Wednesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Entrance Antiphon Ps 54 (53): 6, 8 See, I have God for my help. The Lord sustains my soul. I will sacrifice to you with willing heart, and praise your name, O Lord, for it is good.

Collect Show favour O Lord, to your servants and mercifully increase the gifts of your grace, that, made fervent in hope, faith and charity, they may be ever watchful in keeping your commands. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.

Scripture today: Jeremiah 1:1.4-10; Psalm 70; Matthew 13:1-9

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered round him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables, saying: A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop — a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. He who has ears, let him hear. (Matthew 13:1-9)

The Soil As I have mentioned before, we must not take too seriously the division of the Gospel narrative into chapters. This division into chapters came long after the writing of the Gospels, and at times the division can be misleading. For instance, our Gospel passage today marks the beginning of chapter 13, but we notice that what Jesus does in this passage occurs on “that day” (en tee heemera, 13:1), the same day as the events of the previous chapter 12. So what goes on in chapter 13 is to be understood as flowing directly on from what went before it. While in chapter 12 the setting is our Lord’s instructions to the multitudes (especially in the synagogue on the Sabbath day), much of the chapter is taken up with the conflict with the scribes and Pharisees. Our Lord’s judgment on the lack of faith of the religious leaders is given, together with his refutation of their accusations. At the end of this conflict, Christ describes the true disciple, the one who is a brother, sister and mother to him (12:48-50). That person is the one who does the will of the Father. Then the scene changes — but it is still “that day” (13:1). Jesus leaves the house and sits by the sea-shore to speak to “great multitudes.” So great were the numbers, that he decides to sit in a boat and address them from there. Just as in the previous chapter — earlier “that day” — he had dealt at length with the refusal of the religious leaders, so now — this same day — he deals with the refusal of the multitude. The connecting thread — the theme for this same day — is the refusal to believe, and who the true disciple is. At times it has been said that the Old Testament is a record of divine judgment and wrath on sin, while the New is a record of divine compassion — which is to say of a God who does not condemn. But even if we look only at these two chapters of the Gospel of Matthew (12 and 13), we can clearly see how our Lord is in the tradition of the prophets who condemn sin. Here our Lord is especially condemning the sin of unbelief, whether in the Pharisees earlier, or in the multitudes now. In each case the contrast is drawn with true disciples.

With that as our broader context, we turn to the parable with which this section of the Gospel begins, a section, as just said, which is especially concerned with the unsatisfactory response to the person and word of Jesus Christ. Our Lord has the multitudes before him and we are out in the open air by the Sea of Galilee. It is as if the multitudes represent the chosen people, and indeed the entire world. It is to all of these that our Lord directs his parable. Broad and simple in its strokes, there are two protagonists in the image being drawn. There is the seed which the farmer is sowing and there is the ground on which his seed is falling. The farmer and his seed is the constant, while the soil is the variable. Obviously, Jesus who is speaking to them from the boat is the farmer who is sowing the seed, and they are the soil on which it is falling. Christ’s preoccupation is not himself nor his word. His preoccupation is the multitude before him that is gazing at him and receiving his word. His word, like seed, is falling on their ears, but are they truly listening to it? A little before, earlier “that day,” his preoccupation had been with the religious leaders of the multitude. They were hard ground, hostile to his word and unlike the true disciple who does the will of the heavenly Father. Now it is the multitude whom our Lord considers and again, a striking contrast is drawn between many of them and the true disciple. There are various categories of soil. There is the path, trampled hard by the feet of people walking on it. The seed makes no impression, and remains on the surface to be taken by the birds of the air. There is the rocky land — of which there was a great deal in Palestine. The seed had no chance of striking real root. Then there were the briars in which the seed was smothered. But then there was the good soil which enabled the seed to produce a harvest (Matthew 13:1-9). This, then, is our Lord’s description of the world, and at the end of his picture he pinpoints the critical element. What matters is whether a person has ears with which to hear his word. Listen, he says, you that have ears to hear with!

The exemplar of the disciple who listens to the word is Mary, the mother of Jesus. She heard the word and pondered it in her heart, and it produced a harvest of holiness in her. Let us place ourselves in the Gospel scene, among the multitude listening to the Master. He speaks of the good soil that receives the word, and asks that we hear, that we listen. Let us resolve really to listen, and to have ears to hear with. Looking at him, we step forward from the crowd, resolving to be more than a mere viewer, but rather a true disciple. It is the disciple that produces the harvest through the power of the word and grace of Christ. With him we can produce the harvest.

(E.J.Tyler)

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A Second Reflection: (Jeremiah 1:1.4-10)

The Power of God's Word One of the things that man experiences and which has affected his religious culture is power. Man has experience of things with power of various kinds. These things give him an inkling of heavenly power, the power of the gods, or of God. This power of God is manifested in various ways, but one way that recurs throughout Scripture is in and through his word. In a well known passage from the prophet Jeremiah (1:1.4-10) the prophet protests his weakness when God appoints him to be a prophet. But God says "There! I am putting my words into your mouth.." With them the prophet will be able to "tear up and to knock down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant." In receiving the word of God the prophet receives the power of God. Our Lord refers to this power of God's word in his parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1-9). The word of God is like a seed that has power for growth, and if the soil admits and allows it, growth will surely come.

Let us maintain a deep respect in our hearts for the word of God in the Scriptures and in the Church's Tradition, a respect that leads us to work on becoming good soil. Good soil is the readiness to hear the word and to put it into practice. If we are good soil, God’s power will do the rest.

(E.J.Tyler)

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