Fr. Simon's Letter - July 16, 2023

Last weekend in my column, I touched on the busyness in our lives and the need to heed Jesus' invitation to find our rest in him. At the end of the parable we hear at Mass this weekend, Jesus said, 'Listen, anyone who has ears.’ Listen! Look! Take a second look! Do we do that? Or do we tend to tune out – heard it all before, know what it means, ho-hum!

This exhortation is occasioned by the parable he just told about the hundredfold harvest, despite a few losses here and there. To me, it is a message of prolific abundance and fits in with what Jesus does elsewhere, where he feeds the crowd of five thousand and picks up twelve baskets of scraps after his effort. It illustrates the kingdom of God. What else need we expect from God? God gifts us abundantly and gratuitously. Jesus' healing miracles, forgiveness of sin, and casting out demons exemplify the same thing.

We know all this, but somehow it doesn't enthuse us or change us. It is different from how we habitually approach life. It is not what we instinctively see. Why? Because we let ourselves become learned and clever, we no longer see, we no longer hear, we no longer understand – with the consequence that we do not change, we are not converted, and we finish up not healed. Why don’t we? No wonder why Jesus says so insistently, ‘Listen.’ Listen to him. He knows what God is really like. Sit lightly with our former certainties. Imagine…

That is why he spoke in parables – to shoot down our tired expectations, to stimulate our imaginations. Parables are not illustrations. They are not another moralistic version of Aesop's fables. They are not about good behavior but how things are in the kingdom of God. In no way is it business as usual, but unimaginably Good News.

The Gospel refers to the parable as the parable of the Sower. What if it is about the sower, who knows his farm yet sows his seed with uncalculating abandon along the track, on stony areas, among thistles, and in his good soil? What might that say about God? Imagine! Can you warmly relate to an incorrigibly hopeful God like that? Why does Jesus leave us up in the air?

It may be worthwhile to take time to listen and let our imaginations loose. That is what praying can be, even perhaps, is meant to be – or at least can be at its nourishing best.

Blessings!!