Friday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Jeremiah 3:14-17

Today we are given an optimistic vision of Zion in the messianic age. Jeremiah, in spite of his reputation, is not all gloom and doom. It was, of course, an important role of the prophet to point out the people’s shortcomings and to warn them of the consequences of their lifestyle. But it was also his role to bring a message of hope and to raise the morale of people who were oppressed or depressed.

Today’s reading is a message of hope for a people whose city has been destroyed and who have been carried away into exile in Babylon. Now the prophet is calling them to come back—not only to their city, but also to following the will of their God. He calls them “faithless children”, and reminds them that God alone is their husband and master.

The Hebrew word here for “husband/master” is ba’al, which, of course, is also the name given to the false gods that the Jews of the time had, under the influence of their conquerors, been worshipping. Jeremiah is calling on his people to have only one ba’al or master, namely Yahweh.

Now comes the promise. The people will return to Zion or Jerusalem, but in very small numbers, “one from a city and two from a family”. They are the remnant of Judah who will carry on the covenant promises of the Messiah to come.

They will have shepherds, that is, rulers, who, like David of old, will be “after my own heart”. They will be wise and prudent shepherds, unlike the corrupt and idolatrous rulers who led them to their downfall and exile.

“In those days”, that is, in the age of the Messiah, the remnant that has returned to Jerusalem will grow in numbers, yet:

…they shall no longer say, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord.”

It is clear that the Ark had been carried away or destroyed with the pillaging of the Temple by the Babylonians, but this will not matter.

The Ark of the Covenant, formerly symbolising God’s royal presence, will be irrelevant when the Messiah comes:

It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed, nor shall another one be made.

For the city of Jerusalem itself will become the “throne of the Lord”, where all the nations will assemble. Formerly, the Lord had been “enthroned upon the cherubim” in the Ark (Ps 99:1).

Moreover:

…all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no longer stubbornly follow their own evil will.

In the past, they refused to listen to the Lord and instead worshipped idols made by human hands.

Unlikely as it must have seemed at the time, Jerusalem did indeed become a place where the nations assembled. It became the place where the Messiah, the Christ, sealed the New Covenant in his own blood. It was the place where the people converged from all over the Mediterranean and, on the day of Pentecost, heard the Good News proclaimed in a language they could perfectly understand.

And, from Jerusalem, the message fanned out to the four points of the compass and eventually to every corner of the world. This is the theme of the Acts of the Apostles.

Jeremiah’s hearers never lived to see that day, but he was accurate in everything he foretold. We, on the other hand, are the beneficiaries. How are we responding to this tremendous gift of God’s love? To what extent have we heard and assimilated the Message? And what difference does our way of life make to those around us?

The Messianic Age continues, but it depends on us to make it visible. The realisation of the Messianic Age is the coming of the Reign of God into our world. There is a lot of work still to be done!

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Friday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 13:18-23

In today’s Gospel reading from the Parable of the Kingdom, we find the explanation of the parable of the sower. Or perhaps we should say it is an interpretation rather than an explanation. It is presented as coming from Jesus, but it is likely to have come from the tradition of the early Church. There is quite a different emphasis between the original parable and this interpretation. The parable focuses on the sower and the ultimate and inevitable success of his work. The interpretation, however, looks much more at the soil in which the seed falls. The interpretation reflects the experiences of the early Church as it tried to spread the gospel. The four different kinds of soil are taken to represent four kinds of environments into which the Word of God is ‘seeded’. The behavior of the seeds, then, represents four types of responses to the Word of God.

The first kind is like the seed on the stony path. The Word of God never even gets started, but gets plucked away by the evil influences by which the person is surrounded. In our strongly secular world today it is not easy for the Word to take root with so many competing enticements.

The second kind is like the seed that falls on the rock. The Word of God is received with great enthusiasm; the person becomes a devout and active Christian. But if obstacles arise which make the living of the Christian life difficult, the person falls away, maybe quickly, maybe gradually. As the Gospel says, the person has no roots; the faith has not gone deep, and so has not been really assimilated. This must have been the case with many in the early Church who enthusiastically embraced Christianity, but when persecution came, abandoned their faith. In our own time, we see this often enough when, for instance, people are removed from a protected environment where it is easy to live the faith to one where the faith is ignored or even ridiculed.

The third kind is like the seed that falls among the briars and brambles. I would suggest that a very large number of us are touched by this category. Anxieties about many things and the lure of material goods can gradually choke off our commitment to the gospel in its fullness. Our witness becomes seriously compromised and “there is no yield”—that is, we make no real contribution to building the Kingdom and changing the world. We sit on the fence and try to have the best of both worlds; we try to serve God and mammon, which Jesus says is not possible. I am sure many of us have matter for reflection here.

Finally, there is the fourth kind, the seed which falls on good soil. This is the one “who hears the message and takes it in”. These people hear the Word, accept the Word, make it their own and it overflows into all they are and do and say. Much fruit for the world comes from such persons.

These four types can still be found and it is for each one of us to determine to which group we belong.

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