Some Thoughts On Grace

                 

What can be the driving force, the motivation which leads a person either to begin, to begin anew, or to continue to live the life which we call “Christian”? I believe that the answer to this is what we call grace.

The word grace can have lots of meanings and understandings. We speak of “grace” before meals. We point to the style and “grace” of an ice-skater or a ballet dancer. When special guests come, we set a table “graced” with fine linen, elegant china, and exquisite crystal. We even speak of the “grace” of a happy death.

On Christmas Day, 1977, when my daughter was seven years old, she came to me with a small, taped-up envelope as we were opening our gifts. From the hapless care with which she’d wrapped it, and the solemn way in which she presented it -- with all of a 1st grader’s formality! -- I knew that it was something very special. On a small card, a familiar scrawl had written: “Dad, I know that this is a very small thing for a gift but it is the only rare and beatyfull [thing] I could find. I hope you like it...” Enclosed in the card was a large, chipped rhinestone. That is one of the most precious gifts I’ve ever received, because the rhinestone was a symbol for the really rare and beautiful gift: the gift of herself. What I experienced in receiving that child’s gift is about as close as I can come, humanly, to describing what God’s gift of grace to you and me is like.

The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (p. 858) says that “Grace is God’s favor towards us, unearned and undeserved; by grace God forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts, and strengthens our wills.” 

“God’s favor”:  When you’re a favorite or when someone does you a favor, it’s because you’re special; in fact, because you’re unique. You mean something. You’re important to the other person. And the favor is freely given. The giver consciously chooses to give it to you. A mature person doesn’t give favors indiscriminately or routinely. Favor is reserved for a special someone, on a rare and singular occasion. Grace is God’s favoring you and me: except that it’s not something. It’s God’s very self, God Who is amazing Love, and that is given to you at creation forever, if you choose, in the very person and nature who you and I are.

“Towards us, unearned and undeserved”: St. Paul has a passage in Ephesians 2 (5-10), and upon reading it one morning in the study hall my first year in college seminary, I broke into tears at the power of its message: “Even though we were dead in our sins, God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love God had for us, gave us life together with Christ -- it is, remember, by grace and not by achievement that you are saved...Thus God shows for all time the tremendous generosity of the grace and kindness God has expressed towards us in Christ Jesus. It was nothing you could or did achieve: it was God’s gift...which saved you. No one can pride oneself on earning the love of God. The fact is that what we are, we owe to the hand of God upon us…” “Unearned”, “undeserved”. We can each easily recall just the foolish things we’ve done in the past: the careless mistakes, the dumb things we all do without using our God-given reason -- not to mention our willful and deliberate selfishness. Yet St. Paul assures us that “though sin is shown to be wide and deep, thank God that God’s grace is wider and deeper still!”

The description of grace I mentioned before goes on to say that God’s favor “forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts, and strengthens our wills.” Remember the phrase in St. Luke’s account of the Gospel (17:21) where he says: “The reign of God is within you”? Well, that’s what being in grace means: God in Jesus is present within you: all the time, forgiving in mercy, enlightening by his Word, loving and empowering you through the Holy Spirit. Christ’s presence is a sanctifying grace, i.e., a holy-making gift, because the Holy God -- Creator, Redeemer, and Amazing Love -- hands God’s very self over to you and to me, God’s “favored” ones.

Coming to faith by gradual awareness of God’s presence in us through Christ and the Spirit, in the very person and nature in which you and I are created, amounts to something of a personal revolution. We’re all seekers by nature. Spiritual writer James Finley describes a seeker as "a person who, having once caught a glimpse of God, knows that only God will do". We can all think of times when we’ve had “quickening moments”, “stirrings of love”, “fleeting flashes”. In those moments we subtly recognize the holiness of life as it is: in nature around us; in our times of intimacy; in solitude; in music, poetry and art; in the experience of birth; in observing children and young people; in helping others; even in experiencing death, our own or others’. These are moments of revelation, literally, of having the “veil”, the curtain, pulled back for us. God passes through the gate in our momentary quickenings, awakening us to Love, to Godself, given to us in our creation. God continually awakens you and me to see that we have the ability to live habitually conscious of this Love giving Itself away. It calls forth in us a desire for a more lasting, daily deepening awareness of the life which is at once God’s and ours. And the effect of these moments of grace is cumulative, i.e., they lead to our wanting to set out upon the path leading to even deeper experiences of oneness with the Love which abides at the very center of our being. For some, this happens at an important turning-point in our life. For others, it gains momentum through a longer process of investigation, questioning, study, and struggle. For all of us, this is what we mean by “following Christ”, living the Christian life, living in grace.

In speaking of “Grace” through the years: in sermons, retreats and Cursillos, I’ve often begun by saying: “I was conceived in and born of “Grace”. That was because my mother’s name was “Grace”.  My mom favored me with warmth and understanding; with respect and love for others: with a sense of fairness and honesty. She shared with me her basic sense of the holy; of responsibility; and a love of learning. For Grace, who died in 2003 at age 88, her giving didn’t come easy. My father had left us when I was about three, and I was raised as an only child, though 50 years later, through a complicated maze of circumstances, I learned that I actually had four half-brothers and three half-sisters, who, except for a sister and a brother now deceased, range from ages 88 to 47! Grace and her older sister, Florence, my godmother, were only two years apart in age. They were very close growing up, not only as sisters, but as best friends. Sadly, both began drinking heavily in their young adulthood, and by midlife, both had become dependent on alcohol. 

 

Just after 8th Grade, having lived with my mom only 14 years, I entered Catholic seminary. A year after being ordained a Catholic priest in 1964, I unexpectedly and literally on the spur of the moment, made Cursillo #5 at a parish in Ft. Wayne, IN, in June, 1965, a men’s weekend with 57 laymen and clergy attending.  I still have the group picture and my original notes from the weekend. There I experienced first-hand and in a new way an incredible testimony to love and grace, shown in the caring and giving of the Cursillo team members and other participants. That love and grace was held out to each of us candidates for the taking.  

Three months later, I had an even more vivid encounter of the workings of love and grace which I’d witnessed at that Cursillo weekend. It was the autumn of 1965, and Aunt Florence’s problems with alcohol had become so serious that, by then, after an illustrious career as a nurse for almost 30 years, she now couldn’t hold down a job. By then I was at my first assignment for the Society of the Precious Blood: teaching philosophy and theology at a college in Wichita, KS. Florence called me one day from Ohio, and, in her inebriated desperation, calmly told me that she’d “hit bottom”, and that she simply wanted to end it all with the gun she had. She was calling me as a last resort before deciding whether or not to go through with it. All I could do was listen, for over an hour, and talk, and encourage her, and joke with her, and pray quietly. I honestly didn’t know what she would do after we hung up.

Fast forward three months: I learned from my Mom that Florence had gone back to college, she’d become active at church and was teaching a religion class, and had returned to her nursing job. She’d  discovered Alcoholics Anonymous, and had come to know how her Higher Power’s amazing love and grace was able to transform her life. Yes, and by that same love and grace Florence, too, made a Cursillo, in 1972, two years before she died of cancer. The circle of God’s love and grace kept expanding. A year later, in 1973, my Mom, Grace, also discovered Alcoholics Anonymous, through Florence’s testimony to Love. Seven years after that, Grace became the third person in our family to make a Cursillo!

After Florence’s recovery began, my mother told me that in each of Florence’s AA talks, and she gave many, she said that what was initially a turning point for her was something her nephew and godson had said to her during that conversation in the autumn of 1965. What I’d said to her in passing (and I’d actually forgotten it) was: “The difference between a saint and a sinner is that the sinner falls, refuses to get up, and just stays there; whereas the saint is a sinner who falls, but trusts Christ enough to take his hand, and to get up and go on.” It wasn’t even an original thought of mine, but rather something I’d heard during a college retreat! Yet it’s an example of how witnessing to love and grace, even subconsciously, can unfold exponentially, if we allow it. 

Eleven years later, after I’d left the Community and the priesthood, and after many, many spiritual dark valleys, traveling an unbelievable journey on which only God could have led me, I landed in California at a parish where one of the first things the Rector said to me was: “Hey, there’s something I think you might like to get involved in: it’s called ‘Cursillo‘“...Amazing grace! Some time after that, despite all my attempts at stonewalling, kicking and screaming, God favored me with the grace of priesthood for a second time, in the Episcopal Church; and this past June, I celebrated a total of 50 years as a priest.

The second talk during my Cursillo in 1965 was given by a Fr. McNulty, of whom I have no recollection at all, since he was there only for that talk. But I do remember that the title of his talk was “Grace”, and that in my original notes I jotted down that he had said this: “Grace is what God has to do to me to enable me to love as [God] loves.” 

Francis Thompson’s poem, The Hound of Heaven,  one which I’ve loved ever since high school, talks about Love’s relentless pursuit of you and me in lines which couldn’t be a better summing up of Grace:

“Alack, thou knowest not

How little worthy of any love thou art!

Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,

Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee I did but take,

Not for thy harms, 

But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.

All which thy child’s mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:

Rise, clasp My hand, and come.”  

(Adapted from a talk given at a Cursillo, October 24, 2014)

 

 

How To Deal With A Sticky Wicket

Ezekiel spoke his prophecies in the historical context of the 6th cent. B. C. exile of the Jewish people to Babylon. Nebuchadrezzar II had captured the city of Jerusalem in 597 and sent the king, Jehoiakim, most of the ruling class, and many others, including Ezekiel, to Babylon.  Ezekiel lived for five years in a town along the Chebar River, and four years after being exiled, Ezekiel reflects,“the heavens opened, and I saw visions of God...” Today’s reading is taken from the third part of Ezekiel’s book, Chapters 33-48, dating from the time after Jerusalem’s fall. God’s commissioning of Ezekiel is recounted both in Chapters 1-3 and in Chapter 33, today’s reading.

Ezekiel, the son of Buzi, and a priest, was a younger contemporary of the prophet Jeremiah. God’s commission to Ezekiel is very clear (Ezekiel 33:7-11):  “Mortal, I have made you a sentinel for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me.” He’s to be God’s watchman, pushing  an unwilling people to take personal responsibility for their actions by communicating to them what God expects of them. But Ezekiel is a bridge-prophet. Like prophets before the Exile he insists that religion must be a true inner commitment to God, lived out in daily life. He’s clear about the reality of sin, and about the certainty of the people’s accountability  before God’s judgment. But like the later prophets Ezekiel, with his deep sense of God’s utter holiness and transcendence, is also keenly aware of the people’s need to faithfully honor God in their worship. He struggles with the issue of their repeated infidelity and guilt, with the reality that they’ve constantly met God’s acts of mercy with rebelliousness and disregard, to the point that now the logical consequence of their irresponsibility is the destruction of Jerusalem, the very center of their life and worship. They have, in effect, questioned God’s nearness and openness to them, implying that God is different from God’s revelation of Godself, that God is something other than God really is. And Ezekiel’s call is to be God’s sentinel, God’s watchman: informing them of the deserved punishment about to come upon them, as well as teaching them that, despite all this, God unrelentingly forgives them. Ezekiel prepares them for God’s future restoration of their nation and for God’s inner renewal of their hearts.

Echoing Ezechiel’s message, St. Paul reminds the Roman Christians (Romans 13:8-14) that “...we owe no one anything except to love one another...”, that each person is to  “Love your neighbor as yourself...” for “love is the fulfilling of the law.”  Paul recognized that, as the reign of God takes shapes among human beings, in every community of faith where you have two or more people together, there’s bound to be disagreements, arguments, and conflicts! When you and I are baptized, God commissions each of us, in and through Jesus the Christ, to be sentinels, watch-persons, over our lives: individually and as a community, the Church. To live in the reign of God means genuinely committing ourselves inwardly to live holy and loving lives all the time, not just selectively; recognizing when we’re acting selfishly, and holding both ourselves and others, as is appropriate, accountable. The guiding principle for this is always LOVE: love of God and love of one another, as Jesus teaches us.  

To help us in a practical way to deal with differences of opinion and conviction, in varying degrees of intensity, through generosity and mutual understanding,  Matthew’s Gospel passage (Matthew 18:15-20) depicts Jesus offering one way, certainly not the only way, of doing this. First, you go to the other person(s) in order to resolve the difficulty and be reconciled.  Secondly, if that doesn’t work, you take several others in order to try again. Then, if again you’re unable to work out a mutual agreement, you take the matter to the wider community.

This is the point at which things can get sticky. What Matthew suggests Jesus saying, if an impasse is reached, is this: “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector...” That seems unduly harsh, and presents an obvious problem.  Perhaps we need to look at this with new eyes. A story from the early desert fathers may give us a clue.  

One of the hermits, facing a similar situation, goes to seek advice from the wise Abba Poemen. Abba Poemen tells him to follow in good faith all of the steps suggested by the Gospel. If an agreement still seems impossible, says Abba Poemen: “...then pray to God without anxiety, that God may satisfy him/them, and do not worry about it.” 

Abba Poemen’s strategy is that, if in our conflicts with others we simply shun them, there likely will be no further possibility of resolution. He believes that if I’ve done all that I can and still reconciliation has failed, nevertheless, the effort should still continue, but in a diffferent way. One should pray to God without anxiety that God alone may help the other person(s) and us to work through the difficulty, thus all becoming effective participants in the reign of God.

It’s important for us to remember that even “a Gentile and a tax collector”, figuratively speaking, is also part of the reign of God, though perhaps unknowingly. Earlier in Matthew (12:18; 21), Jesus quotes Isaiah, referring to the Messiah: “‘Here is my servant...and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles...And in his name the Gentiles will hope.’” 

Lutheran pastor, Hank Langknecht comments: “A fanciful approach to this text might pretend that Jesus is talking to himself here since, in the end, he is the One against whom all have sinned...Jesus comes to us first alone, then embodied in one or two members of the community, and then Jesus surrounds us with loved ones who desire our repentance. And even though the plain sense of verse 17 is that those who fail to repent are excommunicated...in the reading for Proper 21 [Sept. 28] Jesus will tell us that tax collectors are entering the kingdom ahead of the righteous. So if it is true that in our refusal to repent we become as Gentiles and tax collectors, it is clear that we then become special objects of Jesus' attention and mercy.”

3 Points & A Story

There’s a perennial saying that’s passed around by seminarian and clergy/preacher types, in a variety of forms, that a good sermon generally has three points and a concluding poem or story. In that spirit, I offer the following.

POINT 1: Last week the Gospel from Matthew challenged us to answer a question which Jesus posed to his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?”  Following up on that, this week’s reading from the Book of Exodus (3:1-15) poses two further questions:  
- Who am I?
- Who is God?
God pushes you and me continuously -- sometimes gently, sometimes with a shove -- to “turn aside”, as Moses did, and to see: to see who we really are ourselves; and to see who God is for us.  In every case, it is God who speaks to us.  God confronts us with God’s own mystery, and also with a call to some kind of service to others amid the mundane routine of our lives. God speaks to us a Name which defines Godself: who God is, and in the revealing of this you and I are called us to declare who we really are and what we’re committed to do.

As with Moses, it’s a sensitive, compassionate God who speaks to us, One who has seen, heard, and who knows what’s going on in our lives, but also a dynamic active Being who makes it very clear that God is ever with us, right in the thick of all the action.

Typically, like Moses, when you and I are called aside to face who we are and who God is in relation to us, we tend to react in two ways:
1) “Not me -- I can’t.”
2) “Prove it.”
God’s response, in simple terms, is also twofold:
1) “Yes, you can.”  and
2) “I AM WHO [I ]AM and I am with you.”
God’s response is both an answer and an evasion to Moses’ and our questionings.  But God makes clear that it’s only through faithful living -- i.e., being what God wants us to be and doing what God wants us to do -- that the full meaning of God’s Name, which really stands for who God is, becomes known to us.  And this always has to do, in some way, with compassion towards others, with justice, liberation from oppression, and love.

POINT 2:  Neither you nor I really enjoy being confronted with questions like the one which Jesus asked last week and which the Scriptures raise for us this week.  What unnerves us even more, as followers of Jesus, are the nitty-gritty specifics of being and doing, such as those which St. Paul proposes to us in today’s Epistle (Romans 12:9-21).  While Paul wrote them down as a sort of catalog of compassionate, justice-making, liberating and loving acts to which the Living God in Jesus calls us, we, fully aware of our inadequacy and selfishness, may tend to view them more as a list of horrors: really love one another, outdoing each other with honesty and generosity; hate evil; act with focus and passion; bring to others the joy of hopefulness; accept suffering; keep praying even if you’re spiritually dry, or if it’s boring, or you see no results; let your first impulse be: “How can I help my sister/brother?”; welcome everyone.  Period.  No exceptions. Be gracious even to those who give you a hard time; be empathetic and sympathetic whatever the occasion; let unity always guide how you live with one another; be humble and realize that you don’t know everything; never take revenge or avenge yourself; to the best of your ability, be at peace with everyone; give food and drink to the hungry regardless of who they are; refuse to let evil direct your life, but embrace only what is good. Paul says that such a rule of life defines who you and I really are, or can become, in relation to the Living God: not by ourselves, but in the power of the God who assures us: “I will be with you.”

POINT 3:    You and I don’t always “buy” this: whether out of fear, or laziness, or selfishness.  We’re much like Peter in the Gospel (Matthew 16:21-28) who, misunderstanding what God is really up to in our lives, is shocked and appalled, scandalized even, when Jesus acknowledges that his mission and ministry is taking him to Jerusalem, and to certain suffering and death.  We moderns don’t like the theology of the cross, and we seem to make every effort to shove suffering and dying into the background of our lives, and to “prettify” and dress it up so that it isn’t so...., you know,...such a “downer”.  But Jesus, knowing that God is calling him to the supreme act of compassion, justice, liberation and love -- giving his life for us on the cross -- literally puts Peter in his place: “Get behind me, Satan!... you’ve set your mind not on the things of God but on human things.”  

Then Jesus throws down a challenge:  “If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  It comes down to this: when you and I answer God’s call to turn aside to “see”, how much do you and I really trust God and accept God’s word, especially if we can see no apparent human reason to do so.  Even here, God continues to call us to respond by being and by doing, and that will cost us as dearly as it cost Jesus.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a 20th century Lutheran pastor executed by the Nazis, in his beautiful book The Cost of Discipleship, wrote from prison about “cheap” grace and “costly” grace.  He describes cheap grace as “Grace without price; grace without cost!”  We assume that, because Jesus has “paid” our account in advance, we can live our spiritual lives without it costing us much.  Costly grace, Bonhoeffer says, “is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a [person] must knock...Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of [God’s] Son...it is grace because God did not reckon God’s Son too dear a price to pay for our life...”

CONCLUSION:  Perhaps this simple story, called The Diamond Necklace, can help:

“Jenny, the cheerful little girl with bouncy golden curls was almost five. Waiting with her mother at the checkout stand, she saw them: a circle of glistening white pearls in a foil box. ‘Oh mommy please, Mommy. Can I have them? Please, Mommy, please?’ Quickly the mother checked the back of the little foil box and then looked back into the pleading blue eyes of her little girl's upturned face.  ‘A dollar ninety-five.  That's almost $2.00. If you really want them, I'll think of some extra chores for you and in no time you can save enough money to buy them for yourself.  Your birthday's only a week away and you might get another crisp dollar bill from Grandma.’

As soon as Jenny got home, she emptied her piggy bank and counted out her pennies.  After dinner, she did more than her share of chores, and she went to her neighbor, Mrs. McJames, and asked if she could pick dandelions for ten cents.  And sure enough, on her birthday, Grandma gave her another new dollar bill.  At last she had enough money to buy the necklace. 

Jenny loved her pearls. They made her feel dressed up and grown up.  She wore them everywhere: to Sunday school, to kindergarten, even to bed:  taking them off only when she went swimming or had a bubble bath.  Mother said that if they got wet, they might turn her neck green.  

Jenny had a very loving Daddy and every night when she was ready for bed, he would stop whatever he was doing and come upstairs to read her a story. One night as he finished the story, he asked, ‘Jenny, Do you love me? ‘Oh yes, Daddy.  You know that I love you.’  ‘Then could I have your pearls?” ‘Oh, Daddy, not my pearls!  But you can have Princess, the white horse from my collection, the one with the pink tail. Remember, Daddy? The one you gave me. She's my very favorite.' ‘That's okay, Honey, Daddy loves you.  Good night.’  And he brushed her cheek with a kiss. 

About a week later, after the story time, Jenny's Daddy asked again, ‘Do you love me?' ‘Daddy, you know I love you.’ ‘Then let me have your pearls.' ‘Oh Daddy, not my pearls. But you can have my baby doll. The brand new one I got for my birthday. She is beautiful and you can even have the yellow blanket that matches her sleeper.’ ‘That's okay.  Sleep well, little one, and God bless you. Daddy loves you.’  And as always, he brushed her cheek with a gentle kiss. 

A few nights later when her Daddy came in, Jenny was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed.  As he came close, he noticed that her chin was trembling and one silent tear rolled down her cheek.  ‘What is it, Jenny? What's the matter?’ Jenny didn't say anything as she lifted her little hand up to her Daddy.  And when she opened it, there was her little pearl necklace. Her voice quivering, she finally said, ‘Here, Daddy; this is for you.’ 

With tears gathering in his own eyes, Jenny's Daddy reached out with one hand to take the dime-store necklace, and with the other hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue velvet case which contained a strand of genuine pearls, and gave them to 

Jenny.  He had had them all the time.  He was just waiting for her to give up the dime-store stuff so that he could give her the genuine treasure.” 

   

    

Someone To Love Me

(Drawing by Sr. Therese, OJN)

Six years ago I took a two-week Spanish language immersion course. Our maestra, Lydia, was a charming 20-something woman from Mexico. One day another participant, a school teacher, and I were chatting with her. I believe Lydia was either about to be engaged or was already engaged to her boyfriend, who was from the U.S. She was expressing her misgivings and anxiety about taking Michael to visit and meet her family in Mexico. She spoke of the attitudes of some in Mexico being very opposed to the U.S., much of that originating in the perceived stress which many U.S. young people put on their partners to provide things: fancy cars, money, clothes, etc. In other words, promoting the myth of the "perfect" partner in the “American dream”. Then Lydia said: "These are not of interest to me. I don't believe there is any perfection. I want someone who will love me."

Whether or not you or I concur with other nations’ perceptions of our national culture, one thing we can say for sure about today’s Scriptures is that they speak of a God who loves you and me beyond measure. Isaiah (55:1-5) begins with an attention-getting invitation: "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price..." It looks like a joyful invitation, but embedded in it is a plaintive, even a slightlysarcastic, note, made obvious by the rhetorical question: "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" In an age of rampant consumerism, to which Lydia alluded, it's a question you and I need to seriously ask ourselves. God promises rich food; an unending covenant of love; and fulfillment of the promises made to David: God's steadfast love.

The psalm for today, Psalm 145, a sort of paean to God's compassion and all-encompassing love, not just of humankind, but of all of God's creatures, says: "The Lord is gracious...full of compassion... loving to everyone...upholds all who fall...lifts up...is loving in all his works...is near...fulfills the desire...preserves all..." There's a clear link between God's compassion and God's justice: God's love is what sets things right. There are even ecological implications, as theologian Carol Dempsey points out: "All forms of life -- and indeed the earth itself -- suffer today because of human injustice and irresponsibility. Many voices are crying out, some audible such as those of women and young children, [think of the 15.9 million U.S. children in food insecure households, California being one of the top 10 states in that regard; or think of senior citizens dependent on Social Security, the suffering and disabled on Medicare, and the veterans who have served their country -- all threatened because of the continuing obscene game-playing and stubbornness of our Congress, the corporate elite and the Tea Party types], some not understood, such as those of the salmon trapped by dams, and some inaudible, such as that of the land as it lies stripped of nutrients, parched in some places and polluted in others. The voices that call upon God represent the magnificence of a grand biodiversity." If God treats all with love, compassion and justice, what does this say about our own responsibility: as individuals, as local communities, as churches, as a nation?

The miracle story in Matthew (14:13-21) is the only one which appears in all four Gospel narratives. That probably gives us a hint that this message was really important in the early Church's life and memory. The context of the passage is that Jesus has just heard about the execution of his cousin, John the Baptizer. The crowd hears that Jesus has gone off to a deserted place and they follow on foot. They come with deep needs: for compassion, love and healing, and they're determined to get to the Master. Jesus reacts with characteristic empathy and open-armed concern, identical with that of God's. He heals the sick; he feeds them, dismaying the disciples by delegating to them the responsibility of providing the food. The feeding is set against the backdrop of two ancient traditions: 1) the Exodus desert feeding (Exodus 16) -- "In the morning you will see the glory of the Lord..."; and 2) the feeding of 100 men, with 20 loaves and fresh ears of grain, ordered by the prophet Elisha (2 Kings 4:42-44). 

The real miracle in Matthew’s Gospel isn't the multiplication of the loaves and fish, but rather the fact that Jesus himself embodies the compassionate, loving God of the Hebrew Scriptures, and that he begins to demonstrate what the reign of God looks like, namely, that people like you and me are raised above their oppression, their hurts, their suffering, and then  begin themselves to share, through love and compassion, what they have, much or little, without leaving anyone in need.

God's gifting of Godself -- in the feeding of the 5000 and in the Eucharist which we share -- happens among ordinary folks, with all their flaws and greatnesses, in the most unlikely of places, times and situations of everyday life...Even in a Spanish language classroom, with a retired priest and an educator, conversing with their young Mexican teacher who simply wants "someone to love [her]"...as we all wish.

The Word of God which you and I share together in Eucharist and which feeds us each time we come together here, assures us that despite the imperfectness of this world and of each of us human beings who inhabit it, there is One who loves us unconditionally, perfectly; One who heals us, who brings justice to us and to the earth, indeed, to all of creation: the Holy One of God, Jesus the Christ, who fulfills, as no other can, our innate yearning for "someone who will love [us]".  

Matthew 13: Parables of the Reign of God

St. Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 13, has shown us, for the past two weeks, and again today, specifically how Jesus, through the use of simple parables, reveals the reality of God’s reign/rule/kingdom. The Collect, in fact, refers to God as “our ruler and guide”, helping us to “pass through things temporal” so that we don’t lose “things eternal”. 

Parables, according to commentator Deidre Good, describe God's realm in ways that move hearers“to rethink priorities so as to make room for something outside human control yet within human potential.” Dr. Richard Pervo adds that “Parables would seek to lead us to perceive once again with the freshness of discovery the graciousness and surprise of the ordinary, the myriads of miracles erupting in our daily lives; would lead us to see these wonders and then urge us to find the presence of God’s reign in just such apparently prosaic routines. Look, our Lord says, for the advent of God in the ordinary, for appearances of the kingdom in people and deeds that seem no more important than mustard seeds and pieces of yeast.”

It might be helpful to backtrack a bit, in order to see where we are in Mt 13:

A.  July 13 - Mt. 13:1-9; 18-23

In the Gospel two weeks ago, Matthew begins with Jesus going out from the safe haven of the house, and sitting by the sea, the realm of storms and uncertainty, so as to teach “the crowds”, “in parables”. He then recounts the Parable of the Sower (1-9), then skips eight verses to where Jesus explains the Sower Parable to the disciples (18-23) apart from “the crowd”. In those eight verses which the lectionary unfortunately skips, between the parable and explanation, Jesus says this:

“...the disciples came and asked him, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’ He answered, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the reign of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says: ‘You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn -- and I would heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.”

The disciples are the ones who’ve responded to Jesus words and actions for some time now. They’ve taken to heart Jesus’ words in Luke 17:20-21: “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’  For, in fact, the kingdom of God is within you.”

B.  July 20 - Mt 13:24-30; 36-43

In last week’s Gospel, Matthew continues with the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares or Weeds (24-30), but the lectionary omits the next six verses, skipping over two other parables. 

C.  Today, July 27 - Mt 13:31-33; 44-52

Matthew’s Gospel today back tracks to those two skipped parables (31-33): those of the Mustard Seed and of the Woman Leavening Flour, and adds three other parables (44-52): those of the Hidden Treasure in the Field, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Net and the Fish.

The Mustard Seed

The first pair of parables, The Mustard Seed and The Woman Leavening Flour, are rather everyday, humdrum parables, dealing with common, mundane things: planting a field and baking bread. In the first, a man, in the peasant context of rural Galilee, does the outdoor, physical labor of sowing a tiny mustard seed, which matures into a sizeable bush. It’s not a tree, nor will it accommodate nesting birds, which may allude to the Old Testament emphasis on the universal reach of God's kingdom. Nevertheless, poetically, Matthew states that it “becomes a tree”, perhaps hearkening back to the prophet Ezekiel’s vision (17:22-24) of God restoring the people, and symbolized in what Ezekiel calls a “noble cedar” in whose branches “every kind of bird will live...winged creatures of every kind”. The mustard bush isn’t even an perennial plant, only an annual. In the same way, God’s reign doesn’t strike most of us as much at first, except for every now and then when the risen presence of Jesus, all of a sudden, breaks into our lives through other people and events. It appears in those quickening moments, stirrings of love, fleeting flashes which you and I experience from time to time: in nature; in our times of intimacy; in solitude; in music, poetry and art; in the experience of birth; in observing children and young people; in helping others, and even in experiencing death, our own or that of others. The intuition, the hint, of what the reign of God is like is so real at these times that it’s almost palpable. Jesus’ message, according to Matthew, suggests that God’s reign grows from tiny beginnings to worldwide size. 

There’s also a slightly subversive element to the parable, as Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (published around 78 AD), notes: "mustard…,” he says, “is extremely beneficial for the health. It grows entirely wild...but on the other hand when it has once been sown it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it, as the seed, when it falls, germinates at once."

The Woman Leavening Flour

The other of the first two parables contrasts the man sowing in the field with a woman, a homemaker. Jesus, says Joel Green,  "asks people -- male or female, privileged or peasant, it does not matter -- to enter the domain of a first-century woman and household cook in order to gain perspective on the domain of God."  Here she is, starting to mix yeast with flour, actually hiding it, in a peck and a half of flour, about 12 quarts. The King James Version says “hid” which is also the meaning of “mix” = enkrypto, in Greek. The leaven permeates the flour, so that the dough rises into a large loaf. The mysterious substance that makes bread rise is akin to the hidden, pervasive character of God’s reign. Also, the large quantity of flour hints at a planned festive occasion, since the bread produced will obviously be more than for just one family. It’s hard to miss the implication of the powerful growth of God’s kingdom from small beginnings. The final outcome is inevitable once the natural process of leavening has begun. 

We then shift in today’s Gospel to two more parables: that of The Hidden Treasure in the Field and The Pearl of Great Price. These parables also offer a contrast, this time, between a laborer and a merchant.  

The Treasure Hidden in the Field

A laborer, tilling someone else’s field, just doing his job, hits a buried container, perhaps a jar or a box, with his plow. It wasn’t at all unusual, especially in times of war or disaster, for people to bury their precious treasure. Sometimes they didn’t or couldn’t reclaim it: perhaps they were killed, or maybe displaced or had moved. Maybe they simply forgot what and where they’d hid their stash.

Whatever the reason, the laborer is surprised and elated. He keeps it to himself, hides it, even as the woman hid the leaven in the flour. The hidden nature of the treasure may indicate that God’s kingdom "is not yet revealed to everyone." The man hurries to liquidate all that he has to secure the treasure. Matthew’s phrase, “sells all he has”, invites us to recall Jesus’ invitation to the rich young man in Chapter 19 (v. 21), to sell all that he has and to become a disciple.

The Treasure Hidden in the Field is a parable about discovery without seeking, and willingness to take action, whatever the cost. God’s kingdom is of great value. The good fortune reflected 

in the "finding" reflects a "special gift, a privilege" and a source of joy, but also reflects a challenge to relinquish all in order to lay claim to the greater treasure one has found. (John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew)

The Pearl of Great Price

In the second of this parable duo, a parable about opportunity, we have a merchant whose business it is to travel around “in search of fine pearls”. Pearls were luxury items, associated with other valuables such as gold and precious stones. The pearl itself is a beautiful, single entity, formed through suffering in the heart of the oyster. Unlike precious stones which must be cut and polished to reveal their clarity and beauty, the pearl is perfect as it comes from the oyster. 

In Matthew 7:6 Jesus acknowledges such quality when he warns hearers “not [to] throw your pearls before swine”. This merchant is actively seeking a quality product, always on the lookout, for not only pearls, but for that one best pearl, the “deal of a lifetime”, which he’ll recognize, and maybe others won’t. Eventually he finds it. He responds immediately and completely, sacrificing everything he has to get it. John Nolland says that Matthew shares the notions of "good fortune and demanding action in attaining the kingdom of heaven", but stresses the importance of "diligent seeking." Those who aren’t prepared to accept the kingdom of heaven at the price of staking their whole future on it are unworthy of the kingdom.

The Drawing in of the Cast Net

Finally, in the concluding verses (47-50) we have the Parable of the Net and the Fish. Fishing evokes the idea of searching, of mission. Matthew says the net is thrown into the sea and catches “fish of every kind”. The net is full and is all-inclusive. It’s taken ashore and the fish are separated: the  “good”, into baskets; the “bad”, thrown out. Matthew says that in the reign of God "the angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous" in a similar way. It’s an evaluation, a judgment, according to standards of quality. God’s reign is a mixture of good and evil, even as the seed sown or the wheat with the weeds. When Jesus says (v. 48), “...when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad”, there’s a hearkening back to the opening verse of Matthew’s 13th chapter: “Jesus went out” and “got into a boat and sat there, while the crowd stood on the beach...”, perhaps an allusion to the earlier invitation of Jesus Mt 4: “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” (v. 19) This final parable suggests a time of decision. 

There’s clearly a shift from everyday time to the end of time, to the final judgment. Goodness/rightness is equivalent to understanding.  As Jesus asks his disciples: “Have you understood all this?” Evil is whatever violates trust on which relationships are built, whether with God or with our sisters and brothers in the kingdom.

Finally, Matthew summarizes it all in v. 52. He mentions the “scribe” = the writer/secretary/clerk/note-taker who “has been trained for the kingdom of heaven”. Such a person is like “the master of a household”, someone who knows how to manage, to take care of, things, to bring “out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” This speaks of a balanced person, one open to all of life, open to both the human and the divine, one able to take in and discern the good from the bad, one able to keep trust in relationship to God and to all who inhabit the reign of God. 

In Matthew 13, Jesus has provided us with a description and formula by which you and I can see to it that “the kingdom/reign/rule of God is within you”. St. Paul clarifies our relationship in this “mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints.” He says, in today’s Epistle, “...the Spirit helps us in our weakness...that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words...We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to [God’s] purpose...If God is for us, who is against us? [God] who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will [God] not with him also give us everything else?...Who will separate us from the love of Christ? 

Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?… No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ” (8:26; 28; 31-32; 35; 37-39)

“The reign of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’  For, in fact, the kingdom/reign/rule of God is within you.”

  

Of Parables & Ourselves

Parables are meant to get people to think. The bottom line is that we don’t interpret parables, so much as parables interpret us. Parables guide us to see things in different ways, with paradoxes, multiple, even conflicting interpretations. Parables get us to think, especially about the reign of the Holy One. 

Matthew’s parable of the sower focusses on four types of soil. The sower uses a method of sowing, called “broadcasting”, sort of flinging the seed every which way. Matthew pictures a series of failures and successes. The effect is rather monotonous and repetitious. Very much like life. Life has its cycles and patterns. One season or year is quite like the foregoing ones. The challenge is whether you and I can ever see more than we want to see, to check whether we’ve let our eyes become dull, if we’ve come to the point of asking, “Is this all there is?” 

Results of sowing seed vary. Matthew’s account lists the good soil’s yield as a hundredfold, sixty, and thirty. Mark lists the return as thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. The non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, written before either Mark or Matthew, puts it this way: “...it produced a good crop: it yielded sixty per measure and one hundred twenty per measure.” Whatever the yield figure, between 60 and 120, God’s superabundant graciousness is far beyond what we might expect.  

The clear implication is that growth isn’t guaranteed. The rhythm of normality is deceptive, and the divine presence tends to be 

easily missed by those without ears to hear. The coming of the reign of God is neither an explosive event, nor a predictably rising curve in which things keep getting better and better every day. It’s a mixture of failure and success. Note that at the beginning of the Gospel passage, Jesus “went out of the house”, out of the place of security, and “sat beside the sea”, which is the realm of chaos, of uncertainty, associated as the sea is with fierce wind, swelling waves, and unpredictability. 

Parables can be terribly frustrating for “bottom-line” folks who just want to "cut to the chase", perhaps missing the importance of the routine, the mundane in human life. You and I continually sow without really knowing what’s going to come up, yet we keep sowing. Learning to appreciate the 30’s and 60’s, and not lament them, takes work. Anyone can brag about the 100’s. What was going on between Jesus and the disciples, Matthew says, was a learning process. One may easily interpret the sower parable in relation to mission, but that would be to miss the important connection of parable with learning, with being formed spiritually. One thinks of the root meaning of the word seminary, deriving from the Latin for seed: a place where seeds are sown and planted, but which take long periods of time in order to mature and come to fruition. 

This parable of the sower, leads also to other insights. You can't, for example, grow wheat on rocks. Nevertheless, when we’re called to do something, the results aren’t necessarily restricted by soil. Sometimes bad soil and weeds are too much, and don’t produce yields, or very little ones. Sometimes, the astounding happens. Either way, that’s not our concern. In our call we’re to be faithful, not necessarily successful.

Another thing modeled in the parable is that, after sowing the seed, even if the “growth”, the response, seems meager, it’s still important to be patient with those willing and eager to “listen”, and to go deeper with them into the sacred mysteries. Likewise the parable may be pointing us to the fact that, though the reign of the Holy One is inseparably bound up with the proclaiming of it, the task of a sower is simply to sow, not to create the seed. Finally, as we try to relate Jesus’ teaching of the parable of the sower to our own lives, you and I can recognize that we’ve been like all the types of soil at one time or other. 

I was raised very devoutly from childhood by my Roman Catholic mother, and attended church every week. The family Bible, which I still have, endlessly fascinated me, though I didn’t actually read much of it at the time, probably because of the archaic language of the Douay Rheims Version! What grabbed me particularly were the etchings, depicting great biblical stories. 

When I was in 7th grade Mom gave me my first spiritual classic : The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis, which I read and reflected on many times, along with the Scriptures which I read nearly every day during 13 years in Catholic seminary, and in my early years as a priest. Perhaps this was the “good soil” phase, in which the seed of the Word was sown? 

Later, while I was a college chaplain and philosophy instructor at, in the mid-60’s, I was actively involved  along with many of my colleagues in the civil rights movement, then front-page news. We were outspoken on behalf of African-Americans on campus and in the community, and openly critical of conservative clergy in the area. Yet, when invited by friends to join them in going to Alabama, to march and give witness in the now-famous 1966 walk from Selma to Montgomery, I cringed and backed off out of fear, and offered all sorts of excuses for not going. Well, obviously, some of that “good soil” of the Word seemed to have deteriorated a bit! “...let some trial come, or some persecution on account of the Word, and that person falls away at once…”

After my release from the Catholic priesthood in the late ’60’s, I  went through a period when I stopped reading, stopped going to church altogether for some time. The rocky ground where the seed fell seemed to allow what had been sown in my heart to recede in importance to me.

In the early ‘70’s, I’d mostly resumed what spiritual practice I had. By then I was employed in textbook sales in a large territory in the South. On the road or in the air most of the year, I became consumed with sales quotas, earning commissions, competing within other company divisions, and trying to please the boss. It was easy to slip into becoming the typical salesman stereotype who worked hard all day and partied harder after hours to relieve the stress. I was no slouch in wining and dining customers to ensure sales, nor in being “out on the town” with the other guys and gals. It took me a good four years to realize how tired, and empty, and unhappy my spirit was, and, truthfully, how relatively unproductive I was. Kind of like seed choked by thorns.

Over the years I rode the spiritual roller coaster, as most of us do: up and down, faithful and lax, fervent and lukewarm. As we all must, I faced my inevitable share, of difficult, depressing personal situations: the death of a former spouse; divorce; conflict with parishioners; serious illnesses of my children; the challenges of aging. 

Do you and I ever fully understand what’s happening on the ground of our soul, or how, or why? T. S. Eliot reminds us, “In my beginning is my end...For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.” I eventually emerged able to continue sowing and receiving the seed, sometimes willingly, sometimes unwillingly: from the Scriptures, from other holy writings, and even occasionally from The Imitation of Christ. I stand in wonder at the ever new sprouts of growth popping up from the soil of the spirit, most often in the events and people who are in my life. The measuring of growth of crops and yields doesn’t concern me so much now. It’s enough at this point to “set the mind on the Spirit [who] is life and peace”, to know that “the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you [and me]”. 

“We shall not cease from exploration,” says Eliot, “And the end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time.”