Give them something to eat yourselves

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

After an exhausting day of public ministry, our Lord decides to withdraw and retire to a deserted place, hoping to escape the fawning crowds, recover from the fatigue and have time to commune with His Father. But instead of prayerful rest, He is confronted once again by the crowds who continue to trail Him and who refuse to leave Him alone. Instead of annoyance, Saint Matthew tells us that the Lord took pity on them. Saint Matthew’s words describe the tenderness and love that characterises a true Shepherd’s heart. We may sometimes sound tiresome even to our loved ones, especially when they have to put up with our whining, complaining and demands, but here’s the good news: God never tires of us. Here our Lord understood the hunger of the crowds and instead of just turning them away, He acts and He invites His disciples to do the same.

But there is a problem - a problem of limited resources and colossal needs, the perennial problem which plagues humanity. The Lord’s disciples point out this conundrum to the Lord and suggests this solution, ‘This is a lonely place, and the time has slipped by; so send the people away, and they can go to the villages to buy themselves some food.’ Logical and practical. But our Lord is adamant and counter proposes, ‘There is no need for them to go: give them something to eat yourselves.’ What a challenge? It would have been so much easier to just say, “This isn’t my problem”; “I can’t be the saviour of the world; I can’t solve every problem”; “People just have to learn how to take care of themselves.” But the Lord would not have any of these excuses. Instead, He enlists His disciples in the work of feeding the multitude. Our Lord, being God, could have done this on His own without their help but He chose not to. Instead, He deliberately chooses to involve them in His miraculous feeding.

They then retort with this reality check - they only have five loaves and two fish, to be shared among 5,000 men (not counting the women and the children). The feat, as noble as it sounds, is simply impossible! This problem would certainly resonate with those who are responsible for assigning seats for Mass every Sunday. They have to crack their heads in order to find solutions to accommodate the thousands who want to come to Church every week and to match this figure with the limited number of seats.

The juxtaposition of our Lord’s response and the disciples’ reaction presents us with two very different visions – a human and a spiritual one. The human vision recognises the problem, but assesses it based on these considerations – one’s ability and capacity to help and the availability of sufficient resources. There is nothing wrong with this. All good planning involves looking at what we possess before we commit to a project.

But our Lord provides us with another vision. A vision where He is fundamentally present and in charge. And when He is present, everything changes. Remember, that the Lord Jesus Christ is God, who is capable of not only performing miracles but there is nothing which He cannot accomplish or do. If disciples could not see beyond their inadequacies, our Lord is not limited in His vision. He sees the hunger of His people. He sees beyond the physical and material needs of persons. These things are important and necessary but man’s greatest need is spiritual. Our Lord can heal our bodies and fill our stomachs, but that is only a stopgap measure. What mankind needs more than a miracle worker or a philanthropist is a Saviour, because our greatest problem is not poverty, hunger or war, it is sin. And the Saviour chooses to enlist us in this grand work of salvation.

But what kind of people does He use? You would imagine that He would zoom in on the gifted, the resourceful or the rich. But He doesn’t. Instead, He takes anyone who is willing to risk sharing and trusting. In other words, any of us could be candidates of this grand scheme of His. How do we enlist? By yielding our littleness to the Master to use as He pleases. Our Lord tells us, “Bring them here to Me!” That’s the key! Give your inadequate resources and abilities to the Lord. The insufficient becomes more than sufficient when surrendered to Christ! We may think that we have nothing to offer, but the truth is that, all of us have something to offer – it’s just that it is inadequate. Jesus doesn’t ask you to give Him what you don’t have. He asks you to give Him what you do have. What Jesus did with this meagre supply of bread and fish is what He will do with us, warts, limitations, brokenness and all. If He can feed a multitude with that meagre ration, imagine what He could do with us.

So, the next time you receive an invitation to give something of yourself, do not just look at what you do not possess, look rather to what you do possess, humble and insignificant as it may seem to you. That is enough. Pope Francis reminds us: “the Lord makes us walk on his road, that of service, of sharing, of giving; and if it is shared, the little we have, the little we are, becomes riches; for the power of God—which is the power of love—comes down into our poverty to transform it. So let us ask ourselves this evening, in adoring Christ who is really present in the Eucharist: do I let myself be transformed by him? Do I let the Lord, who gives himself to me, guide me to going out ever more from my little enclosure, in order to give, to share, to love him and others?”

Seek Wisdom not just Knowledge

Seventeenth Ordinary Sunday Year A

We are bombarded with information like never before, due to the internet. Research is made easy with Google search engine and Wikipedia. But the real setback and downside of this informational deluge is that we are unable to separate the wheat from the darnel, the true from the false. We have more information than we can ever process at our finger-tips, but little wisdom. In fact, wisdom can be shattered by too much information.

That begs the question, what is wisdom? In Greek, the New Testament word for wisdom is ‘Sophia’. To be wise to a Greek meant to understand a concept, to analyse something. That's not the word in Hebrew. The word in Hebrew is ‘chakam’. The concept of wisdom in the Old Testament is a form of practical knowledge – How do we make correct choices in life? Biblical wisdom is not simply factual knowledge or information. Neither is it some clever opinion. Rather, it is being able to see things as they really are and make the right decisions. Wisdom helps us to distinguish Truth from falsehood, the good from the bad. This was the kind of wisdom that King Solomon had asked for – the ability to grasp the mind of God, His Laws and to distinguish good from evil. Strangely, this is the same knowledge coveted by Adam and Eve, and which they attempted to steal from Eden. They failed to recognise that they already had this gift at their disposal. They only had to listen to God and trust Him. God would tell them what is good and what is evil. Such wisdom was God’s to give, not for them to steal.

The two parables in today’s gospel, the parable of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price, give us several insights into Wisdom. First, the parables highlight the incomparable value of Wisdom. A single-hearted response is demanded of the one who finds the Kingdom of Heaven. Both protagonists didn’t haggle over price. They didn’t complain about the cost. On the contrary, they made their transactions joyfully, because what both men stood to gain was so tremendous that it made any cost, any sacrifice, insignificant in comparison. In the eyes of the world, their actions would have been regarded as foolishness. Only Wisdom would show that they had made the most significant investment of their lives.

Secondly, the parables teach us that Wisdom is never easily accessible. In both parables, the treasures are hidden, they are not easily accessible, they are sacred. In today’s society, the idea of mystery and ‘hiddenness’ is often associated with elitism. Most people demand accessibility. The problem is that accessibility is often mistaken for banality. In our effort to ensure accessibility to all and sundry, we have chosen to lower the bar that was set by our Lord Himself. Our catechism becomes dumbed-down, our liturgies are replaced with entertainment, our homilies become nothing more than stating the obvious.  On the contrary, our faith and worship seek to express the mystery of the holy and the eternal, and not just what is current and transitory. When a mystery becomes totally comprehensible, it ceases to be sacred. When a treasure is no longer hidden, it ceases to have value. Familiarity breeds contempt.

The parables also remind us that the most valuable thing in life demands sacrifice. Both of these parables involve men who had to make great sacrifices, selling everything that they had to obtain their treasures. Salvation comes at a heavy cost; it came at the cost of our Saviour’s life.  Unfortunately, our generation is a generation that wants everything easy. We want to enjoy all the blessings of the kingdom, but we don’t want to do anything, we don’t want to give anything, and we certainly don’t want to sacrifice anything. Even though great sacrifice is required, it is never a burden. Holy Wisdom will help us appreciate that the Kingdom is always a source of Joy. Notice the joy of the discovery, as well as the joy of parting with one’s possessions to acquire that treasure or the pearl of great price. These men do not just sell everything they have, but they do so with exuberant joy. There is no regret in their actions. Perhaps the real test of a disciple’s commitment is not so much whether he is willing to make sacrifices for our Lord, but whether he is able to make those sacrifices joyfully, without complaining.

Finally, Wisdom is not just a philosophical concept nor practical knowledge on how we should live our lives. In fact, Scriptures would eventually speak of wisdom as a personified attribute of God. Wisdom is a person. Christ Himself is the “power and wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). Christ is the Perfection and the Incarnation of Wisdom. St Irenaeus reminds us that Christ himself “is the treasure hidden within Scriptures” and according to St Augustine, He is the pearl of great price. That is why for those who have discovered that He is their true treasure and the pearl of incomparable price, other things in this world cease to have value in their eyes. As St Paul puts it, “because of the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, I count everything else as loss. For Him I have accepted the loss of all other things, and look on them all as filth if only I can gain Christ.” (Philippians 3:8)

To Tolerate or Not?

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

There is a wonderful legend of how Abraham offered hospitality to a visitor, as was his custom each day. But on that day, it was a fire worshipper, presumably a Zoroastrian (who if you were to fact-check, does not actually worship fire). Of course, his guest’s identity had remained a secret until the moment when Abraham asked him to offer prayers of thanksgiving for the meal. The ‘cat was out of the bag’ when the guest began to pray in his own fashion. Abraham flew into a rage and threw him out of his tent. When Abraham had composed himself and began to pray, God spoke to him: “I had tolerated this man who does not worship me for all the years of his life and showed him hospitality. Could you not tolerate him for one night?”

Tolerance is not such a difficult word to understand. Tolerance is allowing something or someone to just be. Yes, we all believe that there must be some level of tolerance to get along in a society of people with disparate viewpoints, ideas, religions and cultures. But it is alarming to note that we are living in an increasingly intolerant society.

The irony is that this growing intolerance is often not brought about by our stereotypical bigoted close-minded conservatives. Surely there are many intolerant people to be found among conservatives. But today, intolerance largely comes from progressive people who wish to create a utopian ideal of a world where everything and everyone should be tolerated, except those who disagree with their vision or methods. They have to be “cancelled.”

Let’s be clear, as Christians, some things should always be tolerated and other things should never be tolerated. Persistent unrepentant sin should never be tolerated. Why should we be so intolerant to sin? Sin is like a cancer that, if left untreated, leads to death. It is never merciful or charitable to tolerate sin. In fact, it is a lack of mercy and love, if we choose to allow sin to fester and grow without challenging it. As St Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:1, 2).

If sin is never to be tolerated, how about sinners? Here’s the amazing thing - sinners should always be tolerated. Why? Well, people can, and they do change. They may have done many bad things in their lives but they need not be defined by these bad things for the rest of their lives. Their condition is not irredeemable. That’s the power of grace and repentance. Every saint has a past and every sinner can have a different future.

All sinners have the potential of becoming saints. We must believe that people can change. This is an important truth that we must hold on to and even defend because we should never forget that we are all sinners who have sinned and would most likely continue to sin. When we look at how Jesus interacted with sinners who were in need of salvation, we learn that tolerance toward sinners was the key to how He reached out to them. Until a sinner dies, there is always hope for repentance, there is always hope for conversion, there is always hope for salvation.

This is the message of hope that we find in today’s parable. The parable of the wheat and the darnel reminds us that our families, our communities, our society and even our Church will always be a mixture of good and bad. On this side of heaven, nothing is perfect. The more astonishing truth is that the good and the bad that we see around us also resides within each of us. Before we try to rid society and the world completely of the evil we see, we should begin with ourselves. Let me assure you that this is a life-long project. I should know. I’m still working on my issues with the grace of God.

Throughout our lives we must strive against the evil that not only surrounds us but that which lurks within our hearts. We must never resign ourselves to sin or retreat from the battle. Although we must constantly strive against evil, let us not be deluded to think that we will be able to rid ourselves completely of all sin and our propensity to sin, or that we can create a perfect Utopian society. We need to remember that Utopia does not exist because, save for Jesus Christ and His mother Mary, the world is made up of imperfect individuals. In fact, the word Utopia comes from two Greek words which means, no place.

God tolerates sinners, God tolerates us and all our nonsense while we are alive, not because He tolerates or even approves of sin. He tolerates us because in His wisdom, love and mercy, He knows that there is always hope for us to turn from our wicked ways and turn to Him in love and repentance. That’s the gift of human freedom. In the Second Reading, we are told that the Holy Spirit “comes to help us in our weakness.”

The Psalmist tells us that the Lord is “good and forgiving,” but make no mistake, He is also a God of Justice. There will be a day of reckoning, a day of judgment. God may tolerate our countless mistakes while we are alive, but He will not tolerate sin a day longer after death. Let us, therefore, not go to our graves stubbornly clinging on to sin, because at the appointed harvest time, God will say to the reapers: “First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn.” May we find ourselves among the wheat at that appointed day, instead of being bundled with the darnel.

The Sower sows Himself

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Today, many preachers may choose to skip the homily. The congregation has already been treated to a lengthy gospel passage and our Lord seems to have done an excellent job in unpacking His own teaching, which leaves little room, for us mortal preachers to expand upon it. Furthermore, it’s the familiar parable of the Sower. We would be hard pressed to find someone in the audience who has never heard of this parable or who is unfamiliar with its meaning. Here are the essential elements – the sower, the seeds and the four types of soil.

The problem with our text and most other translations is that, the word “seed” does not appear anywhere in the original Greek version. It is simply added in by the translators. In the Greek version, Jesus simply says that a sower went out to sow, and “some” fell to the ground. In other words, Jesus is saying the sower is definitely sowing, but what exactly he is sowing is left vague. Translators only assume that it is seed, since that is what you would typically expect sowers to sow. That isn’t an illogical assumption. By filling in the blanks, the translators do not allow the reader the luxury of figuring out exactly what mysterious thing the sower is doing.

So, what is this “some” or “seed”? In verse 19, our Lord reveals that the seed is the “word of the kingdom.” It is the “Logos.” Remember that the “word” or the “Logos” is not a thing. It is a person - Jesus Christ is the Word Incarnate. If the “Sower” is Christ, and the seed-word is Christ, then the “Sower” is sowing Himself.

Pope Benedict said that this parable is a sort of autobiography of Jesus; it was how He was already living out His mission and ministry. Christ gives Himself freely and abundantly to all, even in the face of rejection and indifference. He is the seed that falls into the ground and dies. Rejected by so many, He finally emerges victorious over death and His enemies, and His victory bears fruit aplenty in the Church. And the amazing thing is that He accomplished all of this whilst respecting the freedom of His audience. The parable is a story of Jesus!

Pope Benedict writes, "God does not force us to believe in Him, but draws us to Himself through the truth and goodness of His incarnate Son. Love, in fact, always respects freedom." Freedom is the basis of our relationship with God. Freedom allows us to make a response to the gift of the Word, to choose between accepting the Word or rejecting it. Human freedom helps us to understand the different kinds of responses to Christ and His message. This is what we see in the parable. We have the well-trodden path of the hardened heart; the rocky ground of those who look for instant gratification but are weak in making commitments; then, there's the thorny ground where the heart is overtaken by too many other distractions. All of these are definite blocks to the reception of the gospel and yet, the sower is not daunted and he continues to sow without hesitation or regret.

In the parable, the sower is throwing seed everywhere, even in places where the seed has little chance to grow. The good news is that the Word, Jesus Christ Himself, is offered to all and sundry, the good and the bad, the excited and the indifferent, the pious and the impious. It’s a beautiful reminder that Christ never tires and He never gives up sowing in our lives even though He has to contend with the garden of our hearts overgrown with debris, weeds, thorns and rocks. He patiently waits for our response.

How can we respond? How can we make a deeper commitment to His Word so that it can yield a good harvest? “Seeing” Christ in His sacraments and “hearing” His Word are important. But we can’t, and we shouldn’t stop here. So many see but do not perceive, and others listen but do not hear. Seeing and hearing Christ are truly laudable but they are not enough to guarantee lasting happiness. Seeing and hearing must lead to following. This is because the Word is not just a text to be studied, but a person to be imitated and followed. Christians are not People of the Book, as Muslims would call us, or as Protestants would profess. We are People of the Living, Dynamic Word who became flesh, and dwelt among us and left us a lasting sign and memorial of His presence, in the Blessed Sacrament. For only a heartfelt response to this Living Word, to allow His message to take root and transform us, can ultimately yield a bountiful harvest.

Yoked to Christ

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Many of you must be really relieved to be back in Church after such a long break. For some priests, it’s back to work after a long rest. But for others, like me, there has been “no rest for the wicked.” Whichever category you may fall under, it is good to hear our Lord’s words in today’s gospel, “Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.”

You are privileged to be the first batch of Catholics to return to our first public Mass in this parish. But with this privilege comes a heavy responsibility. You are here because you have agreed to be on duty to serve the rest of the community when they return in the following weeks.

Now being on duty, seems to be anything but restful. In fact, it seems to go against the obligation to rest from servile work on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. This is what the Code of Canon Law says, “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are obliged to assist at Mass. They are also to abstain from such work or business that would inhibit the worship to be given to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, or the due relaxation of mind and body” (canon 1247). But assisting others to worship at Holy Mass does not violate this Law because at Mass your work is to worship God, and you are never called to rest from worshiping God.

The key to understanding this rest, is the Hebrew word sabat, which means "to rest or stop or cease from work." The origin of the Sabbath goes back to Creation. After creating the heavens and the earth in six days, God "rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made". God used the example of His resting on the seventh day of Creation, to establish the principle of the Sabbath day rest for His people. God gave the Israelites the fourth Commandment (third commandment in the Catholic enumeration). They were to "remember" the Sabbath day and "keep it holy." One day out of every seven, they were to rest from their labours and give the same day of rest to their servants and animals. This was not just a physical rest, but a cessation of labouring.

With the establishment of the Old Testament Law, the Jews were constantly "labouring" to make themselves righteous before God. Their labours included trying to obey a myriad of do’s and don’ts on the Sabbath. It is interesting to note that the Law was often described in rabbinical teachings as a “yoke”. But what really happened was that this yoke of the Law, which was meant to free them, turned out to be an impossibly heavy burden.

The Law of Moses did not actually bring any relief to the people. This was because it was merely an anticipation of Christ, the One who came to fulfill the Law, the Only One who could truly bring peace and rest to all. Because of what He did on the cross, we no longer have to "labour" in keeping the Mosaic Law in order to be justified in the sight of God. We can now cease from all our futile spiritual labours and rest in Him, not just one day a week, but always. And because Jesus, our Lord, is the Only One who can give us lasting rest, the day in the week in which we commemorate His resurrection, which Christians over the centuries have called “the Day of the Lord”, is now our new Christian Sabbath.

So, how can we experience this lasting rest? What our Lord proposes seems strange - we need to shoulder His yoke in order to find rest. A yoke was not created for rest; it was created for work. It literally has nothing to do with rest at all. When Jesus invited the weary and heavy laden to come to Him and find rest, we would expect Him to say something like, “Take off the yoke - be free!” But our Lord’s solution for weariness was not to cast off the yoke; but rather to yoke ourselves to Him, to walk in step with Him. Those who were under the Mosaic Law were said to be yoked to Moses. Likewise, those who call themselves Christians, should be similarly yoked to Christ. To be yoked to Him means to submit to His authority. Instead of being crushed by His authority, Christ offers us freedom and rest. This is a different kind of yoke, one perfectly fitted to support us. When we are yoked to Christ, He carries most of the weight. That doesn’t mean being yoked to Christ will always be comfortable, but it’s not supposed to crush us either. His yoke ultimately points to the cross. The cross will demand self-denial but it also promises salvation.

As we gradually return to our churches, let us reclaim Sunday as a day set aside for the Lord. Throughout the week, we strive, we work hard to achieve our goals, but on this special day, when our Lord ended His three days of rest in the tomb, we are asked to place all our burdens, cares and struggles at His feet. We are called to rest because God continues to work even when man ceases to do so. So, if you are feeling restless, distraught, discouraged or even perhaps at the edge of despair, put your shoulder into His yoke, so that He might bear all your burdens. Learn to walk yoked to our Lord, and you will find rest for your soul. This is His promise. “Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.”