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Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A
A lot of parishioners often walk up to me and tell me that they really pity me. They think that I have lost a great deal and given up so much for the priesthood - a family, a career, comfort and money and all these must have come at a terrible loss to me. I don’t really know how to tell them that I haven’t really given up that much. In fact, I don’t feel the loss at all. It would be so, if these things were really considered valuable to me, but they no longer do. In fact, for me the priesthood is a GAIN, not a LOSS!
It is ironic that the pitiable character of the creature known as Gollum in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings should provide us a lesson of valuing something. Upon the discovery of the One Ring which rules the rings of power, this creature descends into a world of darkness, forsaking friend and kin, enduring banishment and torture, risking death and even the damnation of his soul, and goes through great lengths to recover the one thing which he describes as his “Precious.” What he was willing to endure shows how much he truly values this object.
The parables today raise a similar question: what do we value most in life? How would we really know if something or someone is valuable to us? The real litmus test is not how loud or persistent we say that something is of value to us but what are we prepared to sacrifice for it.
The parables set out this basic principle to determine the value of a thing desired: what are we willing to sacrifice? What is the cost that we are willing to pay? Both tales indicate that the kingdom is of such inestimable value that those who understand this truth will do whatever it takes to possess it.
In the first parable, the man finds a treasure in a field; in the second, the man seeks the valuable pearl. Both parables make a similar point about the Kingdom of heaven – this is the greatest treasure. Receiving it brings joy to the finder, but also calls for the valuing of this treasure above all others. The order is the same in both parables - joy over receiving the Gospel, and then the willingness to sell all their possessions. Their sacrifice was not out of obligation or done grudgingly, but one made out of joy! Our joy in the Lord and our estimation of His incomparable value in our lives produce the willingness to give everything we have to God--our talents, time, and resources. This joy in finding the greatest treasure, Jesus, results in a radical life change, the kind of change that causes us to reorientate our lives, reevaluate our priorities and render all previous attachments dispensable and disposable.
The two parables though conveying a similar message, express two different experiences - two ways where the protagonist comes upon their treasures. In the first parable, the hidden treasure is found by chance, it seems, without the man intentionally looking for it. In the surprise of it all, the accent falls on his shocking and happy response: from his joy he goes and sells all he has, to buy the field. Joy flooded his heart as he stumbled on such value.
In the second parable, the merchant is looking. He is searching high and low, near and far. Being a merchant and connoisseur of pearls, he knows their value. And this merchant is not just seeking pearls but “fine pearls” — beautiful pearls, precious pearls. His palate is refined. He has a keen eye. The merchant’s life has been bound up with pursuing the most precious of earthly objects. Now, he comes across one singular pearl of such beauty, of such great value, one pearl so precious, he goes and sells all he has just to have it. The emphasis is not on his accidental find but on the over-the-top fulfillment of an intentional search.
Together the short parables contribute to one picture, seen in the obvious repetition: the man sells all he has to obtain the newfound treasure. However accidental or intentional the search, the man has come upon something of such value that he is eager (“from his joy”) to count all else loss in view of the surpassing value of the treasure — of the exceeding preciousness of the treasure and pearl.
The apostle St Paul expresses the very same thing in his letter to the Philippians 3:7-8, “Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” St Paul suffers the loss of all things that he may gain Christ. Both the Gospel and Paul’s words express the very same reality and truth: if you profess that something is most precious to you, no cost is too big or price too high or sacrifice too great, in order for you to attain it or keep it. The treasure far outstrips the cost that we gladly say, “gain!” This is why the whole army of martyrs and saints can declare with St Paul, “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”
One last caveat must be made about the message of these parables. The point here is not that you buy the kingdom or barter for the kingdom or negotiate for the kingdom. The kingdom of God is received without pay, like a poor child, not a rich businessman. It is given to the undeserving, to those who have not earned it or will ever be able to pay for it. So the point here is that you can never buy it. You get it freely because you want it more than you want anything else. In other words, there is a condition for having the kingdom—for having the King on your side and as your friend—but the condition is not wealth or power or intelligence or eminence. The condition is that you prize the Kingdom more than you prize anything else. The point of selling everything in this parable is simply to show where your heart is.
So, the point of these two parables is that the Kingdom of God is so valuable that losing everything on earth, but getting the Kingdom, is a happy trade-off. Losing everything is no real loss, because the Kingdom is by far the greatest gain. The loss of all things is not sad if we gain Christ. Do you truly value Him in your heart? If so, what are you prepared to sacrifice and endure for Him? Remember this: finding our Lord as your one Precious, will not poison and shrink your soul, unlike what the Ring did to Gollum. Rather, Christ is the antidote to what ails us, the catalyst to expand our small hearts, the surprising remedy we’ve long been seeking. In casting off all other attachments in our lives we will not be impoverished. Rather, we will be immensely and undeniably enriched. “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A
After having listened to complaints from parishioners for the past nineteen years, I’ve come to realise that one of the most common requests is that I should summarily reprimand and dismiss all the ‘troublemakers’ in the parish. However, my usual reply is that if I were to act on every complaint, including the complains I get about the complainers; then I would end up sacking over 90% of the people in the parish! I guess this phenomenon goes beyond the parish. We seem to have a natural human desire to root out and destroy all that troubles us. We want to look for the final solution to all our problems. But in attempting to get others cancelled, we end up cancelling ourselves. Or in wanting to destroy evil, we end up wreaking more destruction. Perhaps, the best example is found in Hitler’s Final Solution – millions of Jews and others had to die in this mad search for perfection. The very defenders of peace eventually turned into the greatest perpetrators of violence.
Strangely, it is not the Hitlers, the Pol Pots, the Maos or the Lenins of this world that are solely guilty of such horrendous crimes. The trait is also present with many well-intentioned activists, visionaries who believe that it is incumbent upon them to fix the problem wherever and whenever they see fit, whether it be in society, the Church or the world. Some people just can’t stop themselves from meddling. We have to fix it; get rid of the undesirables. Do it our way. The problem with 'people with a cause', is that they often do more harm for their cause than if they did nothing at all. Trying to bend the world or reform the Church or shape others according to the way they see it. So they spend a great deal of effort and time trying to control what can’t be controlled. Even though their original motive may have been noble, they actually make things worse, whilst trying to make them better. Instead of building God’s Kingdom, they end up building their own. We mess things up when we choose to get in God’s way.
Today’s parable is bent on frustrating these would-be Saviours of the world. The message goes against the grain because it seems to be soft on evil. In response to the servants’ desire to root out the darnel, to fix the problem, the Master orders, “Let them both grow till the harvest.” This is a stunning proposal: Just leave the weeds alone? You mean, “Let them have their way?” On the surface, the parable seems to be calling for passivity in the face of evil or worse, the tolerance of evil. Why would the master say what he said to his servants?
The counsel of our Lord is prudent. It is a reminder that life can be messy and we need not and should not, play God or vigilantes. Since this is God’s Kingdom, He should be in charge. He sets the agenda, He lays out the path, and He determines the deadline. The problem is that the difference between the wheat and darnel is not always going to be obvious, and that there is potential danger of mistaking the good for the bad, the will of man for that of the will of God.
Whether we would be willing to admit it or not, both wheat and darnel may be mixed up within every person. Goodness and evil, love and hate, prosperity and adversity, joy and sorrow all are so intimately intertwined. We may risk getting rid of the good in our zealous desire to root out the bad. Destroy the possibility of evil and you also destroy the possibility of goodness. What may seem to be a mess may actually be God’s way of providing a solution. The perceived curse is actually a blessing.
The patience of the farmer in letting the darnel grow on until harvest time, exemplifies the infinite mercy and wisdom of God toward sinners. The parable reminds us that sinners are to be dealt with patiently, it offers us assurance that in the end God’s way will be victorious. That one day “the virtuous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father”. The darnel could not change its nature, but the sinner can change his ways and God gives him every chance and every help to do this, up to his last moment of life. But in the end, there will be Judgment. God is never soft with evil or sin, but He is ever patient in providing opportunities to the sinner to repent. The sinner who chooses not to repent, however, will have to face judgment because the God of Mercy is also the God of Justice. Without Justice, His mercy would be vacuous.
We must learn a double lesson of patience from this parable. First, to be patient with those who make our spiritual progress more difficult for us—they are actually helping us to be better Christians if we bear with patience the injuries they inflict on us. Second, we must try to imitate the patience God shows in His dealings with sinners. Such patience, however, can never be interpreted as mere passivity. I don’t think God wants us to wait ‘patiently,’ twiddle our thumbs and do nothing. We should never tire of striving against evil. While we must not approve of evil deeds or sins of others, we must still look on them as our brothers and sisters and do all in our power to put them back on the right road to heaven. We can do this by our good example, and by fervent prayer for their conversion. Always remember that it is an act of mercy to admonish a sinner and correct error.
When you take a closer look at what is happening in the world, in society, in your family or even in the Church, do not panic when you only perceive chaos. God remains in charge. Everything may seem to be getting completely out of control. But God remains in control. God does not only tolerate the messiness but in fact subverts the messiness and uses it as the raw material of His Kingdom. He often chooses and uses the defective, the rejects, the marginalised, the sinners to be His instruments of grace.
We long for the time when the Kingdom will be complete, but that perfection would not be found in any earthly or human constructed Utopia. For now, we have to recognise that this is the way that God creates and works, and brings good life. God allows the mess. He demonstrates the value of the mess through the death of His Son on the cross. At the moment of the crucifixion, it becomes clear that evil is utterly subverted for good. The Kingdom is built on the blood of martyrs, rather than on success stories. Let us never forget that persecution cannot destroy the Church, it can only make her stronger.
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A
Familiarity with the parables often takes the edge out of the narrative and we end up with a sedated explanation. But try examining this parable through the eyes of a seasoned farmer and you will discover something exceedingly shocking.
People who live day-to-day, who practice subsistence farming as a matter of survival, would have treated seed with great care and caution. Seed was precious, expensive and not to be wasted. A good farmer does not throw seed recklessly on hard-packed trails and into beds of weeds with no apparent concern for where it lands. No sane farmer in Jesus’ day or our day would treat seed this way.
But this is not the picture we get when we watch the sower in this parable. He is not careful. He is not meticulous. He is not cautious. He is radically and irresponsibly reckless. This guy just throws seed everywhere!
Most homilies, explanations and even our Lord’s own explanation focus on the kinds of soil. It is a powerful picture of different hearts, real people, who are open or closed to the gospel. But it is also necessary to focus on the reckless, irresponsible, out-of-control farmer who throws seed on paths, in the weeds, in shallow and deep soil . . . everywhere! To a regular farmer, this sower is absolutely incompetent and should never be allowed to come close to any farmland. But for Christians who see this as a parable of how the Word of God is shared, this sower is beautiful, bold, fearless, and generous.
The parable shows us a God who showers His graces generously and indiscriminately. Indeed, “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). God sows with cheerful abandon. Therefore, God is not to be faulted for favouring some over others. His seed falls on different soils as His Word is shared with different hearts. The reception of the Word of God makes one fruitful. Reception does not depend upon God, the sower nor on the seed; it depends upon our decision. We are the kind of soil we choose to be.
Likewise, we too are called to imitate this seemingly reckless but truly generous sower, in how we share the gospel with others. The projected outcome, the likelihood of success, should not be the sole consideration that would limit our outreach and focus. Often, we are tempted to focus only on preaching to the choir, to the converted, knowing that our message would be well received. Common sense will tell you: don’t waste your time and effort with those who are obstinate and who refuse to listen. In fact, you may even come across as annoying and nagging. But we fail to recognise that it is those who are seemingly hardened of heart that needs the liberating message of the gospel more than others, because it is the sick who requires a physician, not the healthy.
We must not be stingy or overcautious with the sharing of the Word. Ultimately, we must learn to trust the efficacy of the Word and the Power of God to make His message take root in the heart soils of our audience and bear fruit. As St Paul reminds us, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow” (1 Cor 3:6). So sow! Sow generously! Sow with abandonment and hold nothing back! You will never know that where you have sown, the Word will produce a rich harvest, “some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Listen, anyone who has ears.”
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A
Today’s gospel is made up of two parts. And if you really take a second closer look at both parts and consider the implications of what the Lord is telling us, both are equally inexplicable.
God does seem to be a Divine Troll who likes to play cruel tricks on us by “hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.” To find a clue to this paradoxical statement, one must go back to the primordial garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were permitted to eat all the fruits of the fruit bearing trees in that garden save and except, for the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Despite this warning, our first parents disobeyed the clear and unambiguous instructions of God and consumed the forbidden fruit.
One may think that God’s verdict is an overreaction to a petty crime. But when examined closely, the story reveals the same theme which our Lord wishes to convey in the first part of today’s passage. True wisdom, “knowledge of good and bad,” can only be arrived at by humbly submitting to God and never apart from Him. Adam and Eve sought autonomy from God in making future moral judgments and this was their biggest mistake, the height of human folly. As the Psalmist reminds us: “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God”” (psalm 14:1; 53:1).
St Paul draws upon this reasoning when he concludes in his letter to the Romans that those who live unspiritual lives (lives without God) will die, whereas those who live spiritual lives, will live. The former may think themselves clever and wise in the ways of the world but would be proven the fool when they stand before God spiritually bankrupt.
We live in two worlds, the visible and the invisible. But all too often we focus so much on what we can see and hear that we neglect the world of the Spirit. It is in this invisible interior world that we see God more clearly. I’m reminded of the story of how St Brigid, one of the three patron saints of Ireland, performed a miracle by healing the blindness of an old and holy nun so as the latter could view a most beautiful sunset. After having admired God’s creation for a few moments, the holy nun turned to St Brigid and made this request: “Close my eyes again dear mother, for when the world is so visible to the eyes, God is less clearly seen to the soul.”
So, when God conceals something behind the veneer of mystery, He does so not out of spite or cruelty. He hides that which is most valuable because the things which are easily accessible often lose their value in our estimation. Familiarity breeds contempt while mystery heightens our desire for it.
We must now turn our attention to the second part of our Lord’s teaching. Some may think that this second half is preferable to the first part, since our Lord has promised us rest and that He will remove our burdens if we were to only come to Him in trust. But a closer look at the words of our Lord will also result in something no less befuddling than the first part.
Don’t you think it’s a little bit strange that the Lord’s idea of getting us to rest in Him involves putting on a yoke? A yoke was not created for rest; it was created for work. It literally has nothing to do with rest at all. When our Lord invited the weary and heavy laden to come to Him and find rest, we would expect Him to say something like; Take off that yoke you’re wearing — you don’t need it anymore! But Jesus’ solution for yoke-weariness was not to cast off the yoke entirely; it was to yoke ourselves to Him, to walk in step with Him, to work in sync with Him.
What is the yoke of Christ? The yoke came to be understood by the Jews as a metaphor for the Law. The Jews would use the yoke of the Mosaic Law to pull their life and everything in it along. It left them, however, tired, worn out, and burned out on a religion which laid on more burdens than lifts them. The yoke of grace which our Lord offered was contrary to the yoke of the Law. It was a move from depending on one’s own efforts and ability, to depending on God’s grace and power. This is a different kind of yoke, one perfectly fitted to support and aid us in fulfilling His purpose for our lives. That doesn’t mean being yoked to Christ will always be comfortable, but it’s not supposed to crush us either. You see, that when we are yoked to Christ, He carries most of the weight. He makes Himself become a beast of burden, a donkey like what we heard in the first reading, to bear us and lead us to victory and rest.
Today, most of us don’t suffer under the yoke of the Law like Jesus’ listeners did, but we have other yokes. Chief among these I would suspect is the yoke of performance, the yoke of living up to other people’s expectations, real or imagined. For example, we want to be the best parents possible, so we look for the ideal parenting methods. How our kids turn out is the measure of our parenting success (we think), so we stress out about every little thing they do wrong or might do wrong. Or perhaps we want to be the best at our jobs, so we take on more and more responsibilities because we are afraid that saying no means we might fall behind, lose some of our perks, or be overlooked for the next raise or promotion. Eventually, the overwhelming demands on our limited time and energies render us incapable of hearing the voice of God because we don’t even have time to stop and listen.
When we pull the burdens of life by the yoke of our own performance, then performance sets the pace. We race faster and faster, trying to outdo our last personal best or to measure up to the expectations of others. But when we take on the yoke of Christ and let Him lead, He determines the pace, and we find that His grace makes up what we lack.
So, in these two principles laid out in the Gospel, our Lord presents us with the paradox of Christian discipleship in a nutshell. The wisdom of God may seem foolish in comparison to all the cunning wiles of the worldly and unspiritual people of this world, and yet it is the only wisdom that can guarantee our salvation. The man who counts himself wise in the ways of the world may end up the fool in the after life because the wisdom of God has been hidden from them, as a result of their own choice in pursuing worldly riches.
Likewise, in wishing to be truly free, we must not cast off everything in pursuit of libertine hedonism but instead humbly submit to the yoke of Christ which is light and easy. The yoke of Christ is perfectly fitted to support and aid us in fulfilling His Father’s purpose for our lives. It’s not always comfortable, but that’s not the point. It is always what I need for the path He wants me to walk. Under the yoke of grace, I rest content with where I am right here, right now, weaknesses and all — as long as I am walking close to the Lord Jesus, knowing that with Him, in Him and through Him, I will be led to greater heights.
