Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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 12 2025

Who Knows?

It was early spring. The master gardener was really busy. A kind friend offered to weed her perennial garden while the weeds were still small. She was very grateful. He was an expert on tulips. He knew what tulip leaves looked like. So he diligently weeded that garden clean. When he was done, the tulip leaves proudly stood out from the bare soil that surrounded them. As spring unfolded in the garden, though, there were no forget-me-nots. The coreopsis was gone. There were no more buttercups. The tulips grew strong and died back. The next year, that same friend offered to help. “Let me do the weeding,” the master gardener said.

We really don’t know what we don’t know. Sometimes we assume that we know ourselves and others. The research, however, reveals that we create stories in our minds based on partial pieces of information. We do not have all the evidence on anything. If you and I had the job of weeding out the good and the bad in a group of people, we may see the acts that a person does and judge accordingly. But moral theologians tell us that moral blame is based on act, circumstance, and intention. We can and must judge acts as morally wrong or right, but we do not have enough information to pass further judgment on a person. Only God knows the circumstance and intentions behind an act.

Why doesn’t God ask us to do the weeding? Little leaves that come up in early spring do not look like the flowers they will be when they are mature. We would often pluck out the wrong things if it were up to us. We don’t know what we don’t know. Jesus offers today’s parable so that we will practice mercy, not judgment.

“Let me do the weeding,” the Master Gardener says.

Consider/Discuss

The most beautiful flower in a garden may look like a dead stick in early spring. Think back to some of the ugly things you may have done in your life. How has God helped you to grow so that you mature and blossom?
We tell stories about people in our minds. Have you ever had an “aha!” moment when you’ve said, “How could I have been so wrong about that person?”

Living and Praying with the Word

Good Gardener of us all, sometimes we look just like dead sticks or tiny weeds. But you have a vision of what we can become. Affirm our strengths. Challenge our weaknesses. Never let us stop growing. And today, assist us in revising our story about someone. Reveal to us where we are impatient or unmerciful or unkind or uncharitable, for we want to see others as you do.

Jan 12 2025

Scripture Study for

Because of God’s unparalleled and unchallenged power, the wicked are given opportunity to repent; divine forgiveness is not coerced (“Neither out of fear for anyone did you grant release for their sins” [Wisdom12:11]). God’s sovereign power ensures that God does not need to explain or justify either condemnation or forgiveness, and is “lenient to all.” There is no divine ego at stake, giving God freedom to act generously. This divine mercy is a lesson to God’s people, who learn that God’s justice is not opposed to kindness, but actually manifests itself in kindness. God’s absolutely free justice is ground for hope in God’s mercy.

Paul reminds the Romans that through the Spirit they have been adopted as God’s children and now “groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). The guarantee of this hope is the gift of the Spirit, who not only leads and transforms the faithful, but also helps them pray. Human beings, as the agents of God’s redemption of all of creation, are called to intercede with God, but as they are (for the time being) subject to corruption and death, they are weak and do not know exactly how to intercede. The Spirit dwelling in each believer makes up for this weakness by expressing the groaning of creation and “the holy ones,” and is heard by God.

Three parables illustrate the kingdom of heaven. At least on this side of eternity, it is a mix of the good and the bad. Readers have taken the weeds and the wheat to represent either individuals or the tendencies within each heart. In the first case, the warning is to let God sort out the sinners from the saints; judgment is God’s prerogative (Matthew 7:1–5). In the second case, the assurance is that while there are within us both the good and the bad, God is patient and, in God’s way, removes that which needs to be removed. The other two parables reflect the biblical insistence that God’s greatest works have small, hidden, unlikely beginnings. The kingdom (God) works in ways that we often cannot appreciate.

Dec 17 2024

Crossing Boundaries

It is instructive to look at the maps found in most Bibles. You get a sense of how “man-made” (here meaning “made by males”) boundaries are. The boundary lines of the biblical world at the time of the Exodus yield to those at the time of King David and then again to those of the world at the time of Babylonian ascendency, and on to the time of Jesus and the early church. The shifting boundaries are a constant over the centuries.

The two stories today reveal a seismic shift in boundaries between God and us. Up until this time in the story of Abraham, God had spoken with Abraham, but now God comes for a home visit. A boundary of intimacy is crossed. Abraham provides a meal and waits on the Lord. In response, God tells Sarah that, after a quarter of a century of hearing the promise, she will have a son by next year.

When Jesus said to Martha that Mary had chosen the better part, he was also approving a shift in boundaries. There were physical boundaries in the Jewish home, “male space” and “female space.” By sitting at the feet of Jesus, Mary had crossed the line. Only a disciple of a teacher would do this and only a man could be a disciple. When Martha notes that Mary is not where she belongs, helping in the kitchen, Jesus makes clear where he stands—and where Mary can sit. All part of a new creation, and not yet a finished one either.

Consider/Discuss

What boundaries have changed in your lifetime?
What boundaries still need to be changed, opening up more shared space?

Responding to the Word

Loving God, you set the boundaries of earth, sky, and sea. In doing this, you provide a place for us to live responsibly and work happily in your creation. Direct our efforts to be as hospitable as Abraham was to passing strangers and as innovative as Jesus was with his friends Martha and Mary.

Dec 17 2024

Scripture Study for

The reading from Genesis follows a classic story form well known in the ancient Near East: heavenly beings come in disguise to a humble home, are shown hospitality, and announce a future birth.

Abraham is portrayed here as the perfect host. One of the visitors foretells the birth of Sarah’s son. Sarah’s significance is clear. She is named rather than merely identified as Abraham’s wife. The child is identified as her son rather than Abraham’s. Obviously, this woman will play an important role in the life of this child. All of this points to the extraordinary nature of the yet unborn child.

Paul rejoices in his sufferings, for he believes that they will benefit the Colossian Christians. He would never say that the sufferings of Jesus were in any way lacking in their atoning efficacy. Rather, he believed that, joined to Jesus, his own sufferings had merit and could be seen as part of the sufferings that would inaugurate the messianic age. Ultimately, the real message that Paul proclaims is Christ the risen Lord. To borrow from the great Jewish rabbi Hillel, everything else is commentary! However, commentary is necessary for us to understand the specific impact of the message in every time and place.

Martha welcomes Jesus into her house. She is not merely overwhelmed with the traditional household duties; she is fulfilling the customary responsibilities of hospitality. The word “service” has specific ministerial connotations. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, the customary place of a disciple. In their own ways, both sisters are faithful disciples of Jesus, one listening to his word and the other performing service. Jesus is not being asked to intervene in a domestic squabble. He is being asked to set priorities. Last Sunday we saw that attention to the person in need is to be preferred over the fulfillment of one’s everyday responsibilities. The story of Martha and Mary seems to be another example of this principle.