20150128 GRACE AS THE BEGINNING, THE PREPARATION AND CAUSE OF WHO
WE ARE
Readings at Mass
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First reading
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Hebrews 10:11-18
©
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All the priests stand
at their duties every day, offering over and over again the same sacrifices
which are quite incapable of taking sins away. He, on the other hand, has
offered one single sacrifice for sins, and then taken his place forever, at
the right hand of God, where he is now waiting until his enemies are
made into a footstool for him. By virtue of that one single offering, he
has achieved the eternal perfection of all whom he is sanctifying. The Holy
Spirit assures us of this; for he says, first:
This is the
covenant I will make with them
when those days
arrive;
and the Lord then
goes on to say:
I will put my laws
into their hearts
and write them on
their minds.
I will never call
their sins to mind,
or their offences.
When all sins have
been forgiven, there can be no more sin offerings.
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Psalm
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Psalm 109:1-4 ©
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You are a priest
for ever, a priest like Melchizedek of old.
The Lord’s revelation
to my Master:
‘Sit on
my right:
your foes
I will put beneath your feet.’
You are a priest
for ever, a priest like Melchizedek of old.
The Lord will wield
from Zion
your
sceptre of power:
rule in
the midst of all your foes.
You are a priest
for ever, a priest like Melchizedek of old.
A prince from the day
of your birth
on the
holy mountains;
from the
womb before the dawn I begot you.
You are a priest
for ever, a priest like Melchizedek of old.
The Lord has sworn an
oath he will not change.
‘You are
a priest for ever,
a priest
like Melchizedek of old.’
You are a priest
for ever, a priest like Melchizedek of old.
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Gospel
Acclamation
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1S3:9,Jn6:68
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Speak, Lord, your
servant is listening:
you have the message
of eternal life.
Alleluia!
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Or
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Alleluia, alleluia!
The seed is the word
of God, Christ the sower;
whoever finds this
seed will remain for ever.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Mark 4:1-20 ©
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Jesus began to teach
by the lakeside, but such a huge crowd gathered round him that he got into a
boat on the lake and sat there. The people were all along the shore, at the
water’s edge. He taught them many things in parables, and in the course of his teaching
he said to them, ‘Listen!, Imagine a sower going out to sow. Now it happened
that, as he sowed, some of the seed fell on the edge of the path, and the birds
came and ate it up. Some seed fell on rocky ground where it found little soil
and sprang up straightaway, because there was no depth of earth; and when the
sun came up it was scorched and, not having any roots, it withered away. Some
seed fell into thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it produced no
crop. And some seeds fell into rich soil and, growing tall and strong, produced
crop; and yielded thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold.’ And he said, ‘Listen,
anyone who has ears to hear!’
When he
was alone, the Twelve, together with the others who formed his company, asked
what the parables meant. He told them, ‘The secret of the kingdom of God is
given to you, but to those who are outside everything comes in parables, so
that they may see and see again, but not perceive; may hear and hear again, but
not understand; otherwise they might be converted and be forgiven.’
He
said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand
any of the parables? What the sower is sowing is the word. Those on the edge of
the path where the word is sown are people who have no sooner heard it than
Satan comes and carries away the word that was sown in them. Similarly, those
who receive the seed on patches of rock are people who, when first they hear
the word, welcome it at once with joy. But they have no root in them, they do
not last; should some trial come, or some persecution on account of the word,
they fall away at once. Then there are others who receive the seed in thorns.
These have heard the word, but the worries of this world, the lure of riches
and all the other passions come in to choke the word, and so it produces
nothing. And there are those who have received the seed in rich soil: they hear
the word and accept it and yield a harvest, thirty and sixty and a
hundredfold.’
GRACE
AS THE BEGINNING, THE PREPARATION AND CAUSE OF WHO WE ARE
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: Heb 10:11-18; Mk 4:1-20
This
famous parable of the Sower is often interpreted as one’s response to
God’s Word, which is dependent on the depth and quality of one’s soul.
Such an interpretation is valid. But is this the interpretation
comprehensive enough? Undoubtedly, such an interpretation is influenced
by the primitive Church. Today, exegetes are in agreement that the
explanatory part of the parable does not come from Jesus Himself. Hence, in
order to understand why this interpretation is given, we must call to mind the
question that was facing the early Christian Church.
The
situation was simply that some of their members were falling away in spite of
the fact that they have been baptized and therefore have received God’s
Word. The implication seems therefore that the Word of God is
not efficacious. But such an implication would not do justice to
their faith in the power of God’s Word. Thus the theological reflection
of the early Christians concluded that if some members have fallen away, it was
not because God’s Word is inefficacious but because they have not been docile
to the Word or they have been distracted by the world and its pursuits.
Having
said this, now we can try to identify ourselves with the parable in today’s
gospel. Firstly, we are told that the farmer goes out sowing.
The meaning is clear. It is our experience that God gives His
grace freely to all. He takes the initiative in reaching out to us.
In other words, therefore, whatever we have comes from the grace of God. It
is His grace that makes us what we are today. Yes, the point of the
parable is that everything is simply because of the sheer grace of God.
This is the fundamental point of the parable.
Secondly, we are told that the seeds fell on
different kinds of ground. Some fell on foot-path; others on rocky
ground, some among thorns and some on good soil. Now this part of the
parable can be misinterpreted. There is a potential danger here of
allegorizing the ground as the situation which makes our response to the Word
of God possible.
Indeed, some of us might
argue why God does not make us good ground for the seed. No one wants
to be a foot-path to be trampled upon, or be thorns to others, or be so rocky
and heartless. No we all want to be that fertile soil for growth to take
place. But the truth is sometimes we have no choice. We do not
choose the ground that we want to be. We might have been born into a broken
family where God is simply not experienced; we might have been placed in
situations where excessive demands are placed upon us by our family, our
superiors or society; we might have suffered many personal crises that hardened
us towards life and love. Does not this sound more like being predestined
to doom and even hell? Here again, we seem to contradict the universal grace of
God which is given to all.
Thus, we cannot
over-emphasize the situations as determining our response to the Word of
God. Such a line of thought can lead to a total shirking of our
personal responsibility to the Word of God. Thus, we can make
scapegoats of our failure by either attributing it to the inefficacy of the
Word of God or that we do not have the grace to be receptive to the Word.
This could perhaps be what some of the early Christians who have fallen away
from the faith said, and what some of us today would use also to justify our
lack of faith.
So let us be clear, everything
is the grace of God. Even the kind of ground that we are given to be
is also the grace of God. This is what the early Church wanted to
say. The real problem lies in our disposition in responding to His
love, regardless of the kind of situations we are in. The emphasis is not
on what kind of ground we are but the response that we make. Of course,
certain situations would be apparently more difficult than others. But
that does not mean that grace is totally lacking in enabling us to respond
positively. That is why we have seen how grace has always worked in
surprising ways. Not all those who come from good families, for example,
turn out to be good priests; and not all those who come from broken families
turn out to be bad priests. Thus, the situation is secondary.
What is primary is
whether we are willing to allow God to take control of our lives. The answer lies on our
side. This is the answer of the early Church. But here
again, we cannot over-emphasize our human response. It smacks of
an over-exaggeration of the role of human effort. The truth is that we
are not equal partners with God. God remains infinitely much more
than what we can offer. Hence, we must complete the interpretation of
this parable by saying that our response itself is also the grace of God.
Yes, grace begins our salvation when the seed is sown; the ground to some
extent prepares our salvation; but His grace never fails to assist us in
making that response. Consequently, we hold that grace begins,
prepares and assists us to respond to God. This is the essential meaning
of the parable.
WRITTEN BY THE MOST REV
WILLIAM GOH
ARCHBISHOP
OF SINGAPORE
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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