15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 55:10-11; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-9

In the book of Genesis, 
after Adam and Eve have 
eaten from the forbidden tree,
God pronounces a number of “curses”
upon the human race—
conditions that will prevail
as human history moves forward, 
signs of our fallen state.
Among these is what God says to Adam:
“Cursed is the ground because of you!... 
Thorns and thistles it shall bear for you,
and you shall eat the grass of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
you shall eat bread,
until you return to the ground,
from which you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:17-19).

This forms the background 
of Jesus’ parable of the sower.
The soil in which the sower sows
is stony, thorny, shallow, 
subject to scorching sun
and ravenous birds.
Farming such land was difficult, unrewarding work.
A peasant farmer in Jesus’ day could expect at best 
a four or fivefold return on the seed he sowed.
The world in which the parable unfolds 
is a world marked by the effect of human sin,
a world marked by the curse of Adam.

In our second reading, 
Paul describes the same world:
a creation, “made subject to futility”
and “groaning in labor pains 
even until now.”
We not only see the curse of creation
in the inhospitable earth 
from which we wrest our living; 
we feel it in ourselves:
“we also groan within ourselves
as we wait for adoption, 
the redemption of our bodies,”
the bodies of dust
that will to dust return.
The hopes and aspirations 
on which we live
bear meager fruit, 
if they bear any fruit at all.
Even we who have put our faith in Christ
and have been joined to him through grace
share in this universal groaning.
Our lives are not immune 
to the frustrations of living
in a world of stony, thorny, shallow soil.
We who have been joined 
to Christ the new Adam
still live amidst the devastation 
wrought by the old Adam.

In the context of the parable of the sower,
which Jesus goes on to explain as an allegory
of the scattering of God’s word in the world
and the mixed response it receives,
we might think of the frustrations found
in our own attempts to spread God’s word.

On a large, societal scale, 
there seems to be in our own country
an increasing indifference, 
and in some quarters outright hostility,
to the Gospel that the Church proclaims.
Some of this the Church has brought on herself,
through failing to live out the Gospel,
whether from laziness and lukewarmness,
or from preferring to protect our institutions
rather than embracing the radical call of the Gospel
to faith, hope, and love.
Some of it, however, 
is because the soil in which we sow
has become stony with cynicism,
thorny with self-indulgence, 
and shallow with false ideologies 
that promise salvation
but cannot save us from ourselves.

On a smaller, more personal scale,
we look around us and notice 
that there are people missing—
friends and acquaintances who once joined us in worship
but who must have found something that they think 
is more rewarding to do with their Sunday mornings.
I am mindful especially of those of us 
who are parents with adult children,
and who sometimes dutifully, sometimes joyfully,
sowed the seed of the word in our children
by bringing them to religious formation,
making sure that they received the sacraments,
praying for them and with them,
even discussing the faith with them 
and engaging in works of charity with them,
only to see them gradually drift away,
or even angrily and dramatically depart,
and join the ranks of those 
whom sociologists call “nones”—
those who are religiously unaffiliated,
and often claim to be religiously indifferent.
Parents can find themselves asking,
“Could I have done more?”
and groan in pain 
at a sense of having failed
to produce a rich harvest of faith 
within their children.
 
But the parable of the sower 
is not about the failure of the sower,
but about his success.
Despite the curse of Adam,
despite the devastated earth,
despite the groaning of creation,
the sower’s labors bring forth
not the usual four or fivefold harvest,
but thirty or sixty or a hundredfold.
Our psalm today speaks not 
of a cursed, devastated, groaning world
but of fields that “shout and sing for joy.”
God promises through the prophet Isaiah,
“my word shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.”
Threaded throughout the rather bleak assessment
of the world’s condition that our scriptures offer us
is a persistent note of joy and abundance,
a constant reminder that though the world is,
as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it,
“seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil”
still, by the grace of God and the gift of the Spirit,
“there lives the dearest freshness deep down things.”

Our ability to believe in the freshness 
of these deep down things
even amid the world’s devastation
depends on seeing two things.

First, the sower in the parable is God, not us.
Of course, we all have our role to play
in sowing God’s word,
in giving an account of the hope that is in us
and bearing witness with our lives.
But were our hopes only in our own efforts,
then our groaning would be the whole story.
The point of the parable, however, 
is that it is Christ 
who sows the word in us 
and in the world,
Christ the new Adam 
who can bring forth an abundant harvest
even amid the curse wrought by the old Adam.

Second, we are still in the middle of the process;
we are not yet at the end of the parable.
Though no doubt there is unwelcoming soil,
we should not presume that we know where that is;
we should not presume that what we can see
reveals to us the still hidden work of the Spirit.
The time of harvest has not yet come
and the thirty, sixty, hundredfold yield
still remains in the future. 
We do not yet know 
where the seeds of the word
will take root and grow.
We do not yet know who will prove
to have been good or bad soil.

So when we look around us 
and lament the absence
of those who once were here,
of those who might be here but are not,
we should, even as we seek 
with patient persistence
to sow the word,
take heart from our faith
that the sufferings of this present time 
are as nothing
compared with the glory of God’s mercy 
still to be revealed for us,
in thirty, sixty, 
and hundredfold abundance.

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 55:10-11; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23

Having served over the past few months
at the broadcast and live-streamed liturgies
here at the Cathedral—
reading the Gospel to empty pews,
speaking to a glowing red light on a camera,
wondering who might or might not be watching—
I have a certain sympathy
for the sower in today’s Gospel.
In fact, the method of planting
employed by the sower in today’s parable
is called “broadcasting.”
Though we associate the term today
with television and radio,
it originates in agriculture
as a term for scattering seed far and wide
without too much control
as to where the seed falls
and with a measure of uncertainty
as to the yield of the seed that is sown.

The staff here at the Cathedral—
others far more than me—
have put tremendous effort
into making live-streamed liturgies,
along with other forms of electronic outreach,
available to people during the coronavirus pandemic,
to try to help them remain connected:
connected to our community,
connected to their faith,
connected to God’s word.
And though it is possible to gather metrics
regarding numbers of viewers
or how many people open email messages,
we really have no immediate way
to measure the success of this broadcasting.
We have no immediate way of telling,
in light of all our efforts,
what has fallen on the stony path,
what has fallen on shallow earth,
what has fallen among thorns,
and what has fallen on good soil.

But isn’t this always the way it works?
This is not just the experience
of “professional Catholics” like me.
All of us, I dare say, want to live our faith
so as to spread God’s reign far and wide;
all of us seek by word and action
to make a world that is
more loving,
more just,
more peaceful,
more ready to welcome
the kingdom that Jesus proclaims.
But all of us also undertake
our labors for God’s kingdom
without controlling the outcome,
often without ever knowing
what seed lies sterile and unfruitful
and what seed takes root and produces
a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.
St. Teresa of Calcutta is reported to have said,
“God does not require that we be successful,
only that we be faithful.”
That might be a fine sentiment for a saint,
but for us non-saints it can be a struggle
to pour ourselves out in service to God and neighbor
and not know if anything will come of that effort.
In word and action, day in and day out,
we seek as Christians to broadcast
the seeds of God’s kingdom,
but it can feel as if
our seeds fall only on poor soil
and never take root,
as if we are always speaking
only to empty pews
or a glowing red light.

I think about this in terms of the efforts
people have made over the past few months
to mitigate the spread of this pandemic:
people struggling to work from home
while also helping in their children’s schooling,
essential workers who have put themselves at risk
so that we might have food and medical care,
businesses closed and weddings postponed
and millions of lives turned upside down.
All these efforts, I believe,
are the seeds of God’s word being broadcast;
they are done for the sake of God’s kingdom
when they are undertaken
not out of fear or self-regard,
but out of love and concern
for the least of our brothers and sisters,
for the most vulnerable and at risk,
for the common good of the world as a whole.

And yet we still don’t know where all of this will end.
As St. Paul writes,
we await with groaning the final revelation of God’s plan.
We still don’t know when or if life will return to normal,
whatever “normal” now means.
We still don’t know for sure
which of the measures we have taken
will prove to have been effective
and which will prove to have been pointless or misguided.
We still don’t know which of our efforts will bear fruit
and which will lie fruitless on hard-packed earth.

But, in another sense,
in a deeper and more important sense,
we do know.
God tells us through the prophet Isaiah,
“my word shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.”
In the end, the work of sowing the kingdom
does not depend upon us,
but upon almighty God.
God may use us—our words and our deeds—
as instruments through which he works,
but it is God in Christ who is the sower;
it is God’s Spirit, which blows where it will,
that will guide the seeds of the kingdom to good soil.

Our job is to remain faithful to the tasks of love
that God sets before us.
And so we broadcast seeds
of faith, hope, and love,
not holding back,
but offering our labors great and small to God
to be transformed by his grace.
Let us pray today that the Lord
would prosper the work of our lives,
and may God have mercy on us all.

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 55:10-11; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23

The novelist Tom Robbins once noted
that there are two kinds of people:
those who think that there are two kinds of people
and those who know better.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is at a point
where he has been preaching for some time.
Some have listened to him
and others have reacted with hostility;
so we might be tempted to think that
with regard to Jesus and his message
there are two kinds of people:
those who are for him
and those who are against him.
But Jesus knows better,
and in his parable of the sower
he prompts us to think about the different ways
that people might respond to the word of God.

There are some who are like a hard-packed path
in which the scattered seed can find no purchase,
presumably those who do not even give Jesus a hearing
but reject his words out of hand.
Some are like shallow soil,
responding at first with enthusiasm
but lacking the depth
in which the word of God can take root.
Others again are like soil
that is already choked with thorny weeds,
because they are so preoccupied
with the concerns of daily life
that there is no room for the word within them
to flourish and grow and bear fruit.
Finally, there are those who are like good soil,
deep in their commitment
and free from preoccupation with other things,
in whose lives Jesus’ words bear much fruit.

Jesus’s parable, like all his parables,
is intended not so much
as a way of conveying information –
as if it were telling us
that there are four, and only four, types of people –
but rather as a prompt to reflection and action.
It is intended to make me ask myself,
what type of soil am I?
Do I let the Jesus’s word and Spirit
take root in my heart
and, if so, what becomes of that seed?
I suppose if I were to identify myself
with one of the types of soil in the parable,
it would be with the weedy ground
in which the shoots coming from the seed
are choked by the concerns of daily life.

When I look at myself,
I find that I am preoccupied with many things.
It is an interesting word: “preoccupied.”
We tend to use it to mean “distracted”
but it literally means
that our minds are already occupied,
already inhabited, already filled.
Our hearts and minds are already filled
with cares and anxieties
just as the ground in the parable
is already filled with thorny weeds.
Jesus identified what is pre-occupying
the soil of our souls
as “worldly anxiety and the lure of riches.”
But our soul can be preoccupied with many things;
and some of them, in and of themselves,
are worthy of our attention:
My heart is full of my job
and the many things there that need doing;
My heart is full of my children
and how I can support them
as they move into adulthood and independence;
My heart is full of my aging parents
and how they can still count on me,
even though I am far away.
These things pre-occupy my heart
and they are all worthy concerns.
But they can also choke out
the tender shoots of God’s word
before they can bear the fruits of the Spirit:
love, joy, peace,
forbearance, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
The great irony is that
it is precisely these fruits of the Spirit
that I need in order to face my worries
about work, children, parents, or anything else.
Without love, joy, peace and the other fruits of the Spirit,
my justified concerns become the thorns of anxiety
and, as Paul says,
though we have the firstfruits of the Spirit
“we also groan within ourselves”
as we await redemption.

So Jesus’s parable is a call
to reflect on the kind of soil
that his word will find in my heart.
But it is not a call simply to decide
that I am a certain type of soil –
hard-packed or shallow or weedy or good –
and then leave it at that.
The fourth-century theologian John Chrysostom
asked why it was that the sower
was so careless in sowing his seed,
scattering it not only on the good soil
but also on the path, the shallow ground, the weedy plot.
This is hardly good agricultural practice,
since we can predict with some accuracy
what will become of the seed
when it is sown on the path
or on shallow or weedy soil.
But here, Chrysostom says,
we see the difference between soils and souls.
He says when it is a matter of souls,
“There is such a thing as the rock changing,
and becoming rich land;
…the thorns may be destroyed,
and the seed enjoy full security.
For had it been impossible,
this sower would not have sown” (Homily on Matthew 44.5).
When I look within my weed-choked heart
and I see the firstfruits of the Spirit
struggling amidst the thorns,
it all seems impossible and I feel like despairing.
But if I can turn my eyes from myself
and consider who it is that is the sower
who in his wisdom has planted his seed within me
then I pray in hope that the stony path,
the shallow soil,
the weedy plot
can all be transformed by him
to become good soil
bearing abundantly
the fruits of the Spirit.

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 55:10-11; Romans 8: 18-23; Matthew 13:1-23

As Christians we believe

that God has spoken a word of grace to us,

and we are invited to respond to that word

by bearing the fruit of the Spirit.

In our Gospel reading,

God’s word is depicted as seed

that is scattered widely across on the earth

so that some falls on the path

and some falls on rocky ground,

and some falls among thorny weeds,

with only about a quarter of it falling on good ground.

These different sorts of soil

reflect different sorts of responses to God’s word,

some of which produce fruit and some of which do not.

The seed that falls on good ground produces an abundant harvest,

“a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold,”

by a process that seems to be natural and even effortless.

We might think that Jesus is saying

that while all people might not be good soil

in which his word can take root,

if you are good soil, then the fruits of that word

will be readily apparent;

if you are good soil then you will produce spiritual fruit

with the same ease with which seeds sprout from good soil.

And if you are finding life difficult and full of struggle

then maybe it is because you are not good soil.

This is not, however,

the implication that we should draw from this.

In our second reading, Paul also speaks

of how we live in response to God’s word.

Here the metaphor is not

that of the seed germinating in the soil

but of a woman laboring in childbirth:

“We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains

even until now;

and not only that, but we ourselves,

who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,

we also groan within ourselves.”

Paul speaks of “the sufferings of this present time,”

to which all of creation is subject,

and makes clear that

even those who have received God’s word with joy –

those who are “good soil” –

still share in that suffering.

Put in terms of our Gospel parable,

Paul is saying that we may indeed be the good soil

on which the seed of God’s word has fallen,

but we still groan along with all of creation

in our bringing forth fruit,

just as a woman must labor

in bringing forth her child.

The process of bearing fruit is not always,

and maybe not ever,

an effortless process.

As Jesus reminds us in John’s Gospel,

even the seed that falls to earth

only sprouts by means of a kind of death:

“Amen, amen, I say to you,

unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,

it remains just a grain of wheat;

but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (John 12:24).

I dare say we all have those moments

when we find ourselves groaning,

awaiting redemption,

asking ourselves and asking God,

does it really have to be so difficult?

We might even have those moments

when we ask ourselves

whether the sheer difficulty that we experience

in trying to be faithful to God’s word

might be a sign that we are not, in fact, good soil,

but are rather the rocky path,

or the shallow earth,

or the weed choked thicket.

We find ourselves unemployed,

and our faith wavers.

We groan under the burden of

a debilitating physical or mental illness,

and we wonder whether God has abandoned us.

We suffer the loss of someone we love

and we ask ourselves whether we really trust

that God is a God of life.

If we groan in our suffering,

does this mean that our faith is shallow

and our souls choked with weeds?

Paul seems to say, “no.”

Suffering in this life

is something we share with all of creation,

and why some suffer and others seemingly do not

should never be taken as a sign of who is and is not

the “good soil” that receives the word.

In fact, we have no idea why life’s sufferings

seem to be so unevenly distributed

and I suspect that the answer to this question

will remain a mystery to us in this life.

Paul, it seems to me, is trying to get us to shift our question.

He is trying to get us to ask not,

“where does this suffering come from,”

but rather “where is this suffering leading.”

We can see our sufferings

either as the last agony of one who is dying

or as the laboring of one who is bringing new life to birth;

our groaning can simply be a cry of despair,

or it can be a calling out to God.

The difference between the good soil and the bad soil

is not that one suffers and the other does not,

that one groans and the other does not,

but rather that the good soil suffers and groans

in faith, and in hope, and in love,

trusting that the trials and sorrows of this life

are, in a mysterious way that we cannot now clearly see,

the birthpangs of the good soil,

laboring to bring forth the fruit of eternal life.