THE COMMANDMENTS – THE ROAD TO FREEDOM

July 23, Friday

SIXTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

 

       “I am the Lord your God. I brought you… out of the house of slavery.” These opening words of the commandments mark the meaning that the Old Testament gave to God’s commandments. They are the charter of fidelity for us, God’s partners, to the God of the covenant. No one can belong to God’s free people without being faithful to these fundamentals. The commandments are the road to freedom. Their basis is love, which makes us faithful to God and to people.

Matthew interprets for his community and applies to their situation what the parable of the sower means for them. When he began to tell the parable of the sower, Jesus said: “listen.” When Matthew explains it and adapts it to his community, we are told again: “Hear.” We have to listen to the parable and see how it applies to ourselves. By listening we have also to listen to the signs of our time, how the word of Christ the sower applies to our time and our people, that the word may be accepted and bear fruit.

 

First Reading: Exodus 20:1-17

God spoke all these words:

I am God, your God,
    who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
    out of a life of slavery.

No other gods, only me.

No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. Don’t bow down to them and don’t serve them because I am God, your God, and I’m a most jealous God, punishing the children for any sins their parents pass on to them to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation of those who hate me. But I’m unswervingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments.

No using the name of God, your God, in curses or silly banter; God won’t put up with the irreverent use of his name.

Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God. Don’t do any work—not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your animals, not even the foreign guest visiting in your town. For in six days God made Heaven, Earth, and sea, and everything in them; he rested on the seventh day. Therefore God blessed the Sabbath day; he set it apart as a holy day.

Honor your father and mother so that you’ll live a long time in the land that God, your God, is giving you.

No murder.

No adultery.

No stealing.

No lies about your neighbor.

No lusting after your neighbor’s house—or wife or servant or maid or ox or donkey. Don’t set your heart on anything that is your neighbor’s.

 

Gospel: Matthew 13:18-23

“Study this story of the farmer planting seed. When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn’t take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person’s heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road.

“The seed cast in the gravel—this is the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm. But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it.

“The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it.

“The seed cast on good earth is the person who hears and takes in the News, and then produces a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.”

 

Prayer

Lord, mighty God,
at times some feel your commandments
as a yoke hard to bear
and a limitation to our freedom.
Make us deeply realize, Lord,
that they are a strong safeguard
against any form of slavery.
By your commands keep us free
to respect the rights to freedom
of people far and near
and to become ever more your sons and daughters
set free by Jesus Christ,
your Son and our Lord for ever. Amen.

 

Reflection:
Prepare the ground, not just once
We come today to the explanation of the parable of the sower. Many scripture scholars today believe, that this interpretation to the parable of Jesus may be coming from the tradition of the early Church. The parable focuses on the sower while its interpretation looks much more at the soil in which the seed falls.

The interpretation reflects the experiences of the early Church as it tried to spread the Gospel. The four different kinds of soil are taken to represent four kinds of responses to the Word of God. The explanation is also understood as an attempt to illustrate the various ways that people responded to words of Jesus when Jesus actually spoke to them.

The explanation to the parable aims to help the disciples to identify the difficulties that the Word of God encounters in everyone. The failure in results depends neither on the seed nor the sower, but on the type of soil. It is not talking about four categories of persons, but four interior dispositions found in every person. Every person can have all these four different dispositions when he or she receives or responds to God’s message. Meaning to say, no one is totally bad to reject the Gospel. There are areas to work on in everyone, to prepare the ideal ground for the Gospel.

The seed is excellent, because it is the Gospel and the sower is an expert, because he is Christ himself. Why then is it so difficult to penetrate into the hearts of people and bear fruit? The Gospel calls on us to reflect on our dispositions. Let me borrow the explanations of Fr. Armellini on the seeds that fell on the road and the birds came and ate them.

A road or a path is where everyone passes. The seed does not penetrate on the paths because the soil is trampled on by everyone. It means that we give in to everyone’s way of thinking, everyone’s way of reasoning, valuing things as everyone does. And this voice of everyone is often not in tune with the voice of the Gospel. And when we follow what everyone says, even if the message of the Gospel reaches our ears, it does not penetrate into the heart, because the ground is hardened, as it is trampled by the logic of everyone.

And the birds arrive. There is a lot of talk in the Bible about birds. In chapter 15 of the book of Genesis the birds of prey represented the pagan peoples who wanted to divert Israel from the covenant with the Lord. What do these birds of prey represent today? Secularisation, a thousand distractions, permissiveness, nonsense circulating on our smartphones, the fashions that make us lose our minds…. And we unwittingly give up the message of the Gospel to the birds.

 

Video available on Youtube: Prepare the ground, not just once