July 6, 2008
Matthew 11:25-30
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s third reading is from the Gospel according to
Matthew. With it, we return to Kingdomtime Sundays
and to an uninterrupted run of semi-continuous Gospel readings from the Gospel
of Cycle A – Matthew’s. Because this is so, it seems
important to “locate” Matthew’s Gospel, in terms of its purpose, literary
make-up and style, and its message.
Matthew writes his Gospel for a Jewish
audience to show how Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled all the prophecies of the Old
Testament. He presents Jesus as the new Moses, giver of the new Law of the new
Covenant. One of the ways in which he shows this is to arrange his book after
the Pentateuch, the “Book of Moses.” As he lays out his own Five Books, they
become the New Torah, the new Law. Because Moses was the supreme teacher and
lawgiver, and because much of his teaching was in the form of sermons, Matthew,
too, presents Jesus giving his new teachings in the form of five sermons, each
one preceded by a narrative section that prepares the way for the sermon. Each
book then contains one narrative and one major sermon by Jesus.
The narrative section of Chapters 11
and 12 prepare the way for Jesus’ sermon of Chapter 13. They make up Book Three
of Matthew’s Gospel. Today’s passage is part of that narrative section.
In context, Jesus has been preaching
in Galilee where he met much opposition and rejection. The Judeans despised him
because he was a Galilean. The Galileans rejected him because he was lowborn,
and he was one of them. As his popularity begins to decline, there were various
reactions to his teachings and to his Person.
Today’s excerpt addresses two of those
reactions – the kind of people who accept him and become his disciples, and the
kind of people who reject him and do not become his disciples. The two
reactions are expressed in the prayer of thanksgiving Jesus offers His Father.
The “learned and the clever” are the intellectual snobs, the rabbis, the wise
ones, the religious leaders who reject him and turn away. The “merest children”
are the socially insignificant, the uneducated, the “anawin”,
God’s poor, the outcasts and sinners. To them is given the revelation, and they
respond in faith and discipleship.
In his prayer, Jesus reveals some of
the mystery of His Person. He reveals the unique relation He enjoys with God,
one so close that it can only be described in terms of Father and Son. Jesus is
the Son of God, and He shares completely and freely all that He knows about the
Father. He is the only one who can reveal to men who God is.
The final verses of the reading are
Jesus’ invitation to discipleship: “Come to me…take my yoke…learn from me…”
“Come to me.” He promises refreshment, peace and rest. He
satisfies the longings of the heart and eases the weariness of life.
“Take my yoke.” For those who find the Law an insufferable
burden, he issues and invitation to try a new way of life. “Yoke” is the Jewish
symbol for the Law and the obedience it demands. The Jewish Law was an
oppressive catalog of 613 precepts. Jesus’ “yoke” is the new Law, the single
call to love. “Love God and love neighbor.” It doesn’t
burden, it frees. The Yoke of Jesus is Jesus Himself – Love Personified.
“Learn
from me.” I am your new model. I am the
New Law. I am the One to study, to learn from. Look at my meekness, my
obedience, my love, my gentleness ... Learn from me and find your rest.
July 13,
2008
Matthew 13:1-23
15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s third reading is from the
Gospel according to Matthew. It is the beginning of the third major discourse
in that Gospel – Jesus’ sermon on the Kingdom of God. The passage is concerned
with response, reaction to the Word of God. It consists of the familiar parable
of the sower. Jesus answers the question, “Why do you
teach in parables?” and gives an explanation to his disciples of the meaning of
the sower parable.
Jesus tells the parable about
the sower’s seed that fell on the various grounds. Seeds which, true to life experience, flourished only where it found
good soil, thereby producing an abundant harvest. The parable seems to
represent a simple image of the workings of the Kingdom of God. The coming of
the Kingdom, this gift from God offered in the Person of Jesus, will be offered
to all. It will suffer setbacks in that it will be refused and/or ignored by
some. In the end, it will culminate in the fullness of God’s reign. In the
second part of today’s reading, Jesus gives a double answer as to why he speaks
in parables. He distinguishes between the grace given to the disciples and that
given to the crowds. The disciples are dedicated to the Will of God. Their
spiritual disposition opens them to new understandings about the mysteries of
the Kingdom. Their openness and response to the gracious gift of God is rewarded
with special insight and understanding. There are those who do not accept the
gift. They do not appreciate the message. Their spiritual dispositions do not
allow them to be receptive, and they remain incapable of hearing or
understanding. They simply fail to see and hear the plain and simple truth.
Isaiah says it well, “They look without seeing, and they listen without
hearing.” For those, Jesus uses the mysterious and provocative speech of the
parable, hoping to challenge those listeners to listen, and really hear.
In the third part of today’s reading,
Jesus gives his disciples (the crowds seem to have disappeared) a rather
detailed explanation of the parable of the sower.
Emphasis shifts now from the seeds to the grounds. The various fates of the
seeds in the different grounds represent the many reactions to the Word of God,
the Good News of the Kingdom. Jesus immediately identifies the seed with the
Word. His explanation describes 4 kinds of grounds, 4 kinds of response, 4
kinds of hearers, 4 kinds of men who receive the Word. In summary, they are:
The person who simply does not understand. He hears but he neither
understands nor accepts. He is simply unresponsive and his main obstacle to any
progress is the “evil one”. He simply refuses the Word.
The person who does not persevere under pressure. He is inconsistent. He
enjoys his faith until it is inconvenient, or until he is challenged because of
persecution, ridicule, or sheer laziness. He is the “fair-weather” disciple,
the superficial Christian, one who rejects the cross.
The person who is not “poor in spirit.” Wealth and the desire for
wealth strangle his faith. He is consumed by anxieties over worldly success and
worldly interests. His struggle is within himself and his priorities.
The person who hears, understands, accepts, and puts into practice. He is the disciple, the “man of good ground,” the one who takes within himself the message of Jesus and acts accordingly. He bears fruit. The Word takes firm root within him, and he yields remarkable results – a rich harvest.
Today’s third reading is from the
Gospel according to Matthew. It is a continuation of last Sunday’s Gospel from
the discourse on the Kingdom of God. Today’s passage is the second section of
that great discourse. It contains one major parable, two brief parables,
another explanation for Jesus’ teaching in parables, and a detailed explanation
to his disciples of the major parable.
In the first parable, the wealthy farmer
sowed good seeds in his field, only to have his enemy come at night and sow
over the same field with weeds, something called darnel. It is a particular
kind of poisonous grass that looks much like wheat until it is fully developed.
Once the two grasses begin to grow, the roots of both intertwine so much that
uprooting one would endanger the other. In the story, the master restrains his
servants who want to root out the weeds immediately even at the expense of
losing the wheat. The weeding must wait until harvest time.
The lesson of Jesus seems to be clear.
The coming of the Kingdom is not an automatic triumph of good over evil. The
two will always mix. The kingdom of God is like that harvest. The two will be
allowed to grow to maturity, then they will be sorted
out and separated. The definitive separation of the tow is to be left until the
last judgement of God. Patience, tolerance, and faith
must be the rule, as opposition to the Kingdom will not stop its ultimate
triumph and fulfillment.
The lesson of Jesus seems to be that
there will always be a hostile power in the world, seeking to destroy the good.
It is sometimes difficult to distinguish the two, those in the Kingdom and
those who are not. But distinguished and separated they will be because there
is judgement to come, not ours, but God’s. His
Kingdom will reign.
Jesus next relates twin shorter
parables that speak of the slow but inevitable growth of the Kingdom, the
mustard seed parable and the leaven parable. He says the Kingdom to God is like
the mustard seed, the smallest seed known to the Palestinian farmer, though to
be accurate, not the smallest of seeds. It did grow into something very much
like a tree, sometimes to a height of ten or twelve feet. Again Jesus makes his
point. It is a parable of contrast between the unbelievably small beginning of the Kingdom with its incredibly great
development.
Jesus says further that the Kingdom of
God is like the leaven that the woman buried in three measures of wheat until
it was all leavened. Again, as in the mustard seed parable, Jesus takes from
the everyday experience of his listeners to illustrate his teaching. He takes
an example from the Palestinian kitchen. Leaven was a small piece of dough kept
over from a previous baking, which had fermented in the keeping. Everyone knew
that leaven changed the character of the whole baking process. So Jesus again
makes his point. The mysterious action of the leaven doing its work quietly
transforms the massive dough in which it is hidden. The Kingdom too, small
though it is, will eventually overcome its environment. There is a transforming
power about the leaven. The Kingdom, too, transforms and changes. This too
becomes a study in contrast between the small unpromising beginnings of the
Kingdom and its full, triumphant expansion.
Jesus now repeats his action of last
week. He leaves the crowd, goes into the house. His disciples again say to him,
“Explain to us the parable of the weeds.” This is the only other passage in the
Gospels in which Jesus gives a detailed allegorical explanation of a parable
like he did in last week’s parable of the sower. This
one speaks primarily of final judgement and the
effects of God’s judgement on the Kingdom. There will
be a purification process. All the stumbling blocks and evildoers will be
removed from the Kingdom.
July 27, 2008
Matthew 13:44-52
17th
Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s third reading is from the
Gospel according to Matthew. It continues Jesus’ great discourse on the nature
of the Kingdom of God. Its three parables, found only in Matthew’s Gospel, draw
this entire Chapter of the Parables to a conclusion.
The first two cameo
– type parables, one about a hidden treasure, the other about a pearl, have the
same point that no sacrifice is too great in order to acquire a place in God’s
Kingdom. In both parables Jesus draws from the everyday experience of the
people of his time.
Finding a hidden treasure in a field
was not so impossible. In those days ordinary people used the ground as the
safest place to keep their most cherished possessions. Even more to the point,
was the fact that Palestine was probably the most fought over country in the world. So, whenever war or invasion or revolution
threatened, it was common practice for the people to hide their valuables in
the ground, hoping that some day they would return to reclaim them. The rich
always hid their valuables and sometimes there were no survivors to reclaim
them. Such treasures remained hidden until some lucky laborer hit upon them.
Once found, the treasures became the possession of the landowner.
In the first parable, the laborer who
found the treasure, rehides it,
then buys the land so that it becomes his. The laborer is overwhelmed with joy
at his finding. He sells everything he has to buy this one field. He knows that
treasure is worth any price. Jesus is saying, so it is with the Kingdom of God!
When one discovers Jesus in his life, when one discovers the Kingdom of God, he
becomes conscious of his good fortune. It becomes so precious to him that it is
worth any sacrifice.
All else is of little value when
compared to the kingdom and no price is too high. Overriding any price one pays
for entering the kingdom will be his reason for doing so. The new find is
mind-boggling. Its effect is overpowering! The overwhelming experience gladdens
the heart. It carries on away and penetrates his inmost being.
The second cameo-parable concerns a
merchant in search of fine pearls. Again, Jesus uses an illustration out of the
everyday experience of his people and time. Pearls were highly valued in the
ancient world. Some were worth millions. By many the pearl was considered the
single most valuable substance in the world, rated even above gold. No wonder
pearls were highly prized and eagerly sought. In Jesus’ story, the merchant
goes in search of fine pearls. Eventually, he finds a really valuable one.
Again there is joy. He too sells all that he owns to buy that one pearl.
The two parables have the same
features and merits. Both speak to the individual person. Both speak of real
joy, of immediate, decisive decision-making. The discoveries in both parables
now influence the course of both lives. To acquire their magnificent prizes,
both men are ready to change their lives. Both are ready to abandon all else to
gain their newfound treasures. In terms of the Kingdom of God, there too, one
finds real, unsurpassed joy. There too, one must act with the same decisiveness
and be ready to change the course of his life. In terms of the Kingdom of God,
renouncing one’s possessions becomes a symbol of the conversion and commitment
necessary in order to become a kingdom person.
The final parable of today’s reading
does not have the same message as the two just before it. It seems rather to
jump back to the parable of the wheat and the weeds to find its lesson and
explanation. It seems to answer the question, to whom must the Kingdom of God
be offered? It seems to project itself to the end of time, to final judgement. Jesus uses another image, a dragnet pulled
ashore by two boats and filled with “things of every kind.” The lesson is
clear. The sorting out will be left to God and his angels of judgement.
As Jesus concludes this discourse on
the Kingdom of God, he asks his disciples if they understood, and they reply
with a perhaps overconfident yes. Jesus counters their “yes” by drawing them
into a parable statement. Now that they know, they become students of the
Kingdom and instructors as well, able to bring forth not only knowledge of the law
and the prophets but the good news of the arrival of the Kingdom as well.