A LOIN CLOTH, MUSTARD SEED, YEAST.

Homily for July 30^th, 2018: Jeremiah 13:1-11; Matthew 13:31-15.

          We sometimes hear that the Old Testament is about God’s law, the New Testament about his love. Both statements are misleading. The Old Testament speaks often of God’s love. And in the New Testament Jesus says he has come not to abolish God’s law, but to fulfill it (cf. Mt. 5:17).

          Our first reading is what Bible scholars call an “acted parable.” The loin cloth which God tells Jeremiah to wear is an intimate garment. It symbolizes the intimate relationship God wanted to have with the people he chose to be especially his own. After burying it, at God’s command, Jeremiah finds it, years later, rotted. That symbolizes what his people have done through their unfaithfulness to the Lord who chose and loved them.  

          Today’s gospel contains two more parables. The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is “like a mustard seed … the smallest of all seeds.” From tiny beginnings comes a great bush, large enough to shelter birds, who build their nests in its branches.

The kingdom is also, Jesus says, “like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.” Do those words reflect a childhood memory: Jesus recalling how he had watched his mother mixing leaven with dough, kneading it, and then setting it in the sun, which caused the dough to rise, so that it could be baked in the oven? We cannot say; but it is entirely possible. The meaning of this parable is similar to that of the mustard seed. From small, seemingly insignificant beginnings, comes growth that no one could have predicted.

Jesus spoke “only in parables,” the gospel says. Why do you suppose Jesus chose parables as his favorite form of teaching? Well, who doesn’t like a good story?  Stories have a universal appeal: to young children, but also to adults. But there is another reason why Jesus chose to teach through stories. Because stories are much easier to understand than abstract explanations. In his book, Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI writes: “Every teacher who wants to communicate new knowledge to his listeners naturally makes constant use of example or parable. ... By means of parable he brings something distant within their reach so that, using the parable as a bridge, they can arrive at what was previously unknown.”  

The three parables we have heard today proclaim God’s love – but also our need to respond with love: for him and for others.