The Fruits of Redemption
Fifteenth Sunday of the Year. Fr John Farrell relates the Parable of the Sower to the doctrine of creation.
The God of Creation, and the God of Redemption are one. The Holy Trinity. It seems then to be more than right and proper to use processes and images drawn from the natural world to illuminate the supernatural world engracing us in that cherishing creativity, that healing and elevating of us by Father, Son and Holy Spirit in whom we live and move and have our being. All our readings at Mass today present this dynamic providential unity within nature and grace.
Regarding our first reading from Isaiah, we say in the Creed, ‘For us and for our salvation he descended from heaven …the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us…. he suffered death and was buried and rose again and ascended into heaven.’ Isaiah tells us, ‘For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed for the sowing and bread for the eating, so shall my WORD be. HE shall not return to me empty but shall accomplish (CONSUMMATUM EST – HIS words on the cross) that which I purpose and will succeed in the thing for which I sent HIM.’
Today’s Responsorial Psalm blends together the fruitfulness of the natural world in the verses, and in the refrain Christ’s invitation to his followers in today’s Gospel to be fruitful. ‘Some seed fell into good soil and yielded its fruit.’
But before looking in detail at the parable of the seed, the good news of the kingdom, falling on several soils with varying levels of long-term fruitfulness, let us take another significant ‘seed’ saying of Jesus, from just before his Passion: ‘Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the earth and die it remains but a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit’ (John 12.24).
Christ is both the Sower and the Seed. Sent by the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit ‘dying he destroyed our death and rising he restored our life.’ Dying to the old and rising to newness of life is part of God’s providence in both nature and in our engracing.
If the seed sown is life in the Holy Trinity, then our response is not to be passive, but the ‘ground’ of our living is to be a Spirit gift of both receptivity and a vigilance against all that can harm impede and kill that gift. ‘Deliver us from evil and lead us not into temptation.’
In the course of our Christian living, we may pass through many of the ‘grounds’ of the parable: a superficial receptivity but lacking roots when times are difficult; choked by surrounding distractions of the false gods of wealth and pleasure; blighted by cares, anxieties, or listlessness.
This parable of the Sower is in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but with slight changes in emphasis: for Matthew, the point is to understand what is going on, but Luke gives us his conclusion: ‘But as for that in the good soil these are the ones who when they hear the word (WORD) would hold it (HIM) fast, in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.’
‘With patient endurance’ over time and ‘an honest and good heart’: in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, ‘Are grapes gathered from thorns? Or figs from thistles? in the same way every good tree bears good fruit and bad trees bear bad fruit.’
A tree that is not growing is facing death, and so too is a Christian who is not growing in that honesty and goodness of heart and in patient endurance overtime, dying to the old and rising to newness of life again and again, day by day.
As St Paul put it in a passage just before today’s second reading — as it were reflecting back to Christ the seed who must die to give abounding life: ‘the death he died, he died to sin once for all: but the life he lives he lives to God. So, you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive with a life that looks towards God in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 6.10-11).
Readings: Isaiah 55:10-11 | Romans 8:18-23 | Matthew 13:1-23
