Homily (2) 16th
Sunday of Year A: Michael U Udoekpo
Readings:
Wisdom 12:13, 16-19; Ps 86:5-10, 15-16; Rom 8:26-27 and Matthew 13:24-43
Whoever
is sown in Christ Grows into Abundance
Like
last Sunday, Christ continues to speak to us, today through Matthew 13:24-43,
and in parables. We are many blessings and gifts in God's hands. These include a little sown mustard seed that
gradually grows into a big bush with wide branches which later come to accommodates
varieties of birds of the sky. We are also in the hands of God, like a small
yeasts that a woman mixes with three measure of wheat flour until the whole
batched was leavened.
In
addition, God sows each of us like a good seed sown in the field with great
expectations. Though good seeds, they usually grows alongside other competing
bad weeds. Those who cultivate Wheat and Rice know the risk of impatience or
not handling the wheat skillfully in the midst of competing forces of weeds.
In
today’s parable, it is better and wise to wait till harvest time to separate the
weed from the wheat. From creation and through the history of Israel, God has
planted us in this life amidst other weeds and tribulations or exiles,
persecutions, injustices, acts of racism, discrimination, tribalism, parochialism,
wars, terrorism, and other forms of human- made hardships.
But
in the midst of all these, it is proven, particularly in the first reading of
today, Wisdom 12:13, 16-19 that, there is not God besides our God, and he “cares
for all.” His might is the source of justice once denied, men, women, children
and the weak of all ages. He judges, of course, with clemency and patience, and
gives ground for hope and repentance. He is erekeh payim and full of hesed and
tsedigkim!; for those who are childlikely disposed to his kindness, love and righteousness.
We
are called not only to be patient with our weak brothers and sisters, but to be
kind and nice to them. By so doing we remind ourselves of what Paul says in
today’s second reading, that, “the spirit comes to the aid of our weaknesses,
for we do not even know how to pray as we ought.”
In
other words, like seeds sown by God that faces worldly competitions and all
forms of temptations to sin, to fight back, to curse, to revenge, to terrorize,
to be unkind, to discriminate, to lie, to be deceptive, to be selfish, to un-love,
to be nasty, to gossip- may we come back to Christ, realizing that whoever abides
in him or whoever is sown in Christ grows into abundance of his love and the
goodness of his mercy.
