July 24, lectionary 400 and July 25, Lectionary 112 Sunday (C)
Matthew 13:24-30:
Life-long planning and making some important goals in our lives are
important for living life fully and meaningfully. As believers in God and
in His Son Jesus we are fortunate to hear their voice through the sacred
scriptures and especially through the prophets and the evangelists. They
speak about the final goal and what it takes to achieve it. Jesus does
this by speaking of the kingdom of God. He uses many parables in this
section of Matthew and all of the parables are parables about the kingdom
of God. These are helpful for us in thinking about the important goals in
our life especially the entering into the kingdom of God both here and now
and in the afterlife. Chapter thirteen contains these parables and is the
third discourse of the five presented in Matthew.
We hear of the kingdom of God or heaven as Matthew calls it out of
reverence for God's name. The comparison is with seeds and the fields. In
today's parable and "enemy" sows tares (weeds) among the good wheat that
has been sown. We all know weeds are an "enemy" in the field of wheat and
they are tought to tear out. Jesus tells the laborers to let the weeds
grow with the wheat then at harvest time both will be reaped and separated.
This is a new way of handling such a problem, but Jesus does these creative
things in the parables in order to catch our attention. Probably he is
smiling as he hits the audience with his colorful little stories called
parables. What is good about them is that they have proved the test of
time and only Jesus survives as the parable teller par excellence in our
minds. They are meant however to reach our hearts and to help us direct
our attention to the things that really matter in life.
Our parable is unique to Matthew. Kirster Stendahl tells us "it could be a
parallel tradition with its reference to what happens while the farmer
sleeps and with its urging of patience." This waiting till harvest time
whows us that the gift of perseverance depends on our patience. We make
progress toward the kingdom by our patience of taking each day as it comes
and not living in the past or the future. Patience is a very sacramental
like virtue that demands us to live out in the present moment for all it is
worth. Surely we are living in the kingdom of God today and also in the
future by our patience and perseverance. At the end the messengers or
angels of God will bring us to the ultimate goal, the kingdom of God that
is eternal life with God. Amen.
Scripture: Sunday 17th C. Lectionary # 112. Genesis 18:20-32. Psalm 138:
1-2, 2-3.6-7. Colossians 2:12-14. Luke 11:1-13:
We are listening to the Abraham cycle in our first reading on these
Sundays. They are powerful narratives that help us to appreciate Abraham
and his wise wife Sarah. Abraham is a prophet as well as a patriarch. He
understands both justice and mercy of God and dialogs with God on both of
these attributes of the one God he believes in. He is pleading and praying
in the present narrative for the people who are to be punished. Sodom and
Gomorrah are symbols of the corruption that has permeated those cities of
the Dead Sea area. They are symbolic for us as we read the narrative and
learn how Abraham barters in his prayer with God. He is speaking as a
friend to a friend. This is a beautiful insight into Divine
Revelation--speaking and listening to God as a friend. God spares the
wicked if a few are found innocent. Abraham is wise he starts with a
larger number and works down to have God agree that even if only ten just
were found, God would spare the cities. We do not hear of the destruction
in today's reading and that gives us hope for the inhabitants of Sodom and
Gomorrah, perhaps, there are ten just persons.
The Talmud (the most literary achievement of Judaism after the Tanakh)
describes what the biblical text is narrating: The term Lamed Vav is
symbolic for the number thirty-six. There are at present thirty-six
righteous persons in this world who keep the mercy of God alive so that the
world continues on. Verse twenty-seven of our reading about Abraham is
interpreted in the same spirit of God's mercy and loving kindness, "The
Holy One (blessed be He) said to Israel, I deeply love you, for even when I
give you abundant greatness, you make yourself small before me. I gave
greatness to Abraham and he said I am but dust and ashes." (b.Hul.89a). We
Christians can see in Mary a daughter of Israel saying the same thing in
her Magnificat, "My soul magnifies the Lord..." She is praising God by her
humility and truth and is among the thirty-six righteous in her time.
Abraham in speaking with God went down from the number fifty to ten. Today
we may be blessed that the thirty-six righteous are keeping the justice of
God balanced with his tremendous and magnanimous mercy.
Jesus is talking to his listeners and us about prayer and how we are to be
persistent, humble and patient. We are to keep asking, seeking, and
knocking at the same time while keeping his prayer alive in our hearts as
the background music for our requests. We see an ascending pattern here in
contrast to Abraham's descending pattern of prayerful dialog. Forgiveness
is highligted showing us our need for truthfulness, humility, and
perseverance.
All is possible for us in prayer because of the great mystery of God's love
for us. That is easily seen in God's patience with Abraham's bartering.
The passage from Colossians shows us that for us as believers in Jesus that
his Paschal Mystery is at the center of our baptismal commitment and our
prayer based on the faith, hope, and love these mysteries give us when we
pray with humility, truthfulness, and persistence. Our Psalm is easily an
example of how to pray in this manner and would help us to unite all the
readings for this day.
In the Torah Commentary called ETZ HAYIM (tree of life) there is a good
commentary on verse 32: "Why does Abaham stop at ten? Perhaps it takes a
critical mass to generate an alternative way of living; isolated
individuals cannot. The number 10 may be psychologically related to the
stipulation of 10 people for a minyan, the quorum for public worship, the
point at which an assembly of individuals becomes a group, a
congregation." (Etz Hayim, p.104). Amen.
posted by Fr. Bert SM at 3:07 PM
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