THE SEED OF THE WORD

Saturday September 18

TWENTY-FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

THE SEED OF THE WORD

Introduction 

At the end of his letter, Paul gives as a program of life to Timothy to remain faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ.

We hear today Luke’s version of the parable of the seed. In Jesus’ original intent, it pictured the difficult growth of the kingdom towards its final accomplishment, of which also Paul speaks in the first reading. Luke applies it in the explanation of the parable to the reception of the Word of God and the life of faith in people’s hearts. God sows the seed, but people receive it differently and react to it in various ways, for it is hard to let it grow and remain loyal to it in the humble and sometimes difficult realities of daily life. How does God’s Word grow and bear fruit in us?

Opening Prayer

Lord our God,
we thank you for speaking to us
the Word of your Son, Jesus Christ,
and sowing in our hearts and minds
the seeds of faith.
Open our ears to his Word, day after day,
that it may grow in us
in pain and effort and joy,
that it be rooted ever more deeply
and bear fruits of justice and love,
until the final coming of Jesus Christ,
your Son and our Lord for ever.

Reading 1: 1 TM 6:13-16

Beloved:
I charge you before God, who gives life to all things,
and before Christ Jesus,
who gave testimony under Pontius Pilate
for the noble confession,
to keep the commandment without stain or reproach
until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ
that the blessed and only ruler
will make manifest at the proper time,
the King of kings and Lord of lords,
who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light,
and whom no human being has seen or can see.
To him be honor and eternal power. Amen.

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 100:1B-2, 3, 4, 5

(2) Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Sing joyfully to the LORD all you lands;
serve the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful song.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Know that the LORD is God;
he made us, his we are;
his people, the flock he tends.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
his courts with praise;
Give thanks to him; bless his name.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
For he is good:
the LORD, whose kindness endures forever,
and his faithfulness, to all generations.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.

Alleluia: LK 8:15

Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are they who have kept the word with a generous heart
and yield a harvest through perseverance.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel: LK 8:4-15

When a large crowd gathered, with people from one town after another
journeying to Jesus, he spoke in a parable.
“A sower went out to sow his seed.
And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path and was trampled,
and the birds of the sky ate it up.
Some seed fell on rocky ground, and when it grew,
it withered for lack of moisture.
Some seed fell among thorns,
and the thorns grew with it and choked it.
And some seed fell on good soil, and when it grew,
it produced fruit a hundredfold.”
After saying this, he called out,
“Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.”

Then his disciples asked him
what the meaning of this parable might be.
He answered,
“Knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God
has been granted to you;
but to the rest, they are made known through parables
so that they may look but not see, and hear but not understand.

“This is the meaning of the parable.
The seed is the word of God.
Those on the path are the ones who have heard,
but the Devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts
that they may not believe and be saved.
Those on rocky ground are the ones who, when they hear,
receive the word with joy, but they have no root;
they believe only for a time and fall away in time of temptation.
As for the seed that fell among thorns,
they are the ones who have heard, but as they go along,
they are choked by the anxieties and riches and pleasures of life,
and they fail to produce mature fruit.
But as for the seed that fell on rich soil,
they are the ones who, when they have heard the word,
embrace it with a generous and good heart,
and bear fruit through perseverance.”

Intercessions

– Lord, give wisdom and courage to all teachers in the Church, that they may help us understand your Word and proclaim it as Good News, we pray:

– Lord, inspire by your Word all the mighty of this earth, that they may join forces to bring to all lasting peace, food and human dignity, we pray:

– Lord, make us receptive to your Word. Free us from banality and fear for our security and certainties. Give us new insight in your message, that we may live as we believe, we pray:

Prayer over the Gifts

Lord our God,
accept in this bread and this wine
our eagerness to receive your Son
and to listen to his Word
with noble and generous hearts.
Give him to us as our companion on the road,
that he may keep speaking to us
in people and in the events of life
and that we may understand him
and bear a rich harvest
that lasts, for ever and ever.

Prayer after Communion

Lord, our God,
let our words and deeds
echo the message of your Son
and fill us with his life.
Make our human words reliable
and serve unity and the truth.
Pour out your compassion in them,
your love and your joy,
that they may bring strength,
insight and friendship,
by the power of Jesus Christ,
your living Word and our Lord for ever.

Blessing

Let the seed of God’s Word fall in the good soil of our eager and receptive hearts, and may Almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Commentary

God speaks to all, without reservations
The original listeners of Jesus were mostly rural landholders, farmers and day-labourers, constantly struggling against impossible odds. For them, thought of a hundredfold harvest would have represented life to the full, unthinkable joy and freedom from debt. This parable is often titled as the “parable ofthe sower.” When Jesus said this story to his listeners, perhaps it had a simple meaning – the focus is on the sower. This sower does not care about how the soil would receive the seed. He goes around sowing the seed – He is not discouraged by the lack of results from varied areas, but is hopeful that there would be some place where the seeds would be well received and produce desired results. Focus is totally on the sower.

But when Luke narrates the parable for his listeners, he would label the listeners of Jesus as “townspeople”– because the listeners of Luke were mostly living in the towns and not in villages. The townspeople would not totally understand the nuances involved in the process of farming. As it happens even today, majority of the listeners of the Gospel who live in the cities have little knowledge about the lives of farmers and cultivating the land.

This is the reason for the evangelists to provide an explanation for the parable, immediately after narrating the parable. The Scripture scholars would explain that this explanation of the parable did not originate from Jesus himself, rather this was how the parable was explained to the communities abroad – who were dwelling in cities, who had little understanding of farming and farmers.

The explanation carries the original parable further than its simple message. In the parable the emphasis was on the sower, but in the explanation, the emphasis is shifted to the soil which receives the seed. The overwhelming pagan world around them was just too strong an attraction and their ideologies and way of life represented the birds the ate up the seeds that fell on the path.

Many early Christians who must have given up their faith under the pressures of persecution represented the seed that falls on the rock. They were not able to put down any long-lasting roots and, at the first hint of opposition or temptation, they fall away.

The seed that falls among the brambles represents those who do hear and accept the word. But, gradually the pressure of the secular world and its values is too much. They try to live in both worlds, but are gradually choked up with concerns about money and material and social wants and the pursuit of pleasure.
The evangelist calls on us to prepare our hearts well to receive the Word of God in all openness to be fruitful a hundredfold.