Just AND Merciful... or, Don't Pull Out The Beans!

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Homily Outline for the 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Year A

We are in the midst of Ordinary Time. It has this name not because any lack of special grace, but because the Sundays are named with “ordinal” numbers… hence “Ordinary Time.” The color is green for growth. The 33 or 34 weeks of the year devoted to Ordinary Time are weeks devoted to our growth in grace, our growth and putting into practice of the mysteries celebrated during the special seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter.

It is particularly appropriate, then, that we hear today of the planting, growing, and harvesting of a crop. I hope your gardens are growing… I have only a couple rows of sugar-snap peas back at St. Michael’s, but they’re flourishing. I suspect many of you have gardening on your minds in July. What does our parable tell us today about gardening, and life? There WILL BE a harvest, and the crop will be examined… God is just. And, God is patient and merciful… He has given us our entire lives to prepare and make ready for that harvest. He doesn’t strike preemptively… He harvests only in the fullness of time.

It is easy to come down hard on one side or the other of this question… to cry out, “Repent, judgment is near,” or to say, “no need to fear, God is merciful.” To take either piece by itself is to fall into error, because both are true! The opposition of God’s justice and mercy is a false dichotomy. The truth is often found in the dynamic tension between two claims that appear to be mutually exclusive: God is one and three, Jesus is fully human and fully divine, the Sacred Scriptures are God’s Word in human words, the Mary is both virgin and mother, and the Church is a human institution, but also divine, enlivened by the Holy Spirit. In each case, to resolutely affirm one thing seems to rule out the other, but the truth involves both together. God is bigger than our human categories, but works through them.

Our parable today imagines God as a gardener.  Growing up, I was always the lieutenant gardener, and my mom was the commander-in-chief. One time I received orders to weed out our beans. We normally planted long rows that we would eat fresh as well as freezing. There’s NOTHING as rich and good as freshly picked green beans! I yanked out the weeds with great vigor and enthusiasm. By the time I was done, not a weed was left. However, I’d nearly uprooted all the bean plants. My mom thought they were all going to die, but eventually, after several weeks of extra tender care, many of them survived! I had exercised more justice than mercy!

God does not make this mistake. We hear in the first reading that God has perfect and complete power, and so is full of lenience. Jesus explains the parable and makes clear that God sows only good seed, but the evil one, our adversary, attacks and distorts. God wills only good, but the abuse of our freedom in sin has distorted us and damaged the entire created world. Whatever water has passed under our bridges, we are to repent of our sins and hope in God’s mercy. We will each encounter God face to face, whether at our death or at the end of time, whichever comes first. Our time now, today, is to prepare.

C.S. Lewis

This mystery of God's perfect justice AND perfect mercy is beautifully captured by C.S. Lewis.  I’m a BIG fan of his… he has a marvelous ability to explain the truth with great clarity. One of his best books is very short, I recommend it to you, The Great Divorce. Despite the title, it’s not about marriage, but about eternity. In that book he explains judgment with great lucidity,

“Never fear. There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell . No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.”

The Lord, as it were, puts this ball very much in our court, that is the significance of the imperfect but real freedom that we are given: will we choose love, will we choose truth? To choose that which is good, true, and beautiful, to choose God and His will, that is the only real freedom.  Any parable or image fails to capture every detail... in this parable, a weed cannot become a bean plant.  We, however, are not stuck being thistles, even if we have planted many bad seeds ourselves, we can choose to repent and be healed, we can choose joy. The Holy Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness, helps us to pray and to open ourselves to God’s grace.

Our Mother the Church gives us not just the liturgical seasons, but also the individual feasts... July 16th, is the memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the patronal feast of the Carmelites.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

We remember in a special way the cloistered Carmelite nuns who give their lives in hidden prayer for us! They imitate Mary's surrender in a special way and become vessels of intercession and grace for the whole world. The Carmelite monasteries of our country are mostly full! There are over 20 women in Iron Mountain, my home area, and regular new vocations there. Mary models for us in a particular way this trust in God’s mercy… she says, “Be it done unto me according to thy will.” The devotion to our Lady of Mount Carmel is accessible to anyone through the wearing of the brown scapular, given to St. Simon Stock in England on this day in 1251… the scapular is a sign of devotion to Mary and her protection, a sign of the desire to imitate her surrender to God’s will. I have worn one since high school, perhaps some of you also wear one. The scapular is not magic, it is not a charm or an amulet, but it can be a symbol and reminder to the one who bears it of devotion to Mary, and of the intention to stay close to her in prayer. It can be like a good yeast rising in our lives, a mustard seed reminder of God’s call to us.

God is perfectly just, AND full of patient mercy. Let us respond to both truths with joy, repenting of our sins and opening our hearts and lives to God’s grace. At this very altar God offers us not just truth, but the power to live in Him. We will receive Jesus Himself, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. Let us ask God for the grace and strength offer to Him the harvest of our lives.