by John Chrysostom

I am gentle and humble in heart (Matthew 11:29)

Our Master is always the same, gentle and benevolent. In his constant concern for our salvation, he says explicitly in the gospel just read to us: “Come, learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.”

What great condescension on the part of the Creator! And yet the creature feels no shame! “Come, learn from me.” The Master came to console his fallen servants.

This is how Christ treats us. He shows pity when a sinner deserves punishment. When the race that angers him deserves to be annihilated, he addresses the guilty ones in the kindly words: “Come, learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.”

God is humble, and we are proud! The judge is gentle; the criminal arrogant! The potter speaks in lowered voice; the clay discourses in the tones of a king! “Come, learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.” Our master carries a whip not to wound, but to heal us.

Reflect upon his indescribable kindness. Who could fail to love a master who never strikes his servants? Who would not marvel at a judge who beseeches a condemned criminal? Surely the self-abasement of these words must astound you.

I am the Creator and I love my work. I am the sculptor and I care for what I have made.

If I thought of my dignity, I should not rescue fallen humankind. If I failed to treat its incurable sickness with fitting remedies, it would never recover its strength. If I did not console it, it would die. If I did nothing but threaten it, it would perish. This is why I apply the salve of kindness to it where it lies.

Compassionately, I bend down very low in order to raise it up. No one standing erect can lift a fallen man without putting a hand down to him.

  “Come, learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.” I do not make a show of words; I have left you the proof of my deeds. You can see that I am gentle and humble in heart from what I have become.
Consider my nature, reflect upon my dignity, and marvel at the condescension I have shown you. Think of where I came from, and of where I am as I speak to you.

Heaven is my throne, yet I talk to you standing on the earth! I am glorified on high, but because I am long-suffering. I am not angry with you, “for I am gentle and humble in heart.”

Homily on Saint Bassus: Bareille, t. 4, 509-510

 
John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) was born at Antioch and studied under Diodore of Tarsus, the leader of the Antiochene school of theology. After a period of great austerity as a hermit, he returned to Antioch where he was ordained deacon in 381 and priest in 386. From 386 to 397 it was his duty to preach in the principal church of the city, and his best homilies, which earned him the title “Chrysostomos” or “the golden-mouthed,” were preached at this time.

In 397 Chrysostom became patriarch of Constantinople, where his efforts to reform the court, clergy, and people led to his exile in 404 and finally to his death from the hardships imposed on him. Chrysostom stressed the divinity of Christ against the Arians and his full humanity against the Apollinarians, but he had no speculative bent. He was above all a pastor of souls, and was one of the most attractive personalities of the early Church.

Reading I: Zechariah 9:9-10

This passage is often associated with Palm Sunday, for obvious reasons. Here it is used to complement the pericope called “The cry of jubilation,” which forms today’s gospel.

When our Lord rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, his action was not a sudden inspiration but something wholly in character with his previous ministry—his self-identification with the lowly that was to reach its climax on the cross.

Responsorial Psalm: 145:1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13-14

The same selection of verses from Psalm 145 is used on the thirty-first Sunday of the year in series C. If it was not chosen here as a general psalm of praise, it must have been selected as a response to the challenge in the first reading:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! … Lo, your king comes to you,” which is taken up in the words “I will extol thee, my God and King.”
This would mean transferring to Christ what, in the Old Testament, is addressed to Yhwh, but there is ample New Testament precedent for such procedure.

Reading II: Romans 8:9, 11-13

It is important to know what Paul means by “flesh” and “spirit.” The New English Bible has perpetuated the misunderstanding of flesh as “lower nature.”

It is not lower nature (a Greek rather than a biblical concept), but unredeemed nature, which includes what the Greeks would have called the higher nature (hence Paul can speak of the “mind of the flesh”).

The whole person, with the so-called higher nature as well as the lower, stands in need of redemption. Also, “body” does not mean body as opposed to soul, but the whole person, subject to sin and death, yet open to the possibility of redemption.

“Lower nature” would suggest that there is a part of our nature that is beyond redemption, just as “higher nature” suggests that there is a part of us that does not need redemption.

Gospel: Matthew 11:25-30

The first half of this reading, through verse 27, is also found in Luke and apparently comes from the common source shared by both evangelists. It is, therefore, a quite early tradition and is sometimes called “the Synoptic thunderbolt from the Johannine sky.”

It looks so different from most of the synoptic material and is highly reminiscent of the discourses and the prayers of the Fourth Gospel, especially the theme of the mutual knowledge of the Father and the Son.

It is probably best understood as a liturgical fragment celebrating the knowledge of God that has come through Jesus Christ, and is a halfway house toward the development of the Johannine discourses.

But it is deeply rooted in our Lord’s self-understanding, as registered by his use of the word Abba for his Father. This betokens a unique relationship that he invites others to share through his word.

The second part of the reading is peculiar to Matthew. It echoes the invitation of wisdom found in Sirach 51:23-26 and is also found in a shorter (and perhaps earlier) form in the Gospel of Thomas: “Jesus said: Come to me, for easy is my yoke and my Lordship is gentle, and you shall find repose for yourselves.”

It is another liturgical fragment. In it, Jesus is represented as the mouthpiece of the Wisdom of God. This is an early type of church christology, that again has its roots in the self-understanding of Jesus who acted as the definitive spokesperson of Wisdom.

Banishing the Bow

If there is any part of the Gospel that sounds like a call to withdraw from involvement with the world around us, it is today's selection from Matthew. With its talk of coming as children to the meek and gentle one who will ease our burdens and refresh our spirits, it appeals to our desire to draw back from the fray and allow ourselves to be healed. Indeed, there are times in life when we need to hear those words in just that way. But when we step back and read the rest of the Gospel of Matthew, looking for ways that spell out the implications of following the meek and gentle master, we hear a disturbing challenge. The first chapter of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5:1ff) calls healed disciples to live a life of forgiveness, of disciplining the impulses of anger and lust, of absolute honesty, of love of enemies, and of responding to violence with creative nonviolence. This helps us see what Jesus means by his burden and his yoke.

The reading from Zechariah recalls and helps us understand a symbolic action Jesus used when he wanted to correct people's misunderstanding of his messiahship. It seems that the main image of Messiah in the minds of Jesus' contemporaries was modeled after King David. The Anointed One of the Age to Come would be a warrior like David of old. Such a “son of David” would enable them to overthrow the Roman power that was oppressing them. According to the Synoptic writers, Jesus prepared carefully a symbolic action meant to counter such expectations regarding his role. He ar)ranged to have a donkey ready on which to enter Jerusalem. As Matthew takes pains to explain, this gesture was meant to recall Zechariah 9:9, the prophecy about a nonviolent king who would banish the instruments of war from Jerusalem.

Nonviolence is an aspect of Jesus' teaching and action that we have too easily neglected over the centuries. At this time of year, when we commemorate our Declaration of Independence and the military activity that implemented that independence, it is a good time to acknowledge that the Lord calls us now to use our freedom to serve the world in ways that honor a consistent ethic of life, and to strive to find alternatives to abortion, the death penalty, and the use of military force to resolve political problems.

The gospel passage today has two parts.  In the first section, the style has a closer relationship to the Gospel of John than to the rest of Matthew.  Through verse 27, Jesus gives praise to the Father who has chosen to reveal himself to humanity. Jesus states that the Father, Lord of heaven and earth – the supreme Lord who has power over everything – has handed all power and control over to Jesus.  The style of authority that Jesus exercises is one of humility.  He does not impose authority but invites, beckons, and engages with others.  His primary role is to introduce others to the Father whom Jesus fully knows.  When people know the Father, they will live lives that express the Father’s will.

The learned and clever are caught up in themselves and think that they know the best way for things to be done.  When people place their ultimate allegiance to themselves (Adam and Eve), to their power or military force (most of the monarchy of Israel and Judah), to their fame, or their possessions, they become idolaters.  Only God should have our total commitment.

Jesus addresses God as Father.  In the Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke. ”Abba” would most likely have been the word Jesus used.   Abba is a much more intimate word, like papa or daddy, and connects to the “little ones.”   The Greek word nepioi, which means "infants," might also be rendered figuratively as "little ones."  What qualities do little ones possess that are essential for being part of the reign of God?  "Children are vulnerable, open, trusting, reliant, weak, and must depend upon those with power to protect and care for them.”  (John Martens, America Magazine) They come to trust those with power as opposed to trying to do it all on their own.  God continues to reach out to us every day, and our focus is on what we can do.  Until one recognizes that there is a need, there is no need for God.  The little ones, whether infants, children, the poor, the marginalized, those with developmental disabilities, or the oppressed, know that they need God.  

The last portion of the Gospel passage includes Jesus' invitation for all of us to come to Him and allow Him to help us and give us rest.  Once we recognize our need, Jesus is there to help us.  He invites us to be linked with him – to assume his yoke.

A yoke can have a negative connotation of slavery or oppression.  It can also have a positive connotation of partnership and bearing the burden together.  Some references to marriage speak of the husband and wife being yoked – or working through the challenges of life together.

The first reading is taken from the writings of Zechariah, who ministered as the people of Judah were returning from the Babylonian exile about 520 years before Jesus.  He is also mentioned in the Book of Ezra.  His chief focus was rebuilding Jerusalem and the temple that had been destroyed by the Babylonians.

The passage read today focuses on the hope of a peaceful king coming to Jerusalem.  The prophet looks to God to be faithful to the promises that God made in times past.  The reign of this king will be extended all over the earth.  For Christians, this passage is often connected to Palm Sunday when Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey and who, after his resurrection, will be the eternal Lord.

In the verses preceding the second reading, Paul states that the Law was powerless to save people.  It is essential to understand the terms.  The flesh is not the same as the body in Paul's writings.  “Flesh” is human nature left to itself, separated from God, and at times in opposition to God.  The body is the instrument through which we live and act.  When the person, is under the domination of the unredeemed mindset and attitudes, the body expresses the "flesh" (humanity without God).  In Christ, we have become new creations and live a new life (Romans 6 from last week).  We now live in the Spirit, guided by the Holy Spirit, to live the values and virtues of God.

Themes:

• Humility
• Surrender to God
• Fallen human nature
• Virtue and Vice

Reflection Questions:

1. What are some ways that you avoid being dependent on others?  What makes this difficult?
2. What does humility mean to you?
3. How have you experienced the benefit of being a partner in some aspect of your life?
4. Where do you see the “flesh” manifest in behaviors in society, amongst people that you know, or even in yourself?
5. Where do you experience life in the Spirit?  In what ways do you see the Spirit's work in your life or the lives of others?

Yearning for God’s Goodness

The readings for this coming mid-summer Sunday reflect the beauties of the earth, its golden harvests, its astonishing Spring, its delicate birds, beasts, mountains, hills and plains. Infinite surprise for those whose eyes can see.

The Jesuit poet Hopkins was so filled with the world’s beauty that he can speak here, in the poem called “Pied Beauty.”

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles in all stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Some of the language is unusual, I admit. But if you spend time with these glorious images you will come to love our ever-evolving blue planet like someone bathing in the gentle tide of ocean swirl. All of it luxuriant, all of it precious.

The Lord uses this ebb and flow of seasons in the First Reading to show how his visceral love for the earth works. Just as the rain and snow come to earth, he says, so too does God’s word, which then returns to the heavens when it has done its job of watering. It does not return until it has moistened and nourished life in every single creature that will receive it. A fruitful harvest, says the Psalm.

St. Paul speaks of all creation groaning in labor pains even until now (Second Reading). Human beings too groan within themselves like seeds which break open and push their way through tough ground and then evolve into full trees that stretch up for Christ’s light.

Can such rich images apply to you and me? How good is our own soil? God pours his grace into it always. Do you and I groan and yearn for the goodness of God which is ready to be lavished upon us? Do we take time each day to let love in? Or do we listen on Sunday, perhaps with some interest, but then forget everything by Monday? Or not at all?

Jesus lists a number of things we might have to correct in order to accept the gifts he has ready for us. We might be shallow ground, he says. Or rocky soil. Weeds might choke us. How discouraging. Must I pretend to be rich soil, though I know my shallowness? No. I must be fully myself and allow God to do the rest.

That great poet from India, Tagore, put it this way:

“The cloud stood humbly in a corner of the sky.
The morning crowned it with splendor.”

Let’s us be humble! Let’s join in the revolving refreshment of all earthly things! Open our leaves! Allow in the sun!

Respecting Creation

The parable of the sower is a story about the fruitfulness of the earth. It assures us that the harvest will come in spite of the many obstacles that stand in the way. In the end, the rocks and birds and trampling feet cannot nullify the fact that “the seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.”

Paul talks about the salvation of the world, pointing out that “the world itself will be freed from its slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

Meanwhile, “all creation groans and is in agony”: we pollute the clear air and the fresh water; we drive plants and animals to extinction; we clear-cut forests and we strip-mine, leaving ugly scars in the land.

The opening prayer calls on us “to reject what is contrary to the gospel.” Isn’t it contrary to the “good news” to waste and destroy God’s creation? The Creator has “greatly enriched the land.” How dare we impoverish it!

The commitment of believers to a healthy environment for everyone stems directly from their belief in God the Creator, from their recognition of the effects of original and personal sin, and from the certainty of having been redeemed by Christ. Respect for life and for the dignity of the human person extends also to the rest of creation, which is called to join man in praising God.

Pope John Paul II, World Day of Peace Message, 1990:16.

An Invitation to Generosity

The sun is extraordinarily generous, giving huge parts of itself away every second.

Scientists tell us that every second, inside the sun, the equivalent of 4 million elephants are being transformed into light, an irretrievable, one-time gift. The sun is giving itself away. If this generosity should halt, all energy would eventually lose its source and everything would die and become inert. We, and everything on our planet, live because of the generosity of the sun.

In this bounteousness, the sun reflects the abundance of God, a largesse that invites us to also be generous, to have big-hearts, to risk more in giving ourselves away in self-sacrifice, to witness to God's abundance.

But this isn't easy.

Instinctually we move more naturally to self-preservation and security. By nature we fear and we horde. Because of this, whether we are poor or not, we tend to work out of a sense of scarcity, fearing always that we don't have enough, that there isn't enough, and that we need to be careful in what we give away, that we can't afford to be too generous.

But God belies this, as does nature. God is prodigal, abundant, generous, and wasteful beyond our small fears and imaginations. Nature too is stunningly overwhelming and prodigal. The scope of our universe, even just in so far as we know it, is almost unimaginable. So too is the abundance and prodigal character of God.

We see this, for instance, in the biblical parable of the Sower: the Sower, God, whom Jesus describes, is not a calculating person who sows his grain carefully and discriminately only into worthy soil. This Sower scatters seeds indiscriminately everywhere: on the road, in the bushes, in the rocks, into barren soil, as well as into good soil. He has, it seems, unlimited seeds and so he works from a generous sense of abundance rather than from a guarded sense of scarcity. We see that same abundance in the parable of the vineyard owner, where the owner, God, gives a full day's wage to everybody, whether they worked the full day or not. God, we are told, has limitless wealth and is not stingy in giving it out.

God is equally prodigal and generous in forgiveness, in the gospel, as we see. In the parable of the Father who forgives the prodigal son we see a person who can forgive out of a richness that dwarfs dignity and calculated cost to self. And we see this same largesse in Jesus himself as he forgives both those who executed him and those who abandoned him during his execution.

God, from everything we can see, is so rich in love and mercy that he can afford to be wasteful, over-generous, non-calculating, non-discriminating, incredibly risk-taking, and big-hearted beyond our imaginations.

And that's the invitation: to have a sense of God's abundance so as to risk always a bigger heart and generosity beyond the instinctual fear that has us believe that we need to be more calculating because things seem scarce.

The Gospel of Luke has one of the strongest social justice messages in all of scripture (every sixth line is a direct challenge for justice for the poor) and yet, in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus, while warning about the danger of wealth, does not condemn the rich or riches. Rather he makes a distinction between the generous rich and the miserly rich. The former are good because they radiate and incarnate God's abundance and generosity while the latter are bad because they belie God's abundance, generosity, and huge heart.

Jesus assures us that the measure we measure with is the measure in which we ourselves will receive in return. In essence, that says that the air we breathe out will be the air we re-inhale. That isn't true just ecologically. It is a broad truth for life in general. If we breathe out miserliness, we will re-inhale miserliness; if we breathe out pettiness, we will breathe in pettiness; if we breathe out bitterness, then bitterness will be the air that surrounds us; and if we breathe out a sense of scarcity that makes us calculate and be fearful, then calculation and fearfulness will be the air we re-inhale.

But, if aware of God's abundance, we breathe out generosity and forgiveness, we will breathe in the air of generosity and forgiveness. We re-inhale what we exhale.

I have never met a truly generous man or woman who didn't say that he or she always received more in return than he or she gave out. And I have never met a truly big-hearted man or woman who lived out of a sense of scarcity. To be generous and big-hearted we have to first trust in God's abundance and generosity.

From that abundance we get a sun that is generous and a universe that is too huge and prodigal to be imagined. That's a challenge not just to the mind and the imagination, but especially to the heart—for it to become huge and generous.

First Reading Isaiah 55:10-11

1. You can rely on nature’s cycle of rain. It originates in the heavens, falls to the earth making it fertile, helping to produce fruit for human consumption. Accomplishing its mission, the rain returns to the heavens. “So shall my word be…achieving the end for which I sent it.” How is God’s word reliable in this way? What is the end for which God sent his Son?

2. Rain makes the seed germinate and grow. Apply this to God’s grace? Now apply it to God’s grace in your life. Discuss.

Second Reading Romans 8:18-23

1. “We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now” Does God continually create us moment by moment?

2. What do you think the corruption is that creation is trying to free itself from now? Is there some pain involved in trying to end war, birth a cleaner environment for the planet, and new and better kinds of race relations? If God continually creates us moment by moment will God help with these difficult births?

Gospel Matthew 13:1-23

1. Jesus mentions “cares of the world and lure of wealth” as rocky ground and thorns that keep the seed from taking root. What is your “rocky ground”? Are you a busy pathway where the Word is sown but then is trampled? And can the thorns of worldly anxiety choke the Word when it comes to you?

2. According to Pope Francis, no one, not one person, is excluded from receiving the seed. What kinds of things might you do to allow the seed to grow?

This Parable of the Sower is somewhat the ‘mother’ of all parables, because it speaks about listening to the Word. It reminds us that the Word of God is a seed which in itself is fruitful and effective; and God scatters it everywhere, paying no mind to waste. Such is the heart of God! Each one of us is ground on which the seed of the Word falls; no one is excluded! The Word is given to each one of us. We can ask ourselves: what type of terrain am I? Do I resemble the path, the rocky ground, the bramble bush? If we want, with the grace of God, we can become good soil, ploughed and carefully cultivated, to help ripen the seed of the Word. It is already present in our heart, but making it fruitful depends on us; it depends on the embrace that we reserve for this seed.

Pope Francis Angelus 15 Sun Ord A

July 12, 2020

• For the Church: that we may spread the hopeful and exciting message of the Gospel through both our words and deeds so that others may encounter the God who loves them
• For a greater love for the Word of God: that we may make space in our busy lives to allow the Word of God to challenge and prune us so that we may bear abundant fruit
• For openness of spirit: that our hearts may welcome the Word of God and be fertile soil where the seed will produce an abundant harvest of faith and charity
• For all who spread the Word of God, for parents, teachers, homilists, and writers: that they may announce God’s loving compassion faithfully and convincingly so that others may come to know the living God
• For the courage to share our faith journey: that we may offer others the joy of coming to know God’s love through by sharing the steps of our journey with God
• For freedom from all that enslaves our hearts: that we may allow God’s Word to free us from fear, anxiety, and financial worries, and empower us to live as God’s children and disciples of Jesus in word and deed
• For the created world: that we may be aware of God’s revelation through the created world, promote respect for it, and work to protect it for future generations
• For a calming of the restlessness in our hearts: that we may find fulfillment of our deepest longings in the embrace of God in quiet moments, warm greetings, and gentle smiles
• For all who are misfocused in life: that God open their eyes and hearts to the joy of discovering God in their lives and bring them to a fuller experience of life
• For all who care for the sick: that God will give them strength, help them to radiate God’s compassion, and show deep respect for each person for whom they assist
• For conversion of hearts: that God will free us from prejudice and unfair judgments so that each person may be treated with dignity and respect
• For a new springtime of Justice: that God’s reign of Justice and Peace may develop abundantly in our hearts and in all the structures of our society
• For all who are recovering from earthquakes: that God will heal the injured, speed the supplies of food and medicine, and give strength to all the relief workers
• For an end to warfare: that God will sustain the peace in the Middle East, end the fighting in Ukraine, and open minds and hearts to the dignity of each person

Focusing the Gospel

Key words and phrases: seed fell on rich soil, hundred or sixty or thirty-fold, understand with their hearts, be converted, I heal them, bears fruit

To the point: Both in the parable itself and in Jesus' explanation of it, he in- dicates that seeds falling on rich soil do not all produce the same abundance—some thirty-, some sixty-, some a hundredfold. God cares less about quantity produced and more about growth and Life coming to fruition. As we take in God's word with understanding hearts and come to conversion and receive healing, God actually gives us more than even a hundredfold. God gives us fullness of Life forever.

Connecting the Gospel …

… to the First Reading: The First Reading gives us confidence that God's “word shall … achieve the end for which [God] sent it.” The end is that we produce fruit.
… to experience: Every year farmers sow seed in hope of a harvest, knowing full well that drought, storm, insects, etc., can bring it all to ruin. But it is the hope of a harvest—no matter how abundant—that warrants the effort.

The Problem of Evil

All creation groans (Romans 8:22).

Creation has its cost. To be creature, not creator, is to be incomplete, unfinished. Created being is radically insufficient to cause and sustain itself. Thus God, in willing that there be non-god, had to will that there be frailty and incompleteness. Such is the price of creaturehood.

And yet, even though creation is not God, it is still precious in its unfinished and dependent state. Think of the human hand, so delicate in its strength, so supple and alert, so sensitive and expressive. Yet it can be smashed in a moment, cut off, wounded. Is it better off not to exist? Or is the hand, despite its frailty, glorious? Is its frailty its glory?

An infant’s giggle, a child’s untrammeled laughter—these disarm and delight. Yet the same enchanted voice can sound doom: utter rage and fear, alarm at the terrors of the night and the demons of the playground. Would it have been better to make us all unfeeling, unlaughing, unhurtable?

We are inherently deficient and wanting, inescapably vulnerable. Such is the pain of the earth. Yet the sufferings of time, Paul writes, are nothing compared to the glory revealed in us. There is futility in our being only if our being is all there is.

The flower fades and droops. The once young body one day sags and then lingers long. Flesh hardens first, then melts away, corruptible, slave to space and time.

And yet we glory in it, and rightly so. God does as well. This paltry flesh, like all creation groaning, longs for finish, completion, and rest. Such is the glorious agony of our condition.

We, like the earth that gives birth to us, are subject to the great inexorable laws of rise and decay. We are fundamentally good, we are things that grow; and yet because we grow, we lack.

The name for this mystery beneath the formation of mountain ridges and spinal cords is physical evil, deficiency, the parasite of an unfinished universe that is good.

But the appearance of human life raised the stakes: the joys and the catastrophes. For into this world were cast creatures not only unfinished in their being, but in their nature. Men and women were gifted not just with life, but with life aware of itself, endowed with the freedom to affirm or reject the limited good that they were.

Mountains show might, and seas roar, but humans utter, “Yes.” They might also say, “No.” And it was that yes or no that made us worth God’s final risk. In addition to the great play of organic development, there would be the drama of free choice. From such a creation would come not only the glories of love, but the catastrophes of moral evil.

Some of us would not understand at all. On the paths of life, unrooted, our freedom is pecked at by passing birds. For others, the freedom dries and withers. Still others choke their choice in fear and worldly anxiety. But then, others take it all in. They embrace the limit of life, the gift of being good but not God. They cherish the gift of dependence as creatures. And they bear fruit a thousand times more splendid than the bounty of trees.

Just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return there till they have watered the earth, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it (IS 55:10-11).

The “Inside” Story

Parables paint culture-based scenarios. Yet every one in the ancient world knew that the parable teller intended the scenario to refer to something more or something other than was described.

The Sower

In today’s parable, the first question is, who is the sower? In the ancient world, sowing preceded plowing. As described in this parable, the manner of sowing is sloppy and wasteful. If the sower is a landowner, the peasant audience would despise his waste of precious seed.

If the sower is a tenant farmer or a day laborer, the peasants would sympathize with his careful sowing which ends up wasting seed anyway because conditions are so difficult.

The impossibly extravagant harvest gives a clue to the identity of the sower. On average, one might expect a four- or five-fold return on sowing. Thirty-, sixty-, and a hundredfold boggle the imagination.

If a wasteful landowner realized such a profit, Jesus’ parable is hardly good news to the peasants who made up 95 percent of his audience.

But if the sower were a peasant, then the good news is that the crop will satisfy the landowner, provide seed for next year’s sowing, pay all taxes, and still leave enough for the peasant to feed the family.

Moreover, since it is clearly God and not human effort that produces this humongous harvest, the “something other” or “something more” that the parable intends is now very clear. The scenario describes sowing and farming, but it really points to a loving and provident God who looks after needy peasants.

Ingroups and Confrontation

The parable reveals yet another dimension of peasant life in the first century. Jesus tells his disciples that parables are “ingroup” or “insider” language (see Mt 13:10-16).

Normally, one’s ingroup consisted of one’s household (including servants and slaves), extended family, and friends. All others, even in the same village, were the outgroup. Still, the shape of both groups was rather fluid and changed often. For instance, if a village came under attack from outsiders, the entire village banded together as a new ingroup.

Natives of the same village or quarter of a city who might be outgroup to each other at home become ingroup to each other when they find themselves in a remote location. That Jesus of Nazareth had a house in Capernaum (Mk 2:1), and that the first people from Capernaum whom he called to follow him responded so readily, indicates the extent of Jesus’ ingroup network at that place (Mt 4:18-22 and parallels).

All this discussion about ingroups and insider language is very jarring to modern believers who tend to hold Luke’s idyllic view of the early followers of Jesus as living in loving harmony (Acts 2:42) and being constantly under attack by enemies. Hostility permeated this culture and colored everyone’s behavior.

The difference between Americans and their Mediterranean ancestors in the faith is that Americans generally seek to avoid face-to-face confrontation. Hostility and competition take place behind the scenes, out of sight.

In the final verses (Mt 13:18-23) of this reading, Matthew interprets Jesus’ parable by identifying the seed as “the word of the kingdom” and exhorting people to hear, understand, and act upon the word. The challenge is quite familiar to American believers. It’s not enough to “talk the talk,” one must also “walk the walk.”

Cracking a Parable

If you were a first-century Palestinian peasant and you heard this craftsman-turned-prophet from Nazareth speak about the sower who went out to sow and got those mixed results (some seed lost to birds, some to sunburn, some to encroaching weeds, and finally some seed finding good ground and sprouting), how would you know you are supposed to hear this as a parable—a story that presents an image of something else? Maybe the man in the boat is just talking about how tough it is to farm in the stony, weedy, bird-bedeviled Palestinian soil.

Would your response be, maybe, “Yup, that's agriculture”? If you were alert and soil-smart, you might pick up on at least two cues hinting that the story points beyond itself. First, the seed falling on the good soil produces a surprisingly abundant harvest: whereas the usual yield is ten seeds up for every one seed down, these seeds give 100, 60, and 30 seeds for every single seed put down. As an experienced farmer, you would notice this amazing contrast between the unpromising beginnings (seed squelched by birds, sun, and weeds) and the fantastic harvest that eventually emerges.

Second, you would likely have picked up on Jesus' saying, “Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.” What's to hear? It must be a meaning beyond the obvious. Taking your lead from the talk of seed that achieves, willy-nilly, a successful harvest, and searching for the symbolic possibilities of that imagery, you just might recall the passage from Isaiah 55, this Sunday's First Reading. There the prophet compares the effectiveness of God's word with the natural processes of rain and snow nurturing the growth and fruitfulness of seeds.

Applying this imagery to the present situation of the prophet addressing you from the boat, you might hear him telling you something like this: “Folks, this might not seem like much, a rag-tag group of outcasts drawn to me by my stories and healing, but just you wait. This God-movement is eventually going to grow enormously.” Jesus, then, would be the sower, and the seed nothing less than the word of God.

The disciples may or may not have caught all this. As Matthew tells it, when they ask Jesus about the parable, he supplies another text from Isaiah (Isa 6:9-10) to explain what was hindering a fuller reception of his word—gross hearts, and ears and eyes that are spiritually deaf and blind.

Then Jesus proceeds to spell out an allegorical interpretation that names what blocks full growth of the word—failing to understand what was sown in the heart, being shallow in one's response and therefore wilting in the face of persecution, and being distracted by worldly anxiety and desire for riches.

That is all clear enough, but what sometimes confuses careful readers is the apparent confusion about what the seed represents. Matthew 13:19 seems to say that the seed is both “the word of the kingdom” and the person who responds (poorly or well). As the explanation continues, the emphasis is on the seed as person: e.g., “the seed sown on the rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy” (Mt 13:20).

We might like a clear equation, either seed = the word, or seed = person. But the biblical tradition gives precedent for seed symbolizing both of those meanings. Isaiah 55 associates seed with the word of God, but Hosea 2:23 and Jeremiah 31:27 use the sowing image for a renewed people. So there is reason to make seed serve as a double-duty symbol.

Indeed, Matthew, in the scene immediately preceding this parable's discourse, has provided an episode illustrating how a community of people is created by their response to the word of God. When Jesus is told that his mother and brothers are standing outside asking to speak with him, Jesus stretches out his hand toward his disciples, and says, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mt 12:49-50).

Reading I: Isaiah 55:10-11

It is a little surprising that the caption to this reading calls attention solely to the pictorial half of our passage.

This is not a piece of teaching about the natural order; rather, the natural order is here used to provide an analogy for the supernatural: “As the rain ... so shall my word.”

This passage provides an Old Testament prototype for the parable of the sower, which consists of the same pictorial and material sides: “As the seed ... so my word.”

Responsorial Psalm: 65:10, 11, 12-13, 14

This psalm, as the response indicates, forms a link between the Old Testament reading and the gospel. It picks up the pictorial side of the analogy and praises God for the gift of the rain.

Commentators are divided over the original use of this psalm. Some have associated it with the autumn harvest festival (see the first line of stanza 3), and indeed it is still so used in many churches.

It is more likely, however, that it was intended for the beginning of the barley harvest: the rains are still falling (stanzas 1 and 2), and the grain is still standing in the fields (stanzas 3 and 4).

It is certainly very fitting for use at this time of year. In the parched land of Judah, the rain served as an obvious symbol of the grace of God.

Reading II: Romans 8:18-23

Here Paul expounds his view of the created order. It is, as the Old Testament affirms, the creation (ktisis, Rom 8:19), that is, it owes its being to God and is therefore good. But it became subject to “futility” (Rom 8:20); it is in “bondage to decay” (Rom 8:21) and “groans” (Rom 8:22).

Paul is not a romantic nature worshiper but a realist who recognizes “nature red in tooth and claw.” He attributes this lamentable state of affairs to Adam’s fall. The basis for this assertion lies in Gen 3:17, where the ground is cursed because of Adam’s sin.

The creation, Paul says, was thus subjected, “not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ... ” Most commentators identify “the one” here with God, but some refer it to Adam. In the latter case, Adam, through his fall, dragged down the whole created universe with him.

Some commentators (so NRSV) would remove the semicolon after “hope” and translate the word hoti as “that” instead of “because.” The whole sentence could then be paraphrased: “the creation was subjected to futility, not because of any wrong it had done itself but by the [disobedience] of Adam, who thereby dragged it down into subjection. But there was still a hope of its ultimate liberation.”

Where did this hope come from? It must lie, not in Gen 3, but in the apocalyptic expectation of a new heaven and a new earth. So the whole creation waits with eager longing.

Just as its fall, its state of corruption and decay, was the consequence of the human Fall, so the hope of its redemption is bound up with human redemption.

Its longing, therefore, is for the redemption of humanity, for the “revealing of the children of God” (Rom 8:19), for the redemption of their bodies Rom 8:23).

Now, this longing has been given substance—believers, as a result of Christ’s finished work of redemption, have the first fruits of the Spirit. In them the process of redemption, for which the whole creation yearned, has already been initiated.

But meanwhile they have to live in the tension between the “already” and the “not yet,” and therefore they too still share the groaning of the whole Creation. (With some ancient manuscripts, we omit “adoption as children” in Rom 8:23, for elsewhere Paul regards adoption as a present reality [Rom 8:15; Gal 4:5]. At the moment their adoption is hidden, visible only to faith; but it will be revealed for what it is at the end, not brought into being only then for the first time [Rom 8:19; also 1 John 3:2 ].)

This picture of the unity between human destiny and the destiny of the universe is magnificent, but is it tenable? Certainly there are mythological elements in it—for example, it depends upon a literal acceptance of the story of the Fall and of the cursing of the ground as its consequence.

Is the perishability and decay of the universe really a consequence of human sin? And does human redemption lead to the redemption of the universe from this decay?

This much we may affirm: as a result of the disturbance of the divine-human relationship, the relationship of human beings not only to one another but to the whole created order is disturbed. People either deify nature (pantheism, romanticism) or they treat it with contempt (pollution!).

When the relationship of human beings to God is restored, then not only is their relation to one another rectified as in the sacramental community, but they also recover their harmony with the created order. This much of truth we can discern in Paul’s daring picture.

Western thought, especially since the Reformation, has tended to concentrate upon the salvation of the individual; our passage is a powerful reminder of the cosmic dimension of redemption.

Gospel: Matthew 13:1-23

The short form of the gospel substantially represents the parable of the Sower as originally told by Jesus. The discussion about the purpose of parabolic teaching (Mt 13:13-17) and the allegorical interpretation of the sower (Mt 13:18-23) are later interpretive additions. Most, though not all, New Testament scholars would agree that this is so.

The arguments for this position have been vindicated by the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas, which has the parable without any interpretation. That being the case, the short form offers an opportunity to deal with the original interpretation intented by Jesus.

To understand the short form, we must entirely disabuse our minds of the allegorical interpretation and look at the total impression the story creates. What we see is a tremendous harvest, despite the loss of some of the seed.

The climax comes at the end and, as so often in Jesus’ parables, contains an element of deliberate absurdity—a hundredfold yield is fantastic, the usual yield being in the neighborhood of seven and a half, with ten as an outside possibility. The point of the parable is miraculous success in spite of apparent frustration.

But this is not a general lesson; it bears quite concretely upon the situation of Jesus and his hearers. There was much frustration in Jesus’ ministry. Only a few followed him. He encountered much hostility from the authorities of his day. He was misunderstood by the crowds. Even some of his closest followers left when he deliberately broke with the crowds (John 6:66). Jesus is confident, nevertheless, that his ministry will result in the eventual triumph of God’s kingdom.

The allegorical interpretation (Mt 13:18-23) adapts the parable to a missionary situation, most likely that of the Greek-speaking church prior to Mark. It warns new converts of the perils that beset the life of discipleship and urges upon them the need for perseverance.

The central portion on the purpose of parabolic teaching appears to have been first inserted at this position by Mark, although it represents earlier tradition and is possibly an authentic saying of Jesus. It referred originally, not to the teaching in parables, but quite generally to the kingdom of God mysteriously present in the words and works of Jesus.

Mark constructs a theory of his own about parabolic teaching. He holds that parables were told deliberately to create misunderstanding and to mystify the hearers, producing hardness of heart and unfaith.

The parables are riddles to outsiders, and their meaning is entrusted to an inner group of disciples, who will be able to make the meaning plain only after the resurrection.

This is all part of Mark’s messianic secret. Only after Jesus’ death and resurrection can his messiahship be safely proclaimed; during his earthly life it remains a mystery.

This was not a piece of abstract theologizing, but Mark’s answer to a christology that overemphasized the miracles of Jesus and minimized the Cross.

Matthew has taken over the parable and its allegorical interpretation from Mark without any substantial changes. But he has introduced considerable changes into the central section, and this is obviously the most important part to study if we are following the longer form of the gospel. Matthew makes the following major alterations:

1. Mt 13:11: Instead of Mark’s “to you is given the mystery of the kingdom of God,” Matthew has: “To you it has been given to know the secrets. ...” The fact that Luke has the same wording suggests that both evangelists are following a second, non-Marcan source at this point.
2. Mt 13:12: Matthew adds this from Mark 4:25.
3. Verse 13: Matthew alters Mark’s scandalous hina (“in order that”) to hoti (“because”).
4. Mt 13:14-15: Our present text includes a citation from Isa 6, which was already alluded to in verse 13. There is a growing opinion among scholars that this is a post-Matthean addition to the text.
5. Mt 13:16-17: “Blessed are your eyes” from Q (par. Luke 10:23-24).

To get at Matthew’s theology, we will ignore the fourth point and concentrate on the other points. Matthew has edited this section to bring out two antithetical points: (a) the disciples (that is, the church) are the bearers of the new revelation, hoped for by the Old Testament worthies and now fulfilled (Mt 13:17), and will be rewarded at the End; (b) the old Israel has rejected the new revelation and will be rejected at the End.

The motivation behind these redactional changes comes from Matthew’s own situation. The mission to Israel has finally failed, leading to a debate between the church and the synagogue over which is the true people of God.

Commentary by Gregory the Great

I am gentle and humble in heart (Matthew 13:3)
Dearly beloved, the reading from the holy gospel about the sower requires no explanation, but only a word of warning. In fact the explanation has been given by Truth himself, and it cannot be disputed by a frail human being.

However, there is one point in our Lord’s exposition which you ought to weigh well. It is this. If I told you that the seed represented the word, the field the world, the birds the demons, and the thorns riches, you would perhaps be in two minds as to whether to believe me.

Therefore the Lord himself deigned to explain what he had said, so that you would know that a hidden meaning is to be sought also in those passages which he did not wish to interpret himself.

Would anyone have believed me if I had said that thorns stood for riches? After all, thorns are piercing and riches pleasurable. And yet riches are thorns because thoughts of them pierce the mind and torture it. When finally they lure a person into sin, it is as though they were drawing blood from the wound they have inflicted.

According to another evangelist, the Lord spoke in this parable not simply of riches but of deceptive riches, and with good reason. Riches are deceptive because they cannot stay with us for long; they are deceptive because they are incapable of relieving our spiritual poverty.

The only true riches are those that make us rich in virtue.

Therefore, if you want to be rich, beloved, love true riches. If you aspire to the heights of real honor, strive to reach the kingdom of heaven. If you value rank and renown, hasten to be enrolled in the heavenly court of the angels.

Store up in your minds the Lord’s words which you receive through your ears, for the word of the Lord is the nourishment of the mind. When his word is heard but not stored away in the memory, it is like food which has been eaten and then rejected by an upset stomach.

A person’s life is despaired of if he cannot retain his food; so if you receive the food of holy exhortations, but fail to store in your memory those words of life which nurture righteousness, you have good reason to fear the danger of everlasting death.

Be careful, then, that the word you have received through your ears remains in your heart. Be careful that the seed does not fall along the path, for fear that the evil spirit may come and take it from your memory.

Be careful that the seed is not received in stony ground, so that it produces a harvest of good works without the roots of perseverance.

Many people are pleased with what they hear and they resolve to undertake some good work, but as soon as difficulties begin to arise and hinder them they leave the work unfinished.

The stony ground lacked the necessary moisture for the sprouting seed to yield the fruit of perseverance.

Good earth, on the other hand, brings forth fruit by patience. The reason for this is that nothing we do is good unless we also bear with equanimity the injuries done us by our neighbors.

In fact, the more we progress, the more hardships we shall have to endure in this world; for when our love for this present world dies, its sufferings increase.

This is why we see many people doing good works and at the same time struggling under a heavy burden of afflictions. They now shun earthly desires, and yet they are tormented by greater sufferings

But, as the Lord said, they bring forth fruit by patience, because, since they humbly endure misfortunes, they are welcomed when these are over into a place of rest in heaven.

Forty Gospel Homilies 1, 15. 1-2, 4

Gregory the Great (c 540-604), a Roman by birth, is one of the four great doctors of the Western Church. His great grandfather was Pope Felix III (483-492). After a brilliant secular career he became a monk, having turned his own house on the Clivus Scauri into a monastery dedicated to Saint Andrew.

From c 578 to 585 he was in Constantinople as “apocrisiatarius,” or papal nuncio, at the imperial court. His Morals on Job were conferences given at their request to the small bank of monks who accompanied him there.

On 3 September 590 he was elevated to the see of Peter in succession to Pelagius II. Apart from Saint Leo the Great, Gregory is the only pope who has left examples of his preaching to the Roman people.

The Gospel passage moves a few chapters ahead from last week’s selection.  The Jewish leadership has grown confrontational with Jesus.  Jesus reveals a personal God, calling God, Father.  This further separates Jesus’ teaching from the Pharisees

There are three important points that the scripture selections highlight today.  God reveals the divine to us in a personal way. God does this in various ways, including through the Word of God.  God is also active in and through all creation that awaits the fullness of God's plan.

Revelation is a gift from God to humanity.  It was God who decided to reveal the divine to us.

We may have reasoned that there is a higher power on our own, but God wanted a more personal and intimate link with us.  God revealed something in creation with all its beauty and complexity.  Science continues to explore the created world, from the atoms to the galaxies.  This handiwork of God reveals something of the creator.  God is revealed in the very gift of life that we each have.  We can do nothing to control our next breath or heartbeat.  It is all a gift from God.  God is also revealed in the deeds of God through the ages, mainly through the events of biblical history, the Exodus, and the return from Babylon.  One of the Jewish hymns associated with the Passover celebration is "Dayenu"; it would have been enough.  If God had only created the world, it would have been enough, or if God only freed us from slavery, that would have been enough.

God is revealed through the people whom God has called to leadership and particular ministry, in the lives and ministries of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, the Prophets, the Monarchs, and the faithful people of every age.  Through their service and response to God, we come to know God.  God spoke to us through events, people, and the community's life.  If we listen, we come to know God deeply, personally, and intimately.  Like Abraham, we can become a friend of God.

From all these interactions, the community draws together the Word of God.  The Word is expressed in human words, through limited human understanding, in vocabulary, and in images of a time and place.  Our challenge is to allow the Word to sink into our hearts and enlighten us today.  While we are not a nomadic or agrarian people, God's messages continue to challenge us today.

The first reading is from the third part of the book of Isaiah (Is 55 – 66).  The Isaiah school compiled it at the time of the return of the Israelites from the Babylonian captivity around 500 years before Jesus.  The texts offer support and encouragement to the people who have suffered and are now being allowed to return home.  (Most of them were born after the captivity began 60 years previously.  So many did not return to Judah because it was a foreign land.)  The prophet speaks in glorious tones about going to Jerusalem and Judah because it is the land that God had promised them as His chosen people.  This section speaks about the effectiveness of God's Word and that what God has promised will never fail.

The Gospel passage begins a set of parables (that will continue next week) grounded in agricultural terms that ordinary people can relate to and understand.  Parables are a unique form of teaching.  They take a typical experience in life and use it to open a deeper understanding of something beyond standard description.  A parable usually has a surprise twist that makes one stop and look at things differently.  The original audience would understand that if seed fell on the path, birds would see it and eat it.  If seed fell on rocks if it rained, it would sprout but soon die in the heat.  If it fell among brambles or bushes, they would get the moisture and grow over the wheat.  The surprise came in the amount produced that fell on good soil.  Most farmers looked for a yield of 5 to 10 fold.  Those who allowed the Word of God into their lives could experience an exorbitant experience – 30, 60, or 100-fold – this was astronomical, beyond all imagination.  There is power in God’s Word.  If we are open to the Word, it can produce an amazing result.  

Paul’s reflection continues to explore what the salvific work of Christ means.  While we are destined for new life, begun already in baptism, and yet to be fully revealed at the coming of the reign of God, so too all of creation waits for redemption.  We have a pre-experience of redemption in baptism.  "For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God.”  When the children of God are revealed, redemption will come to the fullness, and all the rest of creation will come to its fullness.  The Book of Revelation speaks of "a new heavens and a new earth."  All creation will share in the newness that is possible in God just as we share in new life through baptism.

Themes

• God’s Word in Scripture
• Hearing and living God’s Word
• Parables of Jesus
• Redemption

Reflection Questions

• What dreams do you have for the future?  How will you allow God to be part of that developing future?
• Each of us has a variety of areas: pathways, rocky areas, vines, and good soil.  To what area do you pay attention?  Is there room for the Word of God to take root in your life, or do other preoccupations consume your time and energy?
• How do you see the created world in transition?  What are the struggles in the natural world, and how do they impact the human family?
• What challenges do you encounter in reading the parables?

Pulling Out Weeds

The subject, forgiveness, is hefty enough for Jesus to devote a well-known parable to it. In it, servants ask the master whether they should pull out weeds that have grown up within the wheat-field.

“No,” he replies. “If you pull up the weeds you might pull up the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest” (Gospel).

So, if you or I have sinned, then we have weeds growing up along with the good that is in us. Would we like that failed part of us to be uprooted? No. Instead, God lets us develop, without destruction, steadily forgiving our weeds.

So, what kind of reality is forgiveness?

For one thing, it reverses an attitude at the bottom of entire ancient cultures and still perhaps at the root of modern (American) entertainment. If someone harms me or my family (or … ), then I have the right and duty to destroy them. They are bad persons, not good, and no punishment is too severe.

Do not get me wrong, this kind of “justice” does in fact work. Take a look at the heroes in movies fighting person to person across the tops of skyscrapers, bare-knuckle blows to the face, spinning kicks to the head, all leading ultimately of course to the fabulous plummet over the side, in which we are entertained with magnificent slow-motion shots of the crook’s terror as he heads for the inevitable splotch. Justice is established. Everyone is relieved and happy. Except, of course, the bad guy.

Just for fun, pretend that you are that bad guy. Is there a reason you are committing crimes, ones that merit such punishment? Is it possible that one part of you went haywire but that there is much good in you, much that could be brought back to life? Is there a part of you that says, “I wish I could stop this ugliness and be pardoned”?

If so, maybe you could look at the point of Sunday’s Gospel. When someone hurts us with their wrongs (or vise versa), maybe we can avoid rushing up to them to rip out weeds. Mixed with all the crab grass there are lovely flowers, and God loves very much all that they are.

Look, the crimes we commit don’t really agree totally with our inner self! None of the weeds growing up in us are wonderful, but they are only a part of who we are. Our urge to steal, to impress others falsely, to get what we want no matter what, to be lazy, petulant, or … (please fill in the kind of wrong you yourself are drawn to). These are not a full description of who we are.

Let us do our best to tolerate the thorns and keep our hands off them. Our own weeds are treated with care. What if Jesus had said from the cross, “Father, damn them to hell forever because of what they are doing to me”? He said instead “forgive them, they know not what they do.” He knew there was good wheat in them, even alongside terrible weeds.

Forgiveness is letting go of an angering injury and giving God a chance to love. Wouldn’t you like to be loved and forgiven this way?

Being Born From Above

In a wonderful series of commentaries on Scripture, John Shea presents a powerful story on what it means to be born again, to be born from above, as Jesus says. A man he knows, tells how he was born twice of the same woman.

This man's story:

One day he was driving his aged mother to a funeral. She had been already at many funerals, having had to bury her own husband, a brother, and most of her friends. She also found herself without much money, in failing health, and on the edges of a serious depression—not exactly one of the “Golden Girls” on the top of her game, spinning off laughs by the minute. As they drove along, she talked about her own funeral and was giving instructions on how she wanted it done. Then, quite unexpectedly, she said: “I'm giving up on fear. Everybody dies. Nothing is left.”

Her son protested, telling her that giving up on fear isn't easy to do, even as he realized at that very instant how much his whole life was bound up precisely by fear—fear of sickness, fear of death, and fear of losing his job, his good name, his good looks, his status, his friends. He gazed at his mother and saw that she was beaming. He knew she meant exactly what she had just said.

They never had that conversation again, but from that moment on he noticed his mother began to change. She was no longer afraid to speak her mind on anything, and she spoke it calmly, wisely, without pomp, with great patience, and with an ever-growing compassion. She became stronger and more gentle, both at the same time.

People were attracted to her and drew strength from her. Her son was one of those people, and he began to visit her more frequently, now not out of obligation but because he needed the nourishment she was giving him. It was like a new umbilical cord had been forged between them. Slowly, just as she had once given birth to his body, she now gave birth to his spirit. He felt himself begin to change, to have less fear. This second gestation took more than nine months, but a new life was slowly born in him. He was able to “give up on fear” and move into life with a freedom that, as Jesus says, comes only from above. (John Shea, Gospel-Light, “Crossroads,” 1998, pp. 94-95)

To be born again, to be reborn from above, is not something that we can do, at least not fully, in one instant or in one dramatic, religious gesture, no matter how deep our sincerity. There is more involved than falling at the feet of some evangelist or of answering an altar call, albeit these can be an important beginning.

To be born again, from above, involves a gestation process, namely, being hooked up to a new umbilical cord, one that begins to nurture us in such a way that our old support systems (the meaning and security we draw from our achievements, successes, material possessions, recognition, good name, good health, good looks, and sexual attractiveness) are no longer what ultimately gives us life. We still want these things, but we no longer build our lives around the fear of losing them. They still provide some life and nourishment, but we now begin, bit by bit, to draw life from something beyond them. We sense ourselves as hooked to something deeper, a spirit and a person who offers us the meaning that dwarfs what we now have.

The more we begin to draw life and nourishment from this new source, the more we begin to give up on fear because what we are now receiving is not experienced as precarious, as is the case with our present meaning and joy. We are being pushed through a new birth canal and as this happens we begin, little by little, to sense that in this new place we don't need to possess things, defend ourselves, cling so desperately to health, youth, and good looks, or fear that joy and meaning can be taken away from us. Life in the spirit is not a precarious thing that can slip away from us like the things of this world. Like its author, it is immune from threat. We can give up on fear.

This doesn't happen all at once, although there can be some dramatic, break-through moments along the way. Being born again is about seeds growing silently when nobody is watching, about unseen yeast leavening a batch of dough, and about an umbilical cord inside a dark womb supplying nutrients for an unknowing child to grow and be born. Gestation takes time. Growth works slowly. Life, whether in the body or in the spirit, has the same dynamics.

The comedian, George Carlin, once quipped that when he was born, he was so stunned that he couldn't speak for two years! That, I suspect, is also the case when we are born again.

An Inclusive Church

Matthew is very concerned in his gospel with the unity of the Christian community. He does not envision the Church as an exclusionary organization, but rather as an inclusive community which is guided by the spirit of the parable of the weeds.

“Let them grow together until harvest” (Gospel): since its earliest days, the Church has preferred to tolerate different levels of commitment and holiness. Such an attitude is in line with the “wisdom” of the Hebrew Scriptures, which informs us that “those who are righteous must be kind; and you gave your children reason to hope that you would allow them to repent for their sins.” (First Reading)

This attitude of acceptance is also in line with the revelation of God “as merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness.”

An inclusive Church that is kind and lenient toward its own members and toward everyone else should be an inspiration to a divided world that has a tendency to judge harshly, to be quick to anger, and to uproot weeds even at the cost of damage to the good plants.

By virtue of her mission to shed on the whole world the radiance of the gospel message, and to unify under one Spirit all men of whatever nation, race, or culture, the Church stands forth as a sign of that brotherliness which allows honest dialogue and invigorates it.

Such a mission requires in the first place that we foster within the Church herself mutual esteem, reverence, and harmony, through the full recognition of lawful diversity.

Vatican II, Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, 1965:92.

First Reading Wisdom 12:13, 16-19

1. Care, justice, mercy and leniency. What would world history be like if all leaders had possessed these qualities? Are all people who work in law enforcement full of mercy, kindness and caring or could some use a little “topping off’?

2. Does it give you hope that you can repent for sins? How does this translate into your dealings with other people?

Second Reading Romans 8:26-27

1. Discuss this quote from Prayer by Hans Urs von Balthasar:

I have the conviction that my inadequate attempt to understand is supported by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit dwelling within me, that my acts of worship, petition and thanksgiving are borne along and remodeled by the Spirit’s infinite and eternal acts.”….. “The Spirit breaks forth out of the very core of the believer’s spiritual life, showing him (her) the way, stirring him to action, thinking, willing and praying with him (her).

2. Do you remember that the Spirit is present with you? What gives nobility to your small efforts, sufferings and weaknesses? Do you ever call on the Spirit when you are in need? Think of all the ways the Spirit has come to your aid when you have needed help.

Gospel Matthew 13:24-43

1. According to Pope Francis, what is another reason that the man who sowed good seed in his field decides not to destroy the “weeds” right away?

The servants’ intention is to eliminate evil immediately, that is, evil people. But the master is wiser, he sees farther…. Certainly, evil must be rejected, but those who do evil are people with whom it is necessary to be patient. This does not mean that type of hypocritical tolerance that hides ambiguity; but rather, justice tempered by mercy. If Jesus came to seek sinners more than the righteous, to cure the sick first before the healthy (cf. Mt 9:12-13), then our actions too as his disciples should be focused not on suppressing the wicked, but on saving them. Patience lies here.

Pope Francis, Angelus for 16 Ord A

July 19, 2020

2. Can you always tell the weeds from the flowers, or saints from sinners? If you are quick to judge might you mistake a saint for a sinner? Is God patient with you regarding the “weeds” in your own garden? How patient are you with others? With yourself?

Focusing the Gospel

Key words and phrases: The kingdom of heaven is like, Do you want us to, when full-grown, leavened, what has lain hidden, children of the kingdom, end of the age

To the point: “The kingdom of heaven is like … ” Jesus uses three com- parisons to explain this mystery of God's Presence and reign. The first parable speaks of discernment; the second of full growth; the third of transformation. In this is the realization of the kingdom of heaven: our discerning God's will, our growing into full stature as “children of the kingdom," opening ourselves to being transformed into those remaining faithful until “the end of the age.” The way we live reveals God's “mastery over all things” (First Reading) and that we have become “what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world.”

Connecting the Gospel …

… to the First Reading: God's presence and reign is visible in the slow but steady process of God's “mastery over all things” (First Reading). Our own discernment of God's will for our lives, our growth in goodness, and our transformation into who God calls us to be is dependent upon God's care, justice, leniency, kindness, forgiveness.

… to experience: Our cultural expectation of “mastery” includes power over others, control, domination, force, manipulation. In contrast God's “might is the source of justice.” And so God's mastery unfolds in the strikingly different ways described in the first reading.

Enemies and Retaliation

Experts describe Mediterranean society as agonistic, that is, hostile and conflict-oriented. Today’s opening parable is an illustration of this feature.

An enemy has sowed weeds among the wheat. The fact is mentioned without comment. Jesus’ audience understood this perfectly. Birth into a family means not only inheriting that family’s honor status and its friends but also inheriting its enemies.

There are many reasons why families become enemies in the ancient world, but the consequences are always the same. A state of feuding develops and persists over a long period of time. One never knows but must always suspect that a feuding enemy is seeking to shame one’s family.

In this story, the shame is planted soon after the wheat seeds are sown, but it does not become full-blown shame until the weeds have matured to the point where they are clearly distinguishable from the wheat. Now the entire village discovers the shame along with the landowner, and they begin to laugh.

The laughter grows even louder when the landowner instructs his servants to allow the weeds to grow alongside the wheat until harvest. The peasants expect retaliation and revenge. Instead, the landowner appears helpless and bested by his enemies. Before the invention of electricity and television, such feuds provided entertainment for the village.

But appearances are deceiving. The landowner is shrewd as well as being a savvy farmer. He knows that the wheat is strong enough to tolerate the weeds’ competition for nutrition and irrigation. After the harvest, the landowner will not only have grain for his barns, but extra, unanticipated fuel for his needs. Instead of shaming this landowner, the weed strategy has backfired and shamed the enemy. The landowner and his servants have the last laugh. The enemy bent on shaming others is shamed instead!

There is an interesting lesson here. Once again, Jesus’ peasant audience recognized that this was not a lesson in agriculture. It may have been a lesson about cultural values. The “something other” or “something more” of this parable may well be the landowner’s refusal to retaliate, to get even with the enemy. In a society dedicated to revenge, the landowner’s victory by seeming to do nothing is a powerful lesson.

The confidence of the landowner that his wheat will survive the effect of the weeds is worth pondering. A trust in goodness that is greater than the fear of wickedness could be a powerful weapon against rampant, senseless violence. It has worked before in history, and could work again if given a chance.

Commentary by Gregory Palamas

Let them grow together until the harvest. (Matthew 13:30)

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but when all were asleep his enemy came and sowed darnel among the wheat.”
Now as the Lord himself explains, the darnel is the offspring of the evil one. They bear his mark because they behave the way he does: they are seeds of his sowing, and his children by adoption. Harvest time will be the end of the world, for although it began long since and continues now through death, only then will all things come to an end.

The reapers are the angels, for they are, and will be especially at that time, the servants of the King of heaven. As Scripture says: “Just as the darnel is collected and burnt in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world. The Son of Man, who is also the Son of the Father Most High, will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all evildoers and every cause of sin.”

And so the Lord’s servants, the angels of God, seeing the darnel in the field, that is, wicked and impious folk living among good people, and that even within the Church, said to the Lord: “Do you wish us to go and gather it up?” In other words, “Shall we kill them, to remove them from the earth?” But the Lord’s reply was: “No, for fear that in collecting the darnel you may also uproot the wheat.”

How then would the wheat, the good people, be uprooted as well if the angels gathered up the darnel, cutting off the wicked by death to separate them from the just? The fact is that many godless sinners who live among people who are upright and devout repent in time and are converted, and by learning new habits of piety and virtue they cease to be darnel and become wheat.

And so some wheat would be uprooted in the gathering of the darnel if the angels snatched the wicked away before they repented. Moreover, many while living evil lives produce children of good disposition, or they may have other rightly disposed descendants.

This is why he who sees everything before it comes into being would not permit the darnel to be uprooted until the appointed time. But he says: At harvest time I will say to the reapers: “First collect the darnel and bind it in bundles to be burnt, but gather the wheat into my barn.”

Those therefore who wish to be saved from eternal punishment and to inherit the everlasting kingdom of God must be not darnel but wheat. They must avoid saying or doing anything evil or useless, and practice the opposite virtues, thus bringing forth the fruits of repentance.

In this way they will become worthy of the heavenly granary; they will be called children of the Father Most High, and as heirs will enter his kingdom rejoicing, resplendent with divine glory.

To this may we all attain through the grace and loving kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with his eternal Father and the most holy, good, and life-giving Spirit belongs glory now and always and for endless ages. Amen.

Homily 27: PG 151, 346-354

 
Gregory Palamas (1296-1359) was born at Constantinople, and prepared by the piety of his parents for a monastic vocation. At the age of about 20 he became a monk of Mount Athos. In 1347 he was made bishop of Thessalonica. Gregory stressed the biblical teaching that the human body and soul form a single united whole. On this basis he defended the physical exercises used by the Hesychasts in prayer, although he saw these only as a means to an end for those who found them helpful. He followed Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory of Nyssa in teaching that although no created intelligence can ever comprehend God in his essence, he can be directly experienced through his uncreated “energies,” through which he manifests himself to and is present in the world. God’s substance and his energies are distinct from one another, but they are also inseparable. One of these energies is the uncreated divine light, which was seen by the apostles on Mount Tabor. At times this is an inward illumination; at other times it is outwardly manifested.

Cracking a Parable

In the story of the wheat and the weeds we have another parable for which Matthew supplies an allegorical interpretation. As in the case of the parable of the sower, familiarity with the allegorical application can prevent us from hearing the story in another good way, namely as a story on its own, probably the way Jesus first told it.

As we did with the sower, before we move to the application, let's try to hear the “Wheat and the Tares” as it might have been heard during Jesus’ ministry. First, it is helpful to know that the weed named here is a particular kind (zizania) known for its confusing resemblance to wheat in the early stages of growth. That helps us to understand why pulling up the weeds might uproot the wheat along with them. What, then, is the point of the farmer saying, “Let them grow together until harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvester, ‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn’”?

On one immediate level, this could simply be a story of a clever man getting the better of his enemy. The enemy thought he was duping the land owner into ripping up his crop along with the weeds, but our cool farmer says, in effect, “No, let them both grow together; then we'll have a double harvest—a fuel crop (the weeds, which can be burned) and a food crop (the grain).” The tale could well have had a prior existence as this kind of story, something like a fable from Aesop. But the context here in Matthew’s Gospel calls for something more that fits the setting of Jesus’ ministry or that of the Church. Such a meaning might be this: don’t you try to judge the righteous and unrighteous of the community; let them grow together till the end, when God will take care of the final sorting out.

Notice that the interpretation Matthew supplies moves the center of gravity to the judgment scene, where the Son of Man sends angels to collect for punishment evildoers, even out of his kingdom. Thus, what may at first have been a plea to church leaders for restraint in judgment becomes a cautionary tale for us all.

 The first reading is from the Book of Wisdom.  It is one of books that were accepted by the Greek speaking Rabbis and included in the Greek tradition of the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures).  Later the Palestinian rabbis excluded it from the scripture list that was approved at Yamnia (Jamnia) in the early 80s AD.  Early Christians already living in the Greek speaking lands had begun to use the Greek translation of the scriptures and the Catholic and Orthodox churches have recognized it as part of Scripture from the first century.

Wisdom is presented in two ways.  First, Wisdom is the perfection of knowledge and is a gift from God.  It is manifest in the actions that one takes.  Secondly, Wisdom is with God from all eternity.  Wisdom was with God during creation.  Christians have linked the figure of Wisdom with the Holy Spirit.

Today’s selection highlights that though God has all power, God acts out of mercy and allows us to repent.  God does not have an ego to protect or a reputation that needs to be defended.  God’s actions are to be instruction for us.  Being generous and forgiving is a clear sign that we are the children of God.

God’s mercy is a development from early biblical thought that presented God much like a human who needed to exert power against those who sinned.  This is a groundwork for the message of Jesus and is connected to the parable of the wheat and weeds.

As discussed last week, parables take a familiar situation and use it to express a new insight, that can be amazing, for the hearers.  While our attention is drawn to the wheat and weeds, behind the story is the cultural norms of honor and shame.  For someone to plant weeds in another’s field is an attempt to shame the landowner.  Cultural values would require the landowner to take revenge and show his honor by retaliating in a way that would shame the enemy even more.

The landowner does not retaliate.  He holds his path steady even though people walking past may judge him to be an incompetent farmer who allows weeds to grow in his field.  He does not even want the servants to tear out the weeds, zizania, that in early growth cannot be distinguished from wheat.  He undercuts the enemy’s intention and winds up with a double crop: the weeds to provide fuel for cooking and other necessities and wheat for eating.

The landowner’s confidence that there will be enough water and nutrients for both crops rather than yielding to fear is one message from the parable.  Trusting in goodness, in God’s providence, is more powerful than succumbing to fear.  The enemy is shamed in the end when the landowner ends up with more resources than just the wheat crop would have provided.  The whole practice of revenge is challenged because more can be gained by not retaliating.

The parable makes two additional points.  One must be careful in making judgements of others.  God is still at work in all areas of our lives.  God can do great things if one is patient. Look at St. Paul who began by arresting Christians to bring them to trial.  Paul encountered Jesus and became a great evangelist to the Greek speaking world.  Secondly, the church will always be a mixture of sinners and those moving toward sainthood.  The church cannot be the gathering of the perfect.  If it were, none of us would be invited.  We are called to be patient with one another while God works within each of us and help each person to grow rather than criticize each other.  We are all called to wait for God’s judgement.  While we can name behaviors that are wrong, only God can judge the person.

The passage from the letter to the Romans offers insight into prayer in difficult and challenging situations.  In times of pain, confusion, or calamity, one may not be able to focus.

The pain can be so great, the hurt either physical or emotional so overwhelming, that there are no words available.  The Spirit presents before God one’s true need with wordless cries for God’s help.  Tears of pain or grief, moans of exhaustion, or stomping of one’s foot can be our expression of need before God.  The Spirit helps us in our prayer and intercedes for us when we do not have words.  One is never without an opportunity to call for God’s help.

Themes:

The readings this weekend present four themes for our reflection: the universality of God’s care for humanity and acceptance of our repentance, the danger of judging others, the importance of discernment, and prayer that does not need words.  In addition, these concepts are also present:

Good and evil

Patience

Reign of God

Intercession of the Holy Spirit

Reflection Questions

• When we are in difficult situations, one needs to discern how one can best serve God, seek God’s glory, or do the least harm in a situation.  Discernment is an important practice for daily Christian living.
• Have you encountered wheat and weeds in your own life?  What helped you be aware of the differences?
• What signs of imperfection in the Christian community stand out most clearly for you?
• What small things have shown a great impact in your life?
• Can you think of a situation in which you could not pray or someone that you knew was incapable of praying?  How might the Spirit have been at work in that situation?
• Have you ever thought forgiving was a sign of weakness?  How is it a sign of strength?

• For the church: that we may allow the good seed of the Gospel to take root within us and bring forth the reign of God and a harvest of virtue
• For openness of mind and heart: that the parables of Jesus may help us recognize the limits of our understanding and move us toward examining our life and actions from new perspectives
• For patience: that we may not judge one another but rather be open to the work that God is doing within each of us that will be revealed in God’s time
• For a deepening of prayer: that we may offer our discontent, pain, and yearnings to God honestly and allow the Spirit to intercede for us
• For Wisdom: that we may recognize the small ways God is at work in our lives so that we may cooperate with God who accomplishes great things
• For healing and transformation of our weaknesses: that the Spirit of God will work within us to bring to wholeness the areas where we are most wounded and vulnerable
• For the grace of discernment: that we may defer judgment on those things that are unclear and await insight from God to make wise choices
• For all who are bound by hatred and resentment: that the Spirit will cultivate forgiveness and compassion within their hearts and wither the seeds of the Evil One that yield revenge, violence, and destruction
• For the gift of humility: that we may recognize our strengths, abilities, and opportunities as gifts from God and be open to God’s invitations to serve each day
• For all who have suffered abuse or who are in abusive relationships: that the Spirit will translate their cries and tears into prayers and lead them to safety and wholeness
• For each of us: that we may be a leaven of compassion and justice in our society so that the weeds of racism and oppression may be stifled
• For educational leaders: that God will give them insight and courage as they plan for the coming school year learning. growth, and safety
• For an end to the Ebola virus:  that God will slow the spread of the virus and guide the development of effective treatments
• For Peace: that God will bring an end to violence, particularly in the Middle East and Ukraine, open new opportunities for dialogue, and establish cooperation amongst all parties

Layers of Wisdom

Look at the many different depths and types of wisdom in the world, and thus in this Sunday’s Mass.

Here is an everyday example. I remember a cartoon in the New Yorker magazine years ago that etched itself in my mind. A terribly decrepit old man is sitting on his front porch while a very beautiful woman walks by on the sidewalk. His mouth is hanging open. George Booth was the cartoonist, so of course there is one of his terrible flea-bitten dogs at the man’s feet.

His equally haggard wife is at the door, with the screen pushed open just far enough to take in this scene. She says to him, “Well whistle, you damn fool!”

I suppose I had expected her to load guilt on the leering old man in his act of leering. Instead, Booth gave us what are really just words of everyday common sense. “Don’t just sit there: at least do what every other heterosexual male in the world would do.” So. Wisdom comes in many flavors, and there is a kind of common, real acumen in the old lady’s words.

Now, let us examine Sunday’s readings for different types of wisdom.

In the Gospel, Jesus uses the common sense kind. He says, if you went out into a field and saw a suspicious mound of earth, and you happened to dig it up, and you found there a hidden treasure—as much gold as you could ever want—would you immediately go and tell everyone about it?

Of course not. It is like “Well whistle, you damn fool!” Common sense says you would re-bury the treasure, disguising it perfectly, and then go sell all your property and come buy the field. Now the treasure is yours. “Look at what I found on my new property!”

It is an excellent example. It makes sense. Well then, Jesus asks, wouldn’t you do as much for the kingdom of heaven? He has suddenly deepened the wisdom!

And in the First Reading, Solomon uses another flavor of wisdom. He asks not for selfish gifts, but for an understanding heart so that he can rule God’s people. This request moves God. He gives Solomon great practical wisdom in order that he might succeed as King. And other gifts as well.

Perhaps the deepest wisdom this Sunday is in the Second Reading. You and I have undoubtedly quoted these words, not remembering where they came from, “All things work for the good [of] those who love God.” The older I get, the more true this seems. Even when darkness and loss become our daily bread, still the love of God labors incessantly to bring out greater forgiveness, larger love, more acceptance of life and love, even within pain. This is the wisest understanding that can be.

Sunday at Mass we can pay attention to any of these varieties of wisdom. The important thing is not to just sit there and gape, but to do what every other human being in the world would do if given a glimpse into the kingdom.

Listen to God’s love, you sleepyhead!

The Pearl of Great Price and Its Cost

A woman I know tells this story:

She married a man she loved but, early on in the marriage, she was too immature to responsibly carry her part of the relationship. One night she went to a party with her husband, drank too much, and left the party with another man. Eventually she sobered up and repentantly found her way home, fully expecting the marital skies to be ripped asunder with anger. But her husband though hurt and shaken by what had happened was calm, philosophical, direct.

When she walked sheepishly into the room he demanded neither an explanation nor an apology. Ultimately, what is there to say? He simply said to her: “I’m going away for a few days so that you can be alone because you need to decide who you are: are you a married woman or are you something else?” He took a three-day sabbatical from her, she cried, sorted out the question he had put to her, and now, years beyond this painful incident, she is inside a solid marriage and infinitely more aware that the pearl of great price comes precisely at a great price.

Every choice is a renunciation. Thomas Aquinas said that, and it helps explain why we struggle so painfully to make clear choices. We want the right things, but we want other things too. Yet every choice is a series of renunciations.

If I marry one person, I cannot marry anyone else; if I live in one place, I cannot live anywhere else; if I choose a certain career, that excludes many other careers; if I have this, then I cannot have that. The list could go on indefinitely. To choose one thing is to renounce others. That’s the nature of choice.

In most areas of our lives we do not feel this so painfully. We choose and there isn’t a lot of sting to the loss. But the area of love is more sensitive. Here we feel the sting of loss more strongly and here we often find it hard to accept the real limits of life. What are those limits? They are the limits that come with being an infinite spirit in a finite world.

We are fired into this world with a madness that comes from the gods and has us believe that we are destined to embrace the cosmos itself. We don’t want just something, we want everything. That’s a simple way, though a good one, of saying something that Christianity has always said, namely, that in body and soul we are meant to embrace everyone and we already hunger for that. Perhaps we experience it most clearly in our sexuality, but the hunger is everywhere present in us. Our yearning is wide, our longing is infinite, our urge to embrace is promiscuous. We are infinite in yearning, but, in this life, we only get to meet the finite.

That’s what makes love difficult. We are over-charged in our own lives. We have divine fire inside us, want everything, yearn for the whole world, and yet, at a point, have to commit to one particular person, at one particular place, and in one very particular life, with all the limits that imposes. Infinite desire limited by a finite choice, such is the nature of real life and love.

Life and love, beyond the abstract and beyond the grandiosity of our own daydreams, involve hard, painful renunciation. But it is precisely that very renunciation that helps us grow up and makes our lives real in a way that our daydreams don’t.

In trying to explain some of the deeper secrets of life, Jesus gives us this parable: the kingdom of God is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he finds a single one of great value, he goes and sells all that he owns and buys that pearl. That, the pearl of great price, the value of love and its cost, is in essence the challenge which the young husband put to his wife when he told her to sort out the question, “are you a married woman or are you something else?”

For what are you willing to renounce other things?

What is our own pearl of great price? Are we willing to give up everything in exchange for it? Are we willing to live with its limits? Until we are clear on these questions there is forever the danger that, like the wife who left the party without her husband, we will act out in dangerous and hurtful ways.

Thoreau once said: “The youth gets together materials to build a bridge to the moon or perhaps a palace or a temple; … at length the middle-aged man decides to build a woodshed with such materials.”

So too in love and life: the child sets out to make love to the whole world and the adult eventually determines to marry a single person, in essence, to build a woodshed. But it’s only in that shed where life and love are real in this world.

One Really Valuable Pearl

Jesus likens the kingdom to a man who finds a buried treasure and sells all that he has so that he can buy the field containing the treasure.

He likens the kingdom to a merchant who sells all that he has in order to be able to buy one really valuable pearl.

What is the one really valuable pearl that we are willing to sacrifice everything in order to have? What is that buried treasure for which we would be willing to sacrifice everything?

The thing that Solomon wanted most was “an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.”

Isn’t it possible that what we want most is something very selfish: possessions, security, power, pleasure, comfort?

What would the world be like if, instead of these, our one really valuable pearl was something like world peace based on justice for all? or the development of a classless society based on respect for all and the priority of need over want? Or the worship of God through prayer, service, and a preferential option for the poor?

What would the world be like? Jesus says it would be like the kingdom.

The cross of Jesus Christ shows us the deficiency of other value systems. Jesus yielded up his life for us in perfect loving union with the Father’s will, and this is the meaning of his life which also gives meaning to our lives as his followers.

If we can acknowledge selfishness as folly and self-sacrifice as victory, if we can love enemies, be vulnerable to injustice and, in being so, still say that we have triumphed, then we shall have learned to live in Christ Jesus.

U.S. Bishops, To Live in Christ Jesus, 1976:116.

First Reading 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12

1. “Understanding” or “shema” in Hebrew means listening or obedient. How would race relations, immigration problems, climate crises and wars change if leaders in the world earnestly prayed Solomon’s prayer, “Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart”? What impact might “listening” have on good leadership?

2. Would anyone’s life change for the better if you had more of an understanding heart? How do you think you might improve your skills in this area?

Second Reading Romans 8:28-30

1. The New American Bible translation is “All things work together for those who love God.” In what ways did you see examples of this during the pandemic? People figured out new ways to solve problems? People stepping up to serve others in hospitals and food delivery?

2. How have you experienced this in your own life, that everything works out when you love God?

Gospel Matthew 13:44-52 or 44-46

1. Did the pearl-finder and the merchant have to be shrewd about obtaining their tresures? What about you? Are you shrewd about recognizing the “treasure” or the kingdom of God in your life? Do you find, or at least look for God, in all things? Do you notice when God is “whispering,” or just when God is “shouting” in your life?

2. According to Pope Francis, how are “getting” and “giving” related when speaking of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price?”

The Kingdom of Heaven is the opposite of the superfluous things that the world offers; it is the opposite of a dull life: it is a treasure that renews life every day and leads it to expand towards wider horizons. Indeed, those who have found this treasure have a creative and inquisitive heart, which does not repeat but rather invents, tracing and setting out on new paths which lead us to love God, to love others, and to truly love ourselves. The sign of those who walk this path of the Kingdom is creativity, always seeking more. And creativity is what takes life and gives life, and gives, and gives, and gives... It always looks for many different ways to give life.

Jesus, who is the hidden treasure and the pearl of great value, cannot but inspire joy, all the joy of the world: the joy of discovering a meaning for one’s life, the joy of feeling committed to the adventure of holiness.

Pope Francis Angelus, 17 Ord A July 26, 2020

• For the Church: that we may place a supreme value on seeking the reign of God and utilize all our talents to deepen our relationship with God
• For confidence in God’s love for each of us: that we may rely upon God’s generous love to sustain us and bring good out of all the experiences of our lives
• For all leaders in the Christian community: that God will give them wisdom in choosing how to present the Gospel tradition in new and meaningful ways today
• For all who are searching for meaning: that God will guide their search, lead them to new understanding, and help them encounter a community where the Gospel is lived
• For all who are engaged in evangelization and outreach: that they may cast a wide net through offering hospitality and dynamic witness to the Good News to all they encounter
• For Wisdom: that we may be able to resist the allure of advertisements that offer easy and quick solutions to life’s problems and invite the Holy Spirit to lead us into a deeper experience of God’s providence
• For all judges: that God's wisdom will fill their hearts so that they may decide fairly for all the afflicted and reverence the value and dignity of each human life
• For all grandparents: that they may provide good example, be a source of encouragement, and show God’s care and interest to all their family
• For all parents: that God will guide them in nurturing their children and help them recognize the challenges and pitfalls in responsible decision making
• For all children who are at risk, particularly those in homes with drug addiction or violence: that God will protect them from harm and help their caregivers to protect and nurture them
• For all who are working to defeat the Ebola virus and the stomach: that God will give strength to all healthcare workers, insight to those researching treatments and cures, and patience to all who face daily challenges because of disease
• For all who are working for justice: that God will help them to share the truth about human dignity and inspire their words to unlock hearts and move people to action
• For all who are traveling: that God will protect them on their journey and bring them safely to their destination
• For reverence for God's creation: that we may recognize the world around us as God's gift and work to promote care and respect for the soil, air, water, animals, and the human family
• For all who are grieving the death of a loved one: that God will comfort them, ease their pain, give them the strength to face each day, and fill their hearts with peace
• For all suffering from the power of nature: that God will calm storms, moderate the heat, and open pathways for those who wish to help 

Focusing the Gospel

Key words and phrases: The kingdom of heaven is like, treasure, sells all that he has, pearl of great price, sells all that he has, net … full, what is good

To the point: “The kingdom of heaven is like … ” In these three parables, what motivates the actions of the person, merchant, and fishermen is that they have already come upon the extreme good that they seek: the treasure in the field, the pearl of great price, the catch of fish. So it is with us. We have already come upon the extreme good that we spend our lives seeking: the kingdom of heaven. The challenge is to give our all to attain it.

Connecting the Gospel …

… to the First Reading: The wisdom that Solomon requested and for which he is famous is one of the most valued virtues of the Old Testament tradition. Like Solomon, we must ask for wisdom so that we can recognize the great treasure of the kingdom of God when it appears.

… to experience: People spend hundreds of dollars taking a chance on winning a mega lottery, even though the odds are many millions to one. On the contrary, there is no chance involved in our spending our lives to receive the extreme good God offers us. We have already been given the greatest prize possible: the kingdom of heaven.

The Higher Wisdom

A heart, wise and understanding. (1 Kings 3:12)

Some prominent sages have written that the root desires of human existence are the pride of power, the accumulation of money, and the experience of pleasure. Thinkers like Hobbes, Ayn Rand, Machiavelli, and the Marquis de Sade have built great ideologies on one of the competing life-goals of sex, power, and money.

This opinion is not limited to ivory tower theoreticians; it’s expressed in the language of ordinary people when they appeal to the “real” motives lurking behind all human actions: “Looking out for Number One,” “We’re all out for a buck,” “Everybody’s on the make.”

The billions spent on advertising presume, quite successfully, that the foundations of all value and meaning are things, privilege, and self-indulgence.

A computer ad announces that you can “Satisfy Your Lust for Power and Money” in a new reconstruction of the ancient religious vows. Reformulations of Descartes’s “Cogito ergo sum,” appear as “I want, therefore I am,” “I shop, therefore I am,” “I win, therefore I am.”

Yamaha says, “Beat thy neighbor.” Nike Corporation has even mounted an entire advertising campaign on the celebration of pleasure: “We are all basically hedonists. That’s what makes us human. And we all want, we’ve ever all wanted is to have a good time. If it feels good, then just do it.”

It was not a marketing huckster, but Solomon’s God who offered in a dream, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.” As it turned out, it was not a good time Solomon sought. While most people might ask for bliss or some prized object identified with fulfillment—an advertiser’s dream, to be sure—Solomon requested wisdom.

Perhaps that is why God seems a bit amazed (if God can be amazed) by the fact that Solomon’s deepest desire is not for a long life or riches or success over enemies, but for a heart that can distinguish right from wrong. Solomon, famous for his riches, found his real treasure in a wise and understanding heart. It was in knowing right from wrong that he found joy.

What is our treasure that, once found, is worth all we can sell or trade? What is the pearl of great price for which we would sacrifice everything? This is what the gospel’s reign of God is about: our hearts’ desire, our deepest existential longing.

Some seek pleasures in every variation imaginable. They fall away sated but restless. Some build shrines to the ego’s power. They die alone, unloved, and uncaring. Others collect their things, like the movies’ Citizen Kane, empty of substance.

Solomon dreamed long ago that a higher wisdom and deeper joy might be found. It would not be grasped in the accumulation of things, the collection of earthly delights, or dominance over others, even though these would be given to him in good time.

His deepest desire was to know a good that was fully worth loving. His highest hope was to know what was right and to be able to do it. God saw this higher wisdom in him, this pearl of great price, and Solomon’s wish was granted.

For the treasures of his heart, not earthly, Solomon is rightly remembered.

Commentary by Origen

He sells everything he owns and buys the field. (Matthew 13:44)

To the seeker after fine pearls may be applied the words, “Seek and you will find,” and, “Everyone who seeks will find.” If you ask what is to be sought, and what will be found by everyone who seeks for it, I say with all confidence: pearls—especially that pearl which will be acquired by those who give their all, who sacrifice everything for it, the pearl Paul meant when he said: “I have accepted the loss of everything in order to gain Christ.” “Everything” means beautiful pearls; “to gain Christ” refers to the one pearl of great price.

Admittedly, a lamp is precious to people in darkness, and they need it until sunrise. Precious too was the radiance on the face of Moses—and I believe on the faces of the other prophets also. It was a sight of beauty leading us to the point of being able to see the glory of Christ, to whom the Father bore witness in the words: “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” But compared with this surpassing glory, what formerly was glorious now seems to have no glory at all. We need at first a glory destined to be outshone by an all-surpassing glory, just as we need the partial knowledge which “will be superseded when that which is perfect has come.”

Thus, everyone beginning to live a spiritual life and growing toward maturity needs tutors, guardians, and trustees until the fullness of time arrives for him, so that after all this, he who at first was no different from a slave although he owned the whole estate, may on his emancipation receive his patrimony from his tutor, guardians, and trustees.

This patrimony is the pearl of great price, and the coming of what is perfect to supersede what is imperfect when, after acquiring the forms of knowledge, if we may call them so, which are inferior to knowledge of Christ, one becomes able to understand the supreme value of knowing Christ. The law and the prophets fully comprehended are the preparation for the full comprehension of the gospel and the complete understanding of the acts and words of Christ Jesus.

Commentary on Matthew’s Gospel 10, 9-10: SC 162, 173-177

Origen (183-253), one of the greatest thinkers of ancient times, became head of the catechetical school of Alexandria at the age of eighteen. In 230 he was ordained priest by the bishop of Caesarea. His life was entirely devoted to the study of Scripture and he was also a great master of the spiritual life. His book On first Principles was the first great theological synthesis. Many of his works are extant only in Latin as a result of his posthumous condemnation for heterodox teaching. Nevertheless, in intention he was always a loyal son of the Church.

Reading I: 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12

In the Hellenistic tradition, wisdom meant philosophical speculation. In the Old Testament tradition, on the other hand, wisdom had much more mundane significance. It included a practical know-how in various areas of life as well as the knowledge of God and of good and evil.

Chapters 3 to 11 of 1 Kings demonstrate Solomon’s wisdom in many different spheres: as practical psychologist in the case of the two prostitutes (1 Kings 3:16-28); as administrator (1 Kings 4); as builder (1 Kings 5-7); as merchant (1 Kings 9).

Our passage today relates how he acquired this wisdom in a dream in which he prays for wisdom rather than for riches or for length of days. Wisdom is thus the supreme value of human life.

This reading was evidently chosen because of the parables of the treasure and the pearl that represent the kingdom of God as the supreme value for which no sacrifice is too great.

Responsorial Psalm: 119:57, 72, 76-77, 127-128, 129-130

The wise person (note the last two lines in the final stanza) is the one who knows and keeps the commandments of Yhwhs.

The psalm is thus linked to the first reading, for the wise person loves the commandments of God “above fine gold” (third stanza), as Solomon chose wisdom rather than riches, and as Jesus in today’s gospel urges the crowd to seek the kingdom of God the way a person would spare nothing to get hold of a treasure trove or a pearl of great price.

Thus, the psalm is also linked to the Gospel reading.

Reading II: Romans 8:28-30

In the readings from Romans 8 that were read on the previous Sundays (Roman Lectionary), Paul has been speaking primarily of the suffering, the transitoriness, and the infirmities of human existence, including Christian existence. But again and again the hope of ultimate transformation and vindication keeps breaking through.

This week’s reading forms a transition from the shadowy side of human and Christian existence to the glorious destiny that awaits the redeemed. Verse 28 states a proposition that was known to Paul’s readers (“We know”) and was apparently a religious maxim in Judaism. He then bases this maxim on the realities of Christian experience.

It is not just pious make-believe to say that everything will turn out all right in the end; it is an assurance based upon what the believers have already experienced from God: God foreknew them, predestined them to be conformed to the Son’s image, called them, justified them, and, surprisingly—for we would expect this to be reserved until the final fulfillment—glorified them.

In other words, the Christian eschatological hope is not for something totally different from what we already have (“pie in the sky when we die”) but the ultimate fruition of our present life in Christ.

Gospel: Matthew 13:44-52 or 44-46

The long form of this gospel contains the twin parables of the treasure and the pearl, followed by the parable of the dragnet and the concluding saying of the Christian scribe. The short form stops after the twin parables.

It is a pity that it has also dropped the saying about the Christian scribe, for this saying is closely related to the twin parables (the kingdom of God as the supreme value, of which the Christian scribe is the custodian).

It also provides an important clue to Matthew’s self-understanding as an evangelist.

The evangelist takes “what is old,” that is, the gospel tradition as he has received it, and reapplies it to the new situation that confronts him and the church at his time. We have already seen him doing this in his treatment of the parables of the sower and the tares (his “redaction,” as New Testament scholars call it).

This process of reinterpreting the tradition of Jesus’ words and works has continued ever since in the ongoing life of the church. The latest chapter in the history of exegesis (which is really what church history is all about) is accomplished when the preacher stands up on a Sunday and delivers the homily.

The test of faithful exegesis is whether it enables the old to be said today in a new situation.

This cannot be done simply by repeating the old as it stands, but only by reproducing the old in a new way so that it can say what it said in past situations and not something different. In other words, the saying about the Christian scribe describes the task of Christian hermeneutics.

Important as these considerations are for the self-understanding of the homilist and the self-understanding of the evangelist, they are not the main point that today’s readings propose for our consideration.

As the first reading and the psalm show, the intention of this gospel is to speak of the kingdom of God as the supreme value to be preferred above all else, as a person would even cheat (by hiding the treasure) in order to acquire some treasure trove of the owners of the field in which it was found.

Here we see an example of Jesus’ propensity to use unattractive human behavior in his parables, as in the case of the Lucan parables of the unjust steward and the unjust judge.

This serves as a warning against treating the parables merely as moral lessons; rather, they light up worldly behavior as worthy of imitating in quite a different context. The kingdom of God is of such great value that the most drastic action is worth taking to gain it.

The parable of the pearl is of a rather different type. It involves no discreditable conduct. But like the parable of the hidden treasure, it holds up for our emulation in quite a different context the behavior of a man who was prepared to take drastic action to secure the object of his desire.

Matthew, of course, relates these pictures to the life of the church in his day. It was a church threatened by anti-nomianism (disregard of the moral law), by false prophets, and by persecution.

In that situation, Christians must be prepared to take drastic action to be accepted among the righteous at the last day. Hence, Matthew appends to the twin parables the further parable of the dragnet.

First Comes the Finding

“Wait a minute,” you may want to say. “If the person finds the treasure on someone else's property, doesn't it belong to the owner? Consequently isn't the finder acting deceptively?” This is a needless distraction. Since the owner sells the land without adverting to buried valuables, he is obviously unaware of the stashed goods. In that time and place, before banks, safes and strongboxes, safeguarding precious items by burying them in the ground was a common practice. The scenario of this little parable implies that the finder has stumbled upon a long-forgotten treasure of which the present land owner is oblivious. But since it is indeed on someone else's property, the finder does need to purchase the land in order to claim the goods. But there is nothing unethical here.

A second distraction is the wording “the kingdom of heaven is like ... ” Does that mean the parable is somehow about heaven as a place, or “getting to heaven”? No, the parable is not about the kingdom which is the place called heaven, because “kingdom of heaven” is simply Matthew's preferred expression for what Mark and Luke call “the kingdom (or reign) of God.” And this is first of all a reference to a relationship, not a place. Recall that the reign of God in Jesus' teaching and preaching refers to the end-time coming of God to rescue his people. It is, in other words, the fresh initiative of God inaugurated through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus—and still to be fulfilled completely in the future.

Distractions cleared, the main question remains: how does the situation of the person finding a treasure, and then selling all in order to possess that treasure—how does that situation show how one relates to the reign of God? The author, John Dominic Crossan, once wrote a little book about this parable, along with other treasure trove stories. He called it Finding is the First Act. And that is precisely the point. First of all, one encounters the kingdom of God as a given. As the first letter of John puts it, “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us … ” (1 John 4:10). Then, in the sheer joy of that discovery, one lets go of everything else to embrace that gift. The point of insisting that finding is the first act is that it reminds us of a truth so much stressed in Paul's letters, that God's gift is prior to human response.

Jesus says the same thing in other terms when he says, “Whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it” (Mark 10:15; Luke 18:17). Receiving comes before entering, just as finding comes before the selling and buying in our parable. This parallels the experience of those who, like CS Lewis, describe their Christian conversion as being “surprised by joy.” That dramatic experience of God’s grace is a special blessing. For others, the discovering of the invitation of God’s reign in their lives comes after a long search. Matthew honors their experience by coupling the story of the buried treasure with the one about the merchant who finds the pearl of great price after a long quest; but, like the one who stumbles into the buried treasure, he too “sells all that he has and buys it.” 

The story about King Solomon in the First Reading illustrates the spirit of these parables in Solomon's prayer. Told by the Lord God to ask for anything he wants, he asks for “an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.” God's answer shows that this choice indicates a willingness to “sell all,” let go of everything else (long life, riches, the life of his enemies).

Simply put, these little parables are ways of reflecting on the love life of a disciple. Jesus puts it yet another way in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, “But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness, and all these things [food, clothing] will be given you besides” (Mt 6:33). Or again, “Where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Mt 6:21). In still other words, Paul, in this Sunday's Second Reading, catches both elements, divine initiative and the simplification of life that comes from “selling all” to receive the treasure: “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28).

To consider what “selling all” to buy the farm might mean today, ask yourself this: if the reign of God entails a consistent ethic of life—honoring the lives of the unborn, the enemy, the aging, the handicapped, the poor, the convicted—as the Church teaches, what residue of selfishness or vengeance do I need to let go of to fully embrace such an ethic?

Hidden Treasures

The very last words of this verse constitute the major problem: “[he] buys that field.” As John Dominic Crossan has pointed out: “If the treasure belongs to the finder, buying the land is unnecessary. But, if the treasure does not belong to the finder, buying the land is unjust.”*

Burying valuable objects was a common practice in antiquity. Retrieving them was also common. Forgetting about the treasure or dying without telling one’s heirs or before being able to retrieve it are possible explanations for the finding of treasure by those who don’t own it.

Rabbinic lore is filled with debates concerning how to determine whether the finder had a right to the find or not. The circumstances of Jesus’ parable suggest that this man did not. Why else would he hide it again?

Remember that a parable always points to “something more” or “something other.” The key word here is “joy.” God or God’s reign is the hidden treasure. To find God brings great joy, but the discovery has a potential for disaster as well as for grace.

The finder’s joy seems to have led him to disaster. He sells “all that he has.” Given what we know of the difficulties of farming, such self-impoverishment to purchase a field courts disaster. The finder has nothing to fall back upon.

Worse, he now owns a field with a buried treasure which he dare not dig up because it will raise questions about ownership of the treasure, the morality of buying the field, and the character of this “lucky” (!?) finder. (Recall that in a society like this one which believes that all goods are finite in quantity and already distributed, when someone suddenly has increased possessions, that increase must be explained.)

American folk wisdom would say: “Finders keepers, losers weepers,” but modern Americans would be no less suspicious and critical of the finder in this parable than his own Middle Eastern contemporaries. The treasure of the kingdom can be both rewarding and potentially corrupting.

The first reading this week is from the First Book of Kings.  The Books of Kings are the conclusion of a six-book series (Joshua, Judges, First and Second Samuel and First and Second Kings) that review the history of Israel and Judah in light of the teachings from the book of Deuteronomy.  The key theological theme of Deuteronomy is that those who are faithful to the covenant with God will prosper and be blest and those who are not faithful will suffer consequences.  These books review the history of Israel from the entrance into the promised land until the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and the exile of the people to Babylon in the 500s before Christ. 
 
King Solomon is the successor to his father, King David who dies at the end of Second Samuel around 970 years before Christ.  The King is God’s anointed and stands in the middle of the people to organize them and lead them in being God’s covenantal people.  In our passage, God comes in a dream to Solomon who is now King and asks Solomon to make a request.  He requests what he thinks will best help him fulfill his office of King.  He asks for an understanding heart – a heart that recognizes the truth and the difference between right and wrong.  This gift as we saw last week is wisdom.  It is not having all the answers but “Wisdom is the perfection of knowledge and is a gift from God.  It is manifest in the actions that one takes.” 
 
To seek how best to serve God is the ideal presented in the Book of Deuteronomy.  Solomon becomes a highly praised figure because he sought to fulfill the role that God gave him before looking for anything for himself.  He stands as one of the great kings in the Deuteronomic vision.  Other kings may have won more battles, had better economies, or amassed more wealth but they were inferior because serving God was not their primary focus.  Solomon sought to serve God to the best of his ability and so was blessed with not only the wisdom and right judgement to serve God as King but was given everything else besides.  
 
The reign of Solomon is presented as the high point of Israelite influence and wealth. Taxes and tributes flowed into Jerusalem. The Temple was built. Leaders came to seek the advice and wisdom of Solomon, including the Queen of Sheba. Other nations wanted to show honor and favor to Israel and so sent princesses to be his wife.  I Kings 11: 3 states that Solomon has seven hundred wives of princely rank and three hundred others.  His weakness was that he allowed these women to bring their own gods and worship them in Jerusalem.  This led to the kingdom being split after his death.  
 
The Gospel parables present a similar call.  Is the reign (kingdom) of God our supreme focus?  The reign of God is worth sacrificing everything to attain.  These parables call us to be fully attentive to seeking the one goal that is worthy of our life’s energy and service. 

Since there were no banks or vaults, people often buried money or jewelry in the field to keep it from being stolen or taken by armies or tax collectors.  If someone died without telling a family member where the valuables were buried, they would remain there until someone discovered it.  That person would use all their resources to buy the field.  The merchant would spend all his resources to buy a pearl.  If people invest everything in passing wealth, how much should we invest in seeking the reign of God and a deep relationship with God? 
 
The second reading continues from chapter 8 of Romans.  Last week, the passage ended with the Spirit interceding according to God’s will.  Two new thoughts are added this week. 
God is continually active in our lives.  While God does not arrange every little event, God is with us through every experience and leads us to wholeness through growth and to fuller life. 
While we often fail to see through suffering or disappointment, God leads us through to more life each day.  The prophet Jeremiah assures us: “I know the plans I have you says the Lord. 
Plans for your welfare and not woe.  Plans for your future full of hope.”  Jer 29: 11 
Each person is challenged to seek God in every situation for God is always present.  In those times of loss or disappointment, God walks with us and helps us with the burden.  God leads us to a new beginning where great things are possible. 
 
God has called everyone to a relationship.  God desires a relationship with every person for that is who God is.  God is love and love is only known in relationship.  God has called us and has a mission for us.  In calling us, God offers relationship and intimacy.  (Justification is about being in right and full relationship with God.)  In baptism, we become united with Christ in his death and resurrection.  This union with Christ is glorification for we share in the fullness of life that Christ has as the resurrected Lord. 
 
Predestination has been presented as some people are destined for eternal life and some for eternal damnation.  This is a misrepresentation.  God desires, calls, and predestines everyone for eternal life.  Some may choose not to accept God’s offer.  God never forces but continually invites people to deeper relationship. 
 
Themes: 

• God’s Wisdom
• Reign of God
• The treasure we seek
• God’s plan for each person 

Reflection Questions: 

• What are you willing to sacrifice/give up to enter more fully into the reign of God?
• What do you understand to be your call / vocation from God?  What assistance do you need from God to fulfill your call?
• What are signs of the coming of the Reign (Kingdom) of God?
• Can you identify how God has brought good out of a difficult situation for you?
• What helps you to stay resolute and centered on the path to sharing eternal life with God?