July 13, 2014
Is 55:10-11; Rom 8:18-23; Matt 13:1-23
In one scene in Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, a daughter says to her mother, “You know Aunt Lucy is hard of hearing.” The mother replies, “Aunt Lucy is not hard of hearing. Aunt Lucy is hard of listening.”
Today’s Gospel story comes right after a series of encounters between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees. First they criticize him for healing a man on the Sabbath. Then he casts a demon out of a man, and they claim that the demon obeyed him because he is pals with Beelzebub, prince of demons. See a pattern here? Jesus helps somebody, and they criticize. Finally they ask him for a sign—apparently healing people and casting out demons don’t count as signs. They are hard of listening, like Aunt Lucy. They miss the important point and nitpick instead.
Now Jesus explains to his disciples that some people are just not going to get it. How do they not get it? Let me count the ways. First, they can be hard of listening, like the Pharisees. (BTW, the Pharisees constituted a Jewish sect in Jesus’ time. They were actually very good and kindly people who focused on careful adherence to the law of Moses. Modern Judaism is based on the principles of the Pharisees. After the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, Pharisees and Christians were in competition for followers, so Matthew emphasizes the negative about Pharisees.) Anyway, these Pharisees are so caught up in fine points of the law that they miss the compassion of Jesus. We Catholics can be like that sometimes, when we are more concerned about rules or devotions than about being compassionate. Or when we become angry or bitter about political issues such as abortion or minimum wage.
The Pharisees in Matthew’s Gospel are like the seed that fell on the path in today’s parable. They didn’t understand what they saw and heard. Then there are the people who see and hear, and it sounds great. But they are like the seed that falls on rocky soil; when the going gets tough, they quit. In the world today about 150,000 people are killed every year because they are Christian. In this country, we may never be tested enough to find out how deep our roots really are. But we might at least go outside our comfort zone. Remember when Pope Francis kissed that severely disfigured man? Whatever it is that frightens or disgusts us, God might call on us to deal with it.
Another way seeds can fail is if they are choked by weeds and thorns, and we all know this is a major problem in American life. How much stuff did you have to get rid of before you moved here? My husband and I moved out of our three-bedroom home for a week to have the floors refinished, and we found we could live quite happily in a 625-square-foot apartment. And it’s not just stuff. People have worries and anxieties—thorns—about their health, about outliving their money, about losing jobs and homes and spouses. These are legitimate concerns, but we can choose how much to worry about such things; I’ve noticed that poor people and people with real problems are often the most compassionate. They know what hardship feels like, and so many of them choose compassion over worry. And we sometimes have worries about things that aren’t big problems, but we exaggerate them in our minds until they consume us with worry. Weeds and thorns!
Often we read the parable of the sower as if the seeds are God’s grace, which he scatters widely, and we are the soil. That’s a fine reading. But in the parable as written, we are the seeds, the people who have received Christ’s word and are called to live it and bear fruit. We are the plants that grow over time from the seeds. If we aren’t hard of listening, if we have the courage to keep going even when the going is tough, if we don’t get sidetracked by unnecessary “needs” and unhelpful worries, then we can be compassionate, like Jesus was. We can help to build the kingdom of God’s compassion every day in our own little neighborhoods.