Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

Words are powerful tools. Today, at this mass we are celebrating the fiftieth wedding anniversary or Fred and Marian Volk. Just two words, “I do,” has bound them together for the last fifty years. And it will for the next many years. As far as I can see, they are going to hang around for a very long time. But I also know a lady who broke her “I do,” over the phone. Words are powerful. They have the power to build or destroy. If you were following the political events this week, then you know the effect of Rev. Jesse Jackson’s careless words over an open microphone against Barak Obama. Just like the news channels, I cannot even repeat those words in a Church. The consternation those words created is irreparable. The power of words... From the Biblical perspective too, words carry immense power. In the Bible, though, there is a connection between God, God’s word and the events that God’s word accomplished. Let me first lay out that connection. For example, the first recorded act of God in the Bible is speaking. Genesis 1:3 reads, “God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light! In fact, creation is an act of God’s word. God’s word is so powerful that the words almost always become ‘an event.’ God’s words and his actions are the same. That is what today’s first reading means when it says, “So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; my word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it” (Is 55:11).

Sometimes, instead of God speaking, God chose people through whom he would speak. The effect is the same. As they did what God said they should do, events continued to take place. You remember that when the Israelites stood between the Red Sea and the approaching Egyptian army, God said to Moses, “Stretch out your hands over the sea…” (Ex 14:16). When Moses did as God said, the sea parted and the Israelites walked on dry ground. Israel was saved that day by God’s word.

In John’s gospel, God and his Word are identical. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1). This relationship of similarity between “God” and “Word” led to the greatest event in human history – the coming of Jesus into this world. As John puts it, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (Jn 1:14). Once again we see the mystery of the relationship between the person of God, God’s Word and God’s events.

If we approach the parable of the sower in this context it opens new meanings for us. Jesus’ words were not just the word of God as the people of Israel heard from the prophets, but rather, Jesus was the Word of God. The Word came as a concrete person. Jesus then compared our life and heart to the ground. Like there are different types of grounds, there were different types of people who accepted Jesus in varying degrees. While some believed in his teaching like Nicodemus, others simply turned away like the rich young man, and yet others became hostile like the Pharisees and the scribes. Only in those who opened their lives to Jesus could the Word become an event. The most striking example of this is Mary. God’s Word became an event in her womb because she totally opened her life to God both as word and person.

Let me offer three practical implications from today’s reading. These practical implication will be formed in the context mystery we talked about in the beginning: the Person, the Word and the Event.

1. God’s Word. Today’s readings are an invitation to make the word of God a part of our daily lives. It is an invitation to base our lives on God’s word. It is an invitation to take out the stones and thorns that choke the word in our lives and make our lives a fertile soil for God's word. This week may I suggest that we do not begin our day without taking the Bible and reading it. The best way to do it for us is to go to www.itemissaest.org. The daily mass readings along with daily reflection are so well written there. It even gives practical suggestions for daily Christian living. Let us keep this in mind – to ignore God’s word is to ignore the person who speaks those words. To ignore God’s word is to ignore God.

2. Word of God as Person. Because God and God's Word are identical, when we open the pages of the Bible and read them, we are not confronting black and white pages or words like in a novel. When we read the Scriptures we are being introduced to a person. Yesterday, I had to look at the baptismal records of a person who was baptized in 1966. I do not know the person, but suddenly the old dusty books with names and dates just came alive. I was looking for a person. When we read the scriptures, it is God who we comes alive. There is a person we come to know in these pages.


3. Word of God as Event. God’s words become an event in our lives to the extent that we receive it like the good soil received the seed. And this takes much effort. Take the simple words of Jesus, “Love one another as I have loved you.” To plant those words in our lives, with every desire to practice it, watering and nurturing these words and protecting it against the weather, all this can be life long project. Or take the words “Do not worry about what to eat and what to drink… the pagans do that. Rather seek first the kingdom of God and everything else will be yours as well.” To plant these words in good soil in our lives can be challenging. Or take the words of Jesus, “Give and it will be given to you, full measure and overflowing.” If we allows these seeds to grow on good soil, then godly events take place in our lives.

The Eucharist begins with God’s word. But even more significant is the fact that the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ by the words of the priest and the action of the Holy Spirit. Here the words become an event, a person. Let be open to God’s Word, God Word as event and God’s word as person. Amen.

- Fr. Satish Joseph