ORDINARY 15 (A)
Whoever has ears ought to hear. – Mt.
13: 9
A deep sense of grief & sorrow hangs
over this parable. It highlights how
often the divine seed is destroyed –
destroyed in stony hearts, by the heat
of the sun, by choking thorns &
predatory birds. All this is seen &
proclaimed while outwardly the people
are coming in droves. One might expect
Jesus to think of Himself as a success.
Instead, He is sad because He sees the
fate of God’s word..
Taking a closer look, a path is not
meant to receive seed but to enable
people to get somewhere with a minimum
of effort. One does not blame a path for
not being fertile. But just as there are
smooth, presentable paths, so too are
some human hearts. They are the people
we must know if we want to get
somewhere. They hold key positions or
are influential. However, that which is
good in one sense can be a handicap in
another sense. A person who is only a
path through which daily traffic passes,
who is no more than a busy street where
people go rushing by & where there is
never a moment of rest will hardly
provide soil in which the eternal seed
can flourish.
It is dangerously easy for the rich &
famous [whose names everybody knows] to
think they are something great when the
rushing traffic keeps passing over them.
This is why they are more in danger than
the nameless furrow where fruit is
quietly growing.
Smaller folks are in the parable too.
The image of birds tells us that the
word of God can fail to take root
because there are other forces at work
than simply our lack of religious
understanding. There are many thoughts &
desires that prevent us from pausing to
hear God’s call: our ambitions,
passions, & our desire for recognition &
prestige.
The traditional weapons against such
domineering influences include prayer &
meditation. Yet if we meditate on
anything these days it would seem to be
in the realm of the sexual or of anxious
worry about what will happen to us next.
The word of God is too demanding,
requiring our undivided attention, & so
we lapse into reveries more to our
liking. In which case, we would hardly
be surprised that our prayers often do
not help, & we say that the seed is
sterile, that God stopped speaking long
ago. We must be careful of the birds –
the thought forces that tug at our
hearts – for once they feel at home in
our heads & hearts, the seed is done
for.
Then there is the rocky ground where
roots cannot sink deep. This is
emotional Christianity, where we are
more interested in being inspired than
in being fired (as metal is fired in a
furnace). Enthusiasm without a
disciplined life of prayer & the
sacraments is little more than spiritual
foam & froth that are doomed to fail
when the first whirlwind comes along.
For the word of God to really take root,
one must die & be born again. This means
much pain until the new life is able to
struggle free. It means not one but many
cords that have to be cut.
A religion that costs very little never
turns us inside out. The scribe who
knows his bible, who can discuss
religion gravely, who goes to church
every Sunday, but for whom none of
this results in repentance & death of
the self is simply accumulating
corruption; & his religious sentiment is
nothing but self-deception. A terrible
curse hangs over the know-it-all who
does nothing. Those who have been merely
“brushed” by Christianity will lose even
that which they think they have!
Then there are the thorns that prevent
the seed from producing fruit. The chain
of doubt & faithlessness to which we are
shackled has many links – not
intellectual reasons, but sins,
dependencies, & secret bondages that
prevent us from finding peace & block
full surrender to the divine will. Each
of us has a hidden axis around which our
life revolves, for which we are prepared
(or almost) to sell ourselves & our
salvation. Where is this axis in our
life, & what is this awful price we are
willing to pay?
All this is like a photographic negative
to what the good soil is like. To heed
what has been heard is to budget one’s
life upon it, to cast aside all doubts
as to whether one is really crazy or
not. God must be obeyed if he is to be
understood & we will never experience
peace if we only go on hearing &
reflecting but doing nothing.
Finally, it is not a question of my
being a path, or rocky ground, or choked
with thorns, or good soil. Life is never
so simple. Each of us has all four kinds
of soil within. Different times &
circumstances in our lives can reveal
any one of them. The important thing is
that we hold onto the Word in stillness
& get rid of the callousness &
indifference in our lives. It means not
squeezing God into a few cracks &
crevices in our lives, but giving Him
the space of daily quiet, & by not
avoiding repentance.
God’s grace is not cheap. We have to
pay for it with all we are & all we
have; but the alternatives are far more
costly. We can loaf our way into hell,
but the exciting thing about being about
being Christian is that it always goes
the limit. In the quiet fields far more
is happening than at the great
crossroads where the red & green traffic
lights flash their busy signals.
AMEN!