Year A

Jan 15 2025

In Search Of: A Wise Heart

If God were to offer you your heart’s desire, what would you ask for? Solomon did not request health or wealth. Nor did he ask God to remove his enemies— either those inherited from his father or those acquired when he was given the crown at a very young age. Solomon asked for wisdom, for a heart that understands or listens. Such wisdom included the ability to judge justly and to distinguish right from wrong. God was pleased.

The gift of wisdom allows the heart to see; the letter to the Ephesians refers to “seeing with the eyes of the heart.” And wisdom brings the ability to hear the word of the Lord even when spoken in the sound of silence, as Elijah did. Such seeing and hearing lie at the heart of the first two parables. Seeing God’s reign is likened to finding a treasure in a field or seeking a most valuable pearl—when one sees where it is hidden or hears where it can be found, one gives all one has to make it one’s own.

The heart can spend many years and look in many places for happiness. We can bypass the kingdom again and again, going off into various dead ends, cul de sacs, and blind alleys. Paul reminds the Romans that all things work for good for those who look to God. God, who has predestined us to share the image of the Son, wishes to give us the wisdom needed to discover where the kingdom is hidden.

Consider/Discuss

What is your heart’s desire?
Have you asked for that wisdom that is a gift of the Holy Spirit?
Of the different parables you have heard these last three weeks, which one speaks most to your heart?

Responding to the Word

Remembering that “the revelation of [God’s] words sheds light” (Psalm 119), ask God to give you the wisdom needed in your life to seek out the divine presence and to respond wholeheartedly to that presence, so that God rules in your heart, mind, and spirit as you grow into the image of Jesus Christ.

Jan 15 2025

Scripture Study for

Solomon asks for an understanding heart so that he can rule his people wisely. This request shows his concern for God’s people, not merely for himself. It is no wonder that God is pleased with him. The very last verse of the passage reinforces the tradition of Solomon’s wisdom, claiming that no one before him or anyone after him could compare with him. The wisdom referred to here is not experiential wisdom, the kind that stems from reflection on experience; it is really a gift from God. God chose Solomon to be king, and gave him the wisdom he needed to rule wisely.

Paul’s insistence that all things work for good should not be misunderstood as meaning that everything will work out in the end. Rather, it implies a profound trust that God can bring good even out of misfortune. Paul’s teaching on predestination has often been misunderstood. He states that God foreknew from the beginning of time and with divine power predetermined who would be called, justified, and glorified. And who are the ones called? Nowhere does Paul suggest that some are predestined to salvation and others to perdition. Rather, the entire Christian tradition provides the answer to the question. All are called to be justified and glorified.

The parables of the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price both suggest that the kingdom of God is present though unperceived. However, only the very shrewd discover it and sacrifice everything in order to possess it. The parable of the net is quite different. Like the parable of the wheat and the weeds (see Matthew 13:40b–42, Sixteenth Sunday), it describes a community consisting of both good and bad. Only at the end of the catch will the fish be separated. Jesus asks if the disciples understand his teaching, because they must see that, like the old and new treasures of the householder, the teaching of Jesus, though radically different, is grounded in the original tradition.

Jan 15 2025

The Patience and Power of God

Our experience of the world is often an experience of opposites: truth and lies, goodness and evil, beauty and ugliness. They are found in intimate proximity, often on the same page of the newspaper or in the same half-hour news report, and intertwined in the same human heart. Their existence is connected to human freedom as well as to the power of sin and evil in our world.

Jesus tells a parable that makes the same point as the author of Wisdom: God’s exercise of power is tempered by leniency and mercy; God’s justice is balanced by loving-kindness. Our desire to pull up and destroy the weeds prematurely could destroy the good wheat. While the interpretation in the Gospel applies this image to different groups in a community, we can also hear this parable as referring to the weeds and wheat, the evil and goodness residing in the heart.

Jesus says God’s active presence in the world is something as small as a mus tard seed and as fragile as a pinch of yeast, yet each contains a power that, when released, will bring about growth and expansion.

In the meantime, the challenge is being as patient with others as God is, while working with God to purify our own hearts. Last week Jesus warned about the sluggish heart; today he pictures a contaminated heart, good interpenetrated by evil. But the power of God is stronger than the power of evil and death. Be patient, and remain open to the workings of God’s grace.

Consider/Discuss

What do you see as “weeds” in your life, in the community, in the world?
Where have you seen the power of God at work in small and hidden ways?
How can the patience and kindness of God work through you?

Responding to the Word

We respond by praying: “O God, you have given us the gift of life; continue to keep us alive in Christ Jesus. Bring us from death to grow in faith, hope, and love. We remain patient in prayer and faithful to your word, until your glory is revealed.”

Jan 15 2025

Scripture Study for

The author of Wisdom lists forceful divine characteristics. Beginning with the total and exclusive providence of God, he states that only the God of Israel exercises care over all. Because God has neither peer nor rival, God is accountable to no one for the way justice is practiced. God’s might is tempered by leniency. The righteous trust in God’s power at work in the world. However, those who do not trust this power are fearful. The people of Israel are exhorted to pattern their treatment of others after God’s treatment of them, to temper their own might with leniency, to regulate their own justice with kindness.

Paul provides us with a bold and moving explanation of prayer. He describes human limitation and how the Spirit comes to the assistance of human beings precisely in this limitation. He maintains that we do not know how to pray as we ought. Still, such weakness need not prevent us from accomplishing great things through the Spirit who works in and through us. This Spirit acts as intermediary between God and us. Since God searches hearts, God knows that it is the Spirit who makes intercession for us. God has a purpose, and though we do not know what that purpose is, the enabling Spirit of God moves us toward it.

Three parables illustrate aspects of the growth of the reign of God: the field sown with weeds, the mustard seed, and the yeast in the dough. In the first parable, good seed is sown, but weeds grow up along with the crops. This represents a community that includes both good and bad. Purging should be delayed. The time of harvest will come when separation will take place. The second and third parables address the reign’s unimpressive beginnings, its gradual and imperceptible growth, and the extraordinary yield that it will ultimately produce. Jesus’ teaching ends with a solemn admonishment: Whoever has ears ought to hear and understand this.

Jan 15 2025

Rejuvenating Sluggish Hearts

Isaiah provides us with a glimpse of what ecologists today would refer to as the integrity of creation. Focusing on precipitation in the forms of rain and snow, he traces the cycle that it takes. His understanding comes from observation of nature, the primary source of wisdom. This metaphor assures us that we can be as confident of the power of the word of God as we can be of the working of the natural world. Just as nature produces miracles upon which we can rely and because of which we can survive, so the word of God can effect miracles upon which we can rely and because of which we can live.

Paul’s teaching on the end of time takes a very interesting turn. He maintains that the new life of which he speaks is not limited to the human sphere. Rather, the entire created world participates in this transformation. The entire created world is somehow swept up with humankind into this eschatological drama, awaiting the revelation that will be granted the children of God, not as spectators, but as participants. Paul assures the Christians that they already possess the first fruits of the Spirit, a pledge that guarantees they will be brought into full transformation. By implication, all of creation will be brought along with them.

The Gospel parable focuses neither on the sower nor on the seed, but on the receptivity of the soil. The parable is not a difficult story to understand. But what does it really mean? Jesus provides his disciples an allegorical interpretation of the parable. In each case described, the sown word is actually heard; to some extent it is accepted. Jesus is not referring to outright rejection from outsiders, but to the way followers receive the word of God. When one understands the meaning of the parable, one is apt to wonder: What kind of soil am I? How receptive am I to the word of God?