Homily for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Of all the Parables of the Lord, this one of the Sower and the Seed has probably sparked more debate among Scripture Scholars and sermon-givers than most others. The passage can be broken into three interdependent parts:
+ the Parable itself
+ a little lesson about Parables
+ an explanation of the Parable’s meaning

The debate, overlooking the central section, compares the first and third sections and raises the question: Are we to think of our selves as the verdant soil or the life-giving seed? The answer coming forth from the debate is: “Well, it depends.” And on what does it depend? On how much of the passage we read, to begin with.

This passage of the Sower and the Seed comes to us twice in the three-year cycle of Readings:
+ on this, the 15th Sunday  — and —
+ on a weekday later in the year.

However, in the weekday Gospel passage, we only hear the first part, with no lesson on Parables and no explanation from the Lord. So, when we hear only the Parable, it would seem that the Lord Himself is the Sower and the seed is the Word of God — that is — the Gospel. The different types of soil, it would seem further, determine the success of the spreading of the Gospel.

In this, then, the Homilist might ask of his listeners: “What kind of soil are you?” meaning, ostensibly, “How receptive are you to the Word of God?” — and, further — “Will you cultivate this Word to the point that it takes root in you, and produces good fruit?”

In my brief-but-brilliant weekday sermons, this is the direction I usually go. But, in my longer, more sleep-inducing Sunday Sermons, I go with the Lord’s own explanation: In this understanding of the Parable the Lord Himself is the Sower, and we are the seeds (rather than the soil.)

He is counting on us to plant the Gospel of life in the world, a world that can:
+ discourage us
+ choke our enthusiasm
+ trample upon our endeavors
+ scorch us with the heat of anger... bitterness... distrust... hatred of the Church

If we are to flourish in the midst of all this, we must first seek out the rich soil of prayer and the Sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist. We heard the Prophet Isaiah tell us hat God’s word, given to us and entrusted to us, “shall not return to [Him] void,” that the word itself adjoined to our endeavors, will achieve the end for which He sent it.

It is God the Son who asks us to take the word forward into infertile territory and dare to plant ourselves in the midst of it, speaking the Truth with prudence and charity, and then He will take it from there.

While the Lord uses images of prickly thorns and scorching sun, of pesky birds and shallow roots we will experience threats to our well-being from more “realistic” weeds, so to speak. These could come from:

Contemporary, progressive thought…
which leads to a misguided “anything goes” approach to life values… morality… politics…

Atheists and Agnostics…
who have likely given more thought and preparation to their arguments against religion than many devout and practicing Catholics have given to preparation for the defense of the Faith or Church Teaching.

Elitists… 
who claim to have evolved morally beyond what any structured, magisterial authority or even The Natural Law could teach them.

Accommodationists…
who, although having been well-formed in the Faith, find value and substance in societal misjudgments of virtues that have always been held sacred:
+ the dignity of the human person
+ the sanctity of human life
+ the sacramental end of marriage
+ the sacred nature of human sexuality…

Angry ex-Catholics…
who allow anger to disguise willfulness, acedia or a refusal to forgive.

It all sounds foreboding, but this is the “garden” into which the Lord is sending us as His seed for the world. Indeed, this is the essence of what  Saint John Paul and Pope Benedict described as  the New Evangelization. Our Lord Jesus Christ has chosen each of us to be His Presence in the world, in this time and place.

What hope for success do we have? Saint Paul gives us the answer in his Letter to the Romans, which we heard today. He writes that, “the sufferings of the present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.” He is speaking here not just of our hope for heaven beyond the sufferings of this world… he speaks of the hope we rightly maintain for the efficacy of our witness to the Faith by the way in which we live.

Without being blind to the realities around him, Saint Paul imagines the invisible realities which God has destined us to share with Christ: happiness, holiness and peace. A central message of Saint Paul’s Letter is that while we face corruption in working with humanity, and must endure futility, we will eventually reap the blessings and the freedom of the Children of God.

So, in our speech, and in our living we have to make the Good News both appear to be, and sound like good news. To accomplish this, we are given the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit — Grace, that is — for while the power of sin still attracts us, and we, on occasion, fall, the love of God has not only saved us, but has claimed us as His own. 

Further, the Lord does not want us to keep His redemptive love to ourselves, but to draw others to this same love, to this same redemption. We might never know of the growth, the good, or the efficacy of the seed of Faith which the Lord plants in the world through us, but blessed by our willingness to try, the Holy Spirit can increase our faith and the faith of those around us thirty… or sixty… or a hundredfold.