Faith

A mixed bag of saints and sinners – Tuesday, 17th week in ordinary time – Mt 13:36-43

 Any community of faith does not live in isolation; it lives within the world where corruption does attempt to make its home among believers. Often we see such elements within the Church, elements that cause scandal among believers, leaving believers wondering why God permits such happenings.

We would all like a perfect world but that is not how reality plays out. There are weeds and wheat in the kingdom of God and often the darnel (weeds) looks exactly like the wheat. Sure we would like to weed out the rot but then there is always a risk that the wheat might also be uprooted. Should collateral damage be ok in the Church? Can a few good Christians take a hit if the larger majority of sinners can be eradicated?

Jesus’ solution is one that takes the line of wait and watch; He advocates patience, tolerance and forbearance for the kingdom of God is a mixed bag of saints and sinner on earth. While some on earth may live in the delusion that the corruption of death is a far way calling, the reality is that death comes like a thief in the night. The justice of God exists, but not in our time, in His time.

Jesus, in explaining this parable to the disciples, is making a point; that divine judgment will  be delivered but that judgment is His to make and not for us to usurp. Often times, members of the Church feel compelled to eradicate, what seems to the human mind, as a sinful brother or sister. Gathering in and weeding out the sinners of the world is not ours; that is for the reapers or His angelic agents, as in the parable of the dragnet.

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Faith

From small beginnings come great endings – 17th week in ordinary time – Mt 13:31-35

Chapter 13 of the Gospel according to Matthew is the third of the five blocks of teaching found in this Gospel. This block of teaching is called the ‘Parable Discourse’ and consists of seven parables. Matthew who is the great systematiser of Jesus’ teachings arranges his material in numbers of three or seven. There are seven articles in the Lord’s prayer, seven  demons in  12:45, seven loaves  in 15:34, seven baskets of scraps left over, seven brothers in 22:25, seven woes against the Pharisees in chapter 23 and we are asked to forgive seventy times seven.

We are now in the third of the seven parables of the kingdom found in chapter 13 and already one has seen that the kingdom of God cannot be boxed into a set of predictable characteristics for it is ‘this and much more’.  While the previous parable of the weed and wheat reminds us that the kingdom will face opposition, Jesus also gives us parables of hope for the Kingdom of God will also expand despite opposition.

Today’s readings contain two parables of expansion of the kingdom; one outward (the mustard seed) and one inward (the parable of the yeast). While the parable of the mustard seed reminds us that even a tiny seed like the mustard can explode into the greatest of shrubs for all to see, the parable of the yeast reminds us that the kingdom can grow silently inward, like yeast that is mixed in flour.

From small beginnings come great endings, this is what we are reminded of today. While the example of the mustard seed is obvious the parable of the yeast may not be so. At the time of Jesus, leaven rather than the tided English translation, yeast, was used to prove bread. Leaven was a rotting, moulding lump of bread which was mixed into three measures of flour, enough to feed a hundred people.

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Unity not uniformity – Friday, 16th Week in ordinary time – Mt 13:18-23

 One third of Jesus’ teachings were in parables. His objective was to make His message as simple as possible so that the message of the kingdom would take root and bear an abundant harvest. Chapter thirteen has seven parables relating to the kingdom of heaven and the first of these parables is the parable of the sower.

Realistically speaking, this title of this parable is misleading. The parable is not about the sower or the seed as much as it is about the soil. There is no preferential treatment shown or given by the sower whose identity is assumed to be Jesus himself. The seed scattered is the same; the real focus of the story is the soil or the listeners of this parable.

Jesus chose the idyllic setting of the Sea of Galilee to tell this parable; it was here that He had handpicked the twelve. Now in the face of a growing following, He sat in a boat while the crowd stood on the beach.

Chapter thirteen begins by telling us that that Jesus told the crowds ‘many things’ in parables. We can safely assume that Matthew’s collection of seven such parables, in this chapter, were only some of the many wonderful parables that Jesus shared in order to spread His message.

The readers of Matthew’s Gospel would have had no problem understanding this parable for they were living its consequences. Matthew’s community was no care free hippie generation. Their decision to follow Christ clandestinely or openly meant that consequences followed. The range of rejection and persecution was spread over thickly from family to state. The possibility of being put to death for one’s belief always loomed large.

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A kingdom full of surprises –  Thursday, 16th week in ordinary time – Mt 13:10-17

 Matthew chapter 13 is also called the parable discourse. It is the third of five discourses found in the Gospel of Matthew.  In it are found seven parables attempting to explain what the kingdom of God is like. Remember that Jesus does not limit the notion of the kingdom of God to a specific idea but He always compares it; “ the kingdom of God is like”. Yet the kingdom is always greater than what it has been compared to.

A parable is really a ‘throwing alongside’.  It is a comparison of two entities so that one may throw light on the other.  There was a reason why Jesus spoke in parables. Parables embodied simple elements of everyday life, it avoided the jargon of the learned and it got the message across simply. For Jesus it was the best means of communication especially since His intended hearers were the simple folk.

There was a reason why Jesus took His message to the masses. Chapters eleven and twelve which precede this chapter, clearly tell us of the heightened tension between Jesus and the Jewish leadership.  No matter what He did, they simply found fault with him. Their learning came in the way of the unfolding reality that Jesus had come as the Messiah.

It is for this reason, that chapter 11:25, has Jesus exclaiming a thanksgiving; for the mysteries are hidden from the learned and revealed to mere children.  Our Gospel of today is a take-off from the issue at hand.  There was nothing wrong with the sower or the seed, the problem is always the soil and the soil of the Jewish leadership was anything but receptive; it was hardened, shallow and thorn infested.

Perhaps the disciples wanted Jesus to speak in lofty words like the Rabbis, which necessitated their question; why do you speak to them in parables? There is a clear reference to the ‘them’ verses us in the Gospel of Matthew. So who were these ‘them’?

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My boys-Feast of St James the Apostle – Matthew 20: 20-28

Mrs Zebedee was quite a sassy woman and that mixed with an ambitious plan for her sons. It seemed to her that Jesus was rapidly giving away ministerial portfolios. Peter had already been given the keys of the kingdom with power to bind and loose anything on earth. So the prime ministerial berth was taken and now one had to move in fast to get anywhere close to the other plum postings.

Mrs Zebedee must have thought, why not go for the seats on the left and right. Home and finance minister is not so bad for “my boys”. So she waltzed into the presence of the Master for she knew that up to her sons, they would dare not ask Jesus for any such favour.  Her request seems anything but polite; “Command them to sit at your right and left”.  “They would dare not disobey Jesus if He commanded them”, she must have thought.

Power can make us all go a bit crazy and Mrs Zebedee is not too far in the game. That’s not the kingdom that Jesus envisaged. His was a kingdom of servant leadership and He was the servant par excellence. It was a long time before the words of Jesus actually sunk in, for while He was alive they were all fighting for special places.

The Gospels tell us that when they ten disciples heard of James and John’s plan to upstart them, they were indignant. Their indignation did not stem from the fact that the sons of thunder dared to disturb the master with such ‘trivialities’; their indignation came from the fact that James and John had beaten them to the power game.

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