Reflection for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 12 July 2020 Theme: The Word and The World

Reflection for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 12 July 2020

Theme: The Word and The World

by

Fr. Ibekwe Ephraim Udochukwu

O God, who show the light of your truth to those who go astray,so that they may return to the right path,give all who for the faith they profess are accounted Christians, the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ and to strive after all that does it honour”

- Collect

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday God has given each and every one of us an opportunity to hear His word. Today we have a set of readings which remind  us of what we can and what we should be doing as Christians in our daily lives, in our actions and in how we interact with each other. These readings remind us of our true Christian calling and mission, in our mission to be the bearers of God’s Good News in this world, and spread His truth and light amidst this darkened world. Already the collect as above talks about the work of God in salvation history and that is sending the light to our darkened word and Christ is that Light of God (Lumen Dei) and through the coming of this Light the fallen man has found a path to salvation and this path to salvation can only be achieved by the grace of God evident in His Word, hence the Palmist echoes: Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. (cf. Psalm 119: 105)

In the first reading  of  today we hear  of the word of God spoken through the prophet Isaiah in which the Lord referred to His Word coming into the world, and how His Word would do His will and would not return to Him before doing and fulfilling everything for which the Word had been sent for. This was yet another prophecy revealing the truth about God’s work in our word of Sin, many of which prophecies were spoken by Isaiah.

Indeed the word of God as echoed by the gospel of John was made flesh -conceived in the womb of Mary and born as a Man, in Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man who is the Divine Word Incarnate, Our Lord and Saviour. He is the Person in Whom the two natures, Divine and Man, though distinct, were united perfectly in love. Jesus was therefore, the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah, the Word that was to come into the world, the Son Who would obey and fulfil His Father’s will. (And on the cross He would echo-It is finished-The word has been fulfilled. This is evident in the paschal mystery).

And what is the Father’s will that He has entrusted to His Son? It is what St. Paul has spoken of in our second reading today in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in Rome, regarding the hope of new life in God, the birth of the children of God and the freedom from the subjugation and enslavement by sin and darkness, all of which have kept us chained since the beginning of creation. Through Christ, as St. Paul said, we have been given a foretaste of the true glory and new life that was to come, with Christ and in Christ, comparable to non, not even the sufferings of this world that comes from obeying and ardency to the word of God.

In our Gospel today, we then heard of the famous and well-known parable of the sower, which all of us must have been very familiar with. In that parable, the Lord used the example of a sower spreading seeds that ended up landing on different surfaces and on different types of soils and conditions. The Lord used this parable as many among the people were farmers or were involved in various agricultural works and practices, especially many of those who followed Him, and by doing so, in fact, He was spreading the ‘seeds of God’s word and truth’ among them by making the truth more easily understood by them, by speaking in terms that they could understand better.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, when the Lord spoke of the sower in the parable, He was actually referring to Himself, the true Sower, Who spread the word of God’s truth among us. The world and all of us are the whole places where the seeds were being spread upon, and just as the seeds landed on different soils and different conditions, thus, the word of God, His truth and its revelation were treated differently by those who received them.

There were those who hardened their hearts and refused to receive the truth at all. And these were those who were represented by the seeds that fell on the wayside, and the birds of the sky came up and eat up the seeds, and none of the seeds even got the chance to grow. These were like many among the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who despite having seen the many miracles performed by the Lord, heard His wisdom and great authority in teaching, His words and revelations, still refused to listen to them and accept them.

There were also others who refused to listen to the Lord and accept His truth and word, and as a result, the devil and his forces, represented by those birds in the sky in the parable, easily took up all the seeds that landed on them, and brought these away, and no faith grew and sprouted in them. That was why, despite having listened to the Lord, even followed and pestering the Lord and His disciples on many occasions, many of them did not have faith.

And then, there were those who received the word of God but were lukewarm towards them, and did nothing to them, and these were like those seeds that fell on rocky grounds. These were at least able to land in a more appropriate place, and symbolises those who did not directly reject the word of God, the truth as revealed by the Lord. Nonetheless, they still refused to act on them, or to open their hearts fully to accept and embrace the truth.

This is why, the rocky grounds and soil represented those whose hearts were still hard like stone, and did not allow God’s truth and love to penetrate inside them. The seeds were unable to grow strong roots, and as the sun arises, the newly grown plants were scorched and destroyed. This is what happened to those who only had superficial faith, those who treated the faith as if a mere formality or worse still, as a chore and an obligation imposed to them. They did not have faith and neither did they make the effort to cultivate the faith. In the end, nothing good came out of it.

Then, there are also those who have accepted the word of God, acted on them, and yet, in the end, these also failed to bear fruits, as those seeds that fell among the thistle branches and brambles showed us. This is also actually related to what the Lord had also taught using a separate parable, of seeds of weeds spread by the ‘enemy’ among the seeds of wheat, resulting in the wheat being grown entangled by the weeds. In the case of the thistles and brambles, they choked the life out of the fledgling plants, and the latter perished.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that was a reference to all of us living in this world, who are always vulnerable to various temptations present in life all around us. We may be willing to listen to God and accept His words, but at the same time we are also easily swayed by our many desires, the desires of power, of worldly glory and fame, the desires for material wealth and possessions, for earthly pleasures and the satisfaction of the flesh. All these distract us and keep us away from God and His salvation.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, as the Lord then continued saying, that there were those seeds that fell on the rich and fertile soil, which bore fruits thirtyfold, sixtyfold and one hundredfold, many more times that what had been planted. This is a reference to how a single seed could grow into a healthy and fruitful plant when allowed to germinate and grow under the optimum condition, and from that single seed that came from a single fruit either from one seed or many seeds in that fruit, each one of them have the potential to bear tens, hundreds and even thousands of fruits given the right conditions.

In a world like ours, the word of God has continued to be in deep tension with the world. One can actually liken the relationship to a battle field. What is the significance of this, brothers and sisters in Christ? Each and every one of us have received these seeds from baptism, the seeds of faith from God, the seeds of hope, the seeds of love, of wisdom and good judgment, of righteousness, justice and holiness, and of many other virtues. And having heard of how those seeds that fell by the wayside, on the rocky ground and among the thistles and branches have ended up, failing to grow, being snatched away or being destroyed without any results, all of us must realise that as Christians, each and every one of us have to contemplate the gift of the word of God, the seeds of faith that God has given us.

Now each one of us must go home with the following questions: Have we been too stubborn in our ways, our pride, ego and our ambitions that we ended up rejecting God’s grace, His love and kindness towards us which is evident in His word? Have we been hardening our hearts and closing our minds to the Lord’s constant and subtle reminders and outreach of love towards us? Have we been so preoccupied with the matters of worldly concerns, our desires and wishes, our greedy pursuits of power, material possessions, and pleasures of the body among many others that we have forgotten about God and walked away from His path?

These are important and genuine questions that we must ask ourselves today and from time to time to remind us and to keep us focused on the right path. Temptations are always there, just as conditions in growing seeds into good and healthy plants are never constant. There are always threats to the survival of the plant, but good farmers will never give up on his crops, and no matter how difficult it is, they will always try to give the best condition available to them. And this is why, we too must give the best condition to nurture ourselves in faith and in this life.

May the Lord, the Sower of our faith, continue to guide us all and strengthen us, that we may indeed be blessed and bountiful in everything we do, that hopefully, by whatever we say and do, we may bring many others to righteousness and towards God’s salvation, and be good witnesses of His truth, be bearers of His hope and light into our darkened world, to bring His Good News to many who have not yet heard or believed in Him, that many more souls may be saved, together with us. Amen