Homily for
July 24th, 2015: Matthew
13:18-23.
Most
of the seed which the farmer sows is wasted. Only at the end of the story does
Jesus tell us: “Some
seed, finally, landed on good soil and yielded grain that spring up to produce
at a rate of thirty- and sixty- and a hundredfold.”
A modern Bible commentator writes: “A
20-to-1 ratio would have been considered an extraordinary harvest. Jesus’
strikingly large figures are intended to underscore the prodigious quality of
God’s glorious kingdom still to come.”
The parable is Jesus’ antidote to
discouragement and despair. So much of our effort seems to be wasted. So much
of the Church’s work seems barren of result. The Christian community for which
Mark wrote his gospel was discouraged, as we are often discouraged. They had
been banished from the synagogue which they loved. They faced the same
hostility as their Master. Despite the
rising hostility he could see all round him, Jesus refuses to yield to
discouragement. He remains confident — and tells this story to give confidence
to others. “Jesus is not only the sower who scatters the seed of God’s word,”
Pope Benedict XVI writes. “He is also the seed that falls into the earth in
order to die and so to bear fruit.”
Are you sometimes discouraged? You
have made so many good resolutions. How many have you kept? You seem to make no
progress in prayer. When you come to confession, it is the same tired old list
of sins. You wanted so much. You’ve settled for so little. If that — or any of that — applies to you, then Jesus
is speaking, through this parable, very personally to you. Listen.
‘Have patience and courage,’ he is
saying. ‘Do your work, be faithful to prayer, to your daily duties. God has
sown the seed of his word in your life. The harvest is certain. When it comes
it will be greater than you can possibly imagine. The harvest depends, in the final analysis,
not on you, but on God. And God’s seed is always fruitful, his promise always
reliable.’
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