Homily – Monday of the 17th Week of Ordinary Time Year B, Fr. Udoekpo, M
v Jer
13:1-11
v Ps
Deut 32:18-19,20,21
v Matt
13:31-35
The responsorial Psalm of today is from Deuteronomy 32:
18a “you have forgotten God who gave you birth.” This Deuteronomist’s theme can
also be flipped around as an exhortation “do not forget the God who gave you
birth,” or “remember the Lord who gave you birth.”
It fits into the overall literary genre of the
Deuteronomic historians (exhortation, preaching, homiletic, reflective speeches
etc) or of their lager themes ,such as obedience, hope, nearness to the Lord,
one people, one land, one God, patience, endurance, love, repentance, humility,
and faithfulness, otherwise they will experience exile and loose the temple!
Similar themes are heard in one form or the other in the
first reading Jeremiah 13:1-11 and in the Gospel of Matthew 13:31-35 in an
anticipatory manner.
In Jeremiah, it is demonstrated symbolically in the
Judean loincloth/waistcloth/sash (̍ēzôr),
which the Lord allows to rot, because of their pride and forgetfulness of all
that the Lord had done for them in past. Just as the waist-cloth became rotten
and good for nothing, those who disobeyed as heard throughout Deuteronomistic
Hisotory (Deut -2Kings 25) would be perish, unless they repent! Also just as the
loincloth or the waistcloth clings to our bodies, the Lord expects us to cling
to him, to be close and near to him; to love him, to obey him and to worship
him in how we treat others as well.
Similarly, in the Gospel parable, this Deuteronomic theme,
which Jeremiah shares, is anticipated in form of a mustard seed which later
grows into a very large plant accommodating other creatures like birds. We are
planted from the beginning like a mustard seed, to obey the Lord, to love him,
to walk in his ways- of love, tender care, selflessness, kindness, mercy,
forgiveness, sense of common accommodating everyone and other God’s creatures.
Today’s scripture passages, especially the Deuteronmic
themes, challenge us to not forget the goodness of the Lord, all the values we
had acquired from they of our baptism, in spite of this ongoing corona-virus and
other modern challenges that we may face
today.
Reflection Questions
1.
How often do we
remember all that the Lord has done for us in our lives or our biological
parents who gave us birth?
2.
What prevents us from
growing in faith and love and hope like the parabolic mustard seed of today’s
Gospel?
3.
How often do
encourage members of our faith community to zakar, to remember, the
goodness of the Lord and to be near to him like a loincloth?
