The Generosity of the Sower

Sexagesima
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Conservation of energy: in the world of physics and chemistry, this law states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant and is conserved over time.  In my world it means that I want the least amount of work for the greatest amount of results.  I don’t want to work any harder than I have to work.  Whatever effort I put in should yield some positive result. 

    God does not seem to operate that way, as Christ tells us in the parable.  We have a farmer who has seeds, from which he expects some sort of yield of crops.  But he’s sowing seed on the road, and on rocky soil, and among thorns, and finally, among good soil.  What a waste!  Any simple person trying to plant grass would know that if you throw seed on the road, it will get trampled upon or eaten by birds; if you throw seed on rocks it won’t have enough place to expand its roots and gain nutrients; if you throw seed among thorns it won’t grow above the thorns.  Here is the farmer putting all this work in when it, most likely, will not yield any results.  And remember that, in our Lord’s day, you couldn’t simply go to Home Depot and pick up a pack of seeds.  The seeds you had were likely from the harvest the year before.  You were working with a limited quantity.
    Most often when I’m preaching about this Gospel, I focus on the type of soil that our souls are.  And it can yield real spiritual fruit to meditate on how open we are to receiving the word of God and letting it take root in our lives.  But today I want to focus on the farmer, and how it reveals to us how God operates and, therefore, how God wants us to operate.
    God is wasteful when it comes to His Word.  He does not scrimp and save.  He shares His Word in ways that otherwise would make no sense.  And why?  Because, as St. Paul tells us in his epistle to St. Timothy, God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  God shares His Word with those who probably will not receive it, but just in case they can, He sows those seeds anyway.  And, unlike soil, people can change.  Roads and rocks and thorns can become good soil.  So God thinks nothing of scarcity of resources, but shares His life with everyone, in the hopes that something will bear fruit.
    And we see this in other parables, too.  In the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd leaves behind the 99 sheep who are doing just fine in order to find the 1 who is lost.  No shepherd in his right mind would do this.  The math doesn’t make sense, unless, of course, you are the lost sheep whom the Good Shepherd finds.  In the parable about the lost coin, the woman tears her house apart looking for that one coin, and on finding it throws a party, which probably would cost more than that coin.  In the parable about the lost son, more commonly known as the Prodigal, or Wasteful, Son, no father with any sense would have welcomed back a son who told him to drop dead and give him his share of the inheritance now, then wasted it on loose living, and then returns to live as a servant.  But the father runs out to meet his son, and throws a party at his return.  In all these parables, God does what in earthly calculations seems inconceivable.  He is generous to the point of absurdity. 
    This would be too good to be true, if not for the fact that the description of the Father, the First Person of the Blessed Trinity, comes to us from the Son, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.  When Truth Incarnate tells you something, you can take it to the bank.
    But the parables are not meant only to give us the warm fuzzies about how God acts.  If we are truly disciples of the Lord, and the Lord reveals to us the Father, then we are called to act as Christ depicts the Father in each of these parables.  We are called to be pazzo d’amore, as St. Catherine of Siena says, crazy in love.  When a person is in love, a new logic takes over, and the love of the beloved becomes the most important. 
    So with our faith and work at evangelization: how do we spread God’s word and God’s grace?  Are we penny-pinchers, very careful with whom we share the Word?  Or are we generous, even to the point of wastefulness, with trying to gain others for Christ?

Fr. Gerard Timoner, OP

    I saw a talk from the Master of the Order of Preachers, Fr. Gerard Timoner, and I can’t even give you the exact context or date, but it fits well here.  He is addressing Dominicans, and especially their charism to preach.  But he uses two examples of those who have care for others in the Gospel: shepherds and fishermen.  To paraphrase and summarize, he talks about how shepherds are those who care for what is already there.  Their responsibility is to make sure that the sheep are safe from the wolves, and even to go after lost sheep when they wander away.  A shepherd has to make sure the sheep are led to good pastures.  It is, in some sense, more static.  A fisherman, instead, has nothing to guard.  He has to go fishing.  His role is going out to catch the fish and bring them into the nets; he cannot stand along the shoreline and wait for the fish to come to him.  In reality, the Dominican Master says, the vocation of a Dominican is both shepherd and fisherman: both to guard what is already there, as well as to go out and catch what is not there yet.  I would argue that our vocation as disciples mimics that of the Dominicans: we have a duty to guard the truth in our lives–family, friends, etc.  But we cannot simply hope that other people will simply come to us because we guard the truth so well.  We also have to go out and catch others and bring them into our nets.  In a sense, we are called to catch fish, and then turn them into sheep.  We invite people to follow Christ, and then help them stay in His one Church. 
    When it comes to our secular life, I’m all about doing the least to get the most results.  But when it comes to our life of faith, when it comes to sharing the Gospel, Christ invites us to mimic our extravagant Father, who shares His grace and His Word even when it doesn’t seem to make sense, and who lives and reigns with the Son and the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Humblebrag?

Sexagesima

St. Paul from his basilica in Rome

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  It seems, at first glance, like St. Paul might be doing what we call today a humble brag.  He spends more than half of today’s epistle talking about all the things he could claim fame to.  He starts by sharing the things he could brag about: his heritage, his nation, his connection to Abraham.  Clearly, other ministers in Corinth had been claiming some sort of prestige because they were Jewish.  But St. Paul reminds the Corinthians that his bonafides are no less than any others, and probably greater than many others.  He then continues by talking about all the ways that he has suffered for the Gospel: receiving lashes, beatings, being shipwrecked, in danger almost everywhere he goes, whether on land or sea, getting threatened by Jews, threatened by Gentiles, being betrayed, not having enough food, drink, or proper clothing.  He then continues talking about “someone he knows” who had visions of the third heaven (today we might say: A friend of mine has this thing).  And he ends up by speaking about a thorn in his flesh, which he had asked the Lord three times to eliminate.
    So is St. Paul trying to direct pity and sympathy towards himself?  Not at all.  The Apostle was combatting those who were trying to modify the Gospel according to their own vision, and basing their ability to change the Gospel on their heritage.  So Paul, in essence, is saying, “You think they’re qualified?!  If pedigree is the issue, mine is better, so listen to me!”  And his list of sufferings is then further proof of why the Corinthians should listen to Paul, because he has laid everything on the line for the Gospel and endured much suffering.  And yes, sometimes people get special gifts, special charisms or visions of things about which we cannot even speak.  Probably, Paul was such a person, as he definitely had a special vision of Christ on the road to Damascus, and perhaps at another time, as well.
    But Paul doesn’t put much stock into those.  Rather, he glories in his weakness, so that what matters is not Paul but the power of Christ within Paul.  It is, as St. John the Baptist says, “He [Christ] must increase; I must decrease.”  Whatever helps the Gospel be spread, that is what is most important.
    Part of spreading the seed of the Gospel is trying to make sure that the soil is ready.  We prepare the soil by our witnessing by word and by deed, and doing so in a way that meets that person where he or she is at, so that we can draw him or her to Christ.  Sometimes people need to see a degree or some sort of formal qualifications.  Other times people need to know that you have gone through similar life experiences in order to trust our proclamation of the Gospel.  Other times people need to hear about specific encounters with God.  So as we proclaim the Gospel, we’ll want to get to know what will help that specific person, and tailor the methods we use to the way that they will be receive the Gospel.  It is, as St. Thomas Aquinas said, that what is received is received according to the mode of the receiver.

Harrison Butker

    There is also an important demonstration from St. Paul when it comes to showing the power of the Gospel is not our own power.  We tend to get really excited when a famous person converts.  There was a lot of hay made when Shia Lebouf spoke about his conversion, and how the Extraordinary Form helped him connect with God in a way that the Ordinary Form did not.  Mark Wahlburg often posts messages about how important his faith is, and he spoke about playing Fr. Stu and how that impacted his own faith.  I have recently been intrigued by the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, Harrison Butker, who is a Catholic and attends the Extraordinary Form Mass, and talks about being a disciple first, a husband and father second, and a football player last, but doing all these things with the greatest effort he can.  So praise God for famous people who live the faith.
    But there’s also something to the small people living the faith, the people who aren’t famous, who don’t have everything going for them, or who struggle to make it through week-by-week, but who stay with God and find in Him the pearl of great price.  I think the non-famous people draw us because, when something great happens, we realize that it’s not that person’s natural gifts, but the power and grace of God made manifest.  St. John Vianney, St. Andre Bessette, and Bl. Solanus Casey are perfect examples of this.  From a worldly point of view, they didn’t have much going for them.  And yet, each in their own way, they drew others, often in droves, to Christ.  And the power of Christ was made manifest through their weakness. 
    That should give us hope, because I am not famous, nor are many of you.  As far as I know, none of us are the richest people in Flint, or the most powerful or well-connected.  We each have struggles that we deal with each day and each week.  But in our weakness, God manifests His power.  And those others who are not famous, not rich, not powerful or well-connected can then know that the Gospel is for them, too; that God cares about those who don’t have it all together. 
    We have a lot for which we should give thanks to God.  We have a beautiful church; we have a beautiful Mass; we have a beautiful community here which is committed to the Catholic faith and strives to live that faith out each day as husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, children, brothers, sisters, employers, employees, retirees, etc.  Some have had amazing experiences of God through prayers and retreats.  Others experience God in the every-day happenings of life.  Each of us have our own temptations.  But through it all, God desires that we glorify Him in our greatness and weakness, in our joys and sorrows so that others can experience His saving Word, truth, and grace.  God’s great power is made perfect in our smallness.  Let us glory in being small parts of the great work of salvation of God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Weaknesses

 Sexagesima Sunday
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Especially for guys, weakness is not a trait that is desired.  No one is impressed by the 98-pound-weakling.  We are impressed by muscle mass, by big biceps, and the ability to do great feats of strength.  And yet, St. Paul today relates to us a weakness of his.  He tells us about a thorn in his flesh that he asked the Lord three times to remove.  But God told him that His power was made manifest in weakness.

St. Paul

    Isn’t this the whole history of salvation?  When God chose a people, the Jews, He did not choose the strongest nation on earth, or the wisest, as God tells Moses in Deuteronomy.  God chose the weakest.  But, because of that, no one could argue that the success of the Jews was because of their own strength or cunning.  No, it was because the true God was their God and supported them.
    So, too, through the times of the Judges.  When the Israelites relied on God and turned back to Him and away from their foreign gods, God would give them victory over their enemies, even though their enemies were stronger than they.  Think of the Book of Judith.  God chooses a woman, who would have been considered a weak sex from a weak nation, to conquer the great Holofernes.  Or consider King David: he was not the son of Jesse even Samuel thought would be king.  And yet, this small, shepherd boy dispatches the great giant Goliath.  And during the reign of King Hezekiah of Judah, even though Sennacherib and the great Assyrian army was at his doorstep, after Sennacherib had destroyed the Kingdom of Israel, and mocked the soldiers in their own language, God grants the victory, as Isaiah the prophet had foretold, thanks to Hezekiah’s continuing trust in God.
    But, of course, the example of God choosing weakness par excellence is our Lord Himself, who came, not in the power that was and is His, but as a defenseless baby.  He conquered the dominion of the devil not by strength of arms and force, but by His weakness of taking upon Himself human flesh.  
    And the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, is no different.  The princes that Christ chooses to be the new leaders of His Church are generally uneducated men who do not have much to them.  If anyone could boast about being a theologian and a religious man it was Paul, who came to the Church after first persecuting it.  But none of the twelve was anyone to talk about when it came to being a natural leader or vision of spiritual strength.  Even Peter, the great rock chosen by Christ as our first pope, was, after being named pope, called Satan by our Lord and rebuked for his lack of trust in God’s plan of the crucifixion and death.  Weakness is how God works.
    And it is how God works in us.  The more that we trust in ourselves, the less God can work through us.  This is not to say that God lacks any power, but to say that God loves us, and so does not force Himself on us.  He could, but He doesn’t.  But, when we decrease, we allow the Lord to increase, as St. John the Baptist said.  
    So how do we decrease?  How to we remain weak so that the Lord may be strong in us?  One easy way is to consider how we make decisions, especially big ones, but even the daily decisions of life.  Do we trust in our own reasoning, our own intelligence, or do we take our decisions to God in prayer?  Asking God to guide our decisions means acknowledging that another is wiser than we, and may have a better plan.  When it comes to a job to take or leave, a path of business to pursue, the choice of a car, the decision of whether or not to try to have another child, how to educate our children, etc., we should place it first at the feet of our Lord, and ask for His guidance.  He may have some wisdom to impart to us, which may even seem counterintuitive sometimes.  St. Maximilian Kolbe is a beautiful example of relying on the Lord’s wisdom, rather than our own.  When founding a monastery in Japan, St. Maximilian decided to build his monastery on the opposite side of the mountain from that which seemed the best.  The name of the town outside which St. Maximilian built his monastery was Nagasaki, and because St. Maximilian had built it on the opposite side of the mountain, it was not destroyed by the atomic bomb that was dropped in 1945.  
    Sometimes, after placing the decision at God’s feet, God does allow us to use our reason to arrive at a prudent decision.  God sometimes gives us signs of how we are to proceed, but sometimes He trusts our judgements.  But He always loves being consulted so that we might know His will first.  We see this even in human relations, where we may think we know what is best, but we ask our spouse or our friend first to get their opinion.  Of course, God doesn’t deal in opinions, He deals in truth, but still it is good to have access to the source of truth when we make decisions that affect our present and future.  
    Paul was not afraid of his weakness, and neither should we be.  In fact, the Apostle recognized that, without God, he had nothing.  But with God, he had everything, even in the midst of his sufferings for spreading the Gospel.  So should we recognize that, without God, we are nothing; we have nothing.  And recognizing our poverty without God, we can cry out to God to give us what we need, and to supply for us in our weakness.  And we can have confidence that we will receive what we need from our Loving Father, who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.