20200129
THE
GOD OF GRACE
29 January,
2020, Wednesday, 3rd Week of Ordinary Time
Readings at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Green.
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First reading
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2 Samuel 7:4-17 ©
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'Your house and sovereignty will stand secure'
The word of the
Lord came to Nathan:
‘Go
and tell my servant David, “Thus the Lord speaks: Are you the man to build me a
house to dwell in? I have never stayed in a house from the day I brought the
Israelites out of Egypt until today, but have always led a wanderer’s life in a
tent. In all my journeying with the whole people of Israel, did I say to any
one of the judges of Israel, whom I had appointed as shepherds of Israel my
people: Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” This is what you must say to
my servant David, “The Lord of Hosts says this: I took you from the pasture,
from following the sheep, to be leader of my people Israel; I have been with
you on all your expeditions; I have cut off all your enemies before you. I will
give you fame as great as the fame of the greatest on earth. I will provide a
place for my people Israel; I will plant them there and they shall dwell in
that place and never be disturbed again; nor shall the wicked continue to
oppress them as they did, in the days when I appointed judges over my people
Israel; I will give them rest from all their enemies. The Lord will make you
great; the Lord will make you a House. And when your days are ended and you are
laid to rest with your ancestors, I will preserve the offspring of your body
after you and make his sovereignty secure. (It is he who shall build a house
for my name, and I will make his royal throne secure for ever.) I will be a
father to him and he a son to me; if he does evil, I will punish him with the
rod such as men use, with strokes such as mankind gives. Yet I will not
withdraw my favour from him, as I withdrew it from your predecessor. Your House
and your sovereignty will always stand secure before me and your throne be
established for ever.”’
Nathan
related all these words to David and this whole revelation.
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Responsorial
Psalm
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Psalm 88(89):4-5,27-30 ©
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I
will keep my love for him always.
I
have made a covenant with my chosen one,
I
have sworn to David my servant:
I
will establish your dynasty for ever
and
set up your throne through all ages.
I
will keep my love for him always.
He
will say to me: You are my father,
my
God, the rock who saves me.
And I
will make him my first-born,
the
highest of the kings of the earth.
I
will keep my love for him always.
I
will keep my love for him always;
with
him my covenant shall last.
I
will establish his dynasty for ever,
make
his throne endure as the heavens.
I
will keep my love for him always.
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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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The parable of the sower
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.’
THE GOD OF GRACE
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [2 SM 7:4-17; PS 89:4-5, 27-30; MK 4:1-20]
The Kingdom of God is
fundamentally the Kingdom of Grace. It is a mystery that cannot be solved by
logic. This is because the Kingdom comes to us as a gift; and a gift is
simply a gift, not calculable. The Kingdom is purely the grace of God and
not the work of human hands. Indeed, upon reading the parable of
the Sower, we might conclude that God does not seem to be fair. He
sowed the seeds but some fell on the edge of the path, others on rocky ground,
still others among thorns; and last of all, some fell on fertile soil.
Obviously, those seeds that fell on the edge of the path were quickly eaten by
the birds. Those that fell on the rocky ground had no depth and those on
thorns and bushes were stifled. But why are some seeds so fortunate
to fall on rich soil? Precisely, this is pure grace. If the seeds took
root and provided a big harvest then it was because they had good soil.
This gratuitous
dimension of grace is also illustrated in the first reading. Why did God choose David, the
youngest among his brothers? Why did God make a covenant with David when
he was not always that faithful to Him? David himself was weak, no
different from Saul and the judges. He committed adultery with Bathsheba
and to cover up his crime, had her husband sent to the battlefront to be
killed. In spite of David’s mistakes, God chose to establish his dynasty
forever. The responsorial psalm says, “I have made a covenant with
my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant: I will establish your
dynasty forever and set up your throne through all ages. He will say to
me: You are my father, my God, the rock who saves me. And I will make him my
first-born, the highest of the kings of the earth. I will keep my love for
him always; with him my covenant shall last. I will establish his dynasty
forever, make his throne endure as the heavens.”
When we think in this
manner, then we are seeking to put God in a box. This is only
understandable. We tend to act by reason alone, which sees things
in a logical and calculative manner. Even David thought that way, and
Nathan, without consulting the Lord over David’s suggestion to build a house
for the Lord, agreed with his proposal. “Now when the king was settled in
his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies
around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, ‘See now, I am living in
a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.’ Nathan said
to the king, ‘Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with
you.'” (2 Sm 7:1-3)
David’s proposal was but a human response to his gratitude to God and perhaps
with a tinge of shame and guilt, for how could the Lord be residing in a tent
when he was residing in a palace.
But the truth is that
God cannot be contained even in a Temple or a Church. The tabernacle of God is in the
hearts of men and women. He is identified especially with the poor.
Even though God cannot be confined and contained in places or be limited in His
presence, yet He chose to be identified with churches which are great symbols
of His presence, In a special way, the Lord came to be present in the womb of
Mary by being conceived in the flesh. Now, the Lord is present in the
Eucharist. Hence, the Lord sent Nathan to tell David, “Are you the man to
build me a house to dwell in? I have never stayed in a house from the day
I brought the Israelites out of Egypt until today, but have always led a
wanderer’s life in a tent. I have been with you on all your expeditions;
I have cut off all your enemies before you.”
God is truly a God of
surprises. He told David, He will build a house for him instead. “I will give you fame as great as the
fame of the greatest on earth. The Lord will make you a House. And
when your days are ended and you are laid to rest with your ancestors, I will
preserve the offspring of your body after you and make his sovereignty secure.
I will be a father to him and he a son to me; if he does evil, I will punish
him with the rod such as men use, with strokes such as mankind gives. I will
not withdraw my favour from him, as I withdrew it from your predecessor.
Your House and your sovereignty will always stand secure before me and your
throne be established forever.”
So, too, in the parable
of the Sower, the punch line of the story is that God’s grace will triumph in
the end. “And there are
those who have received the seed in rich soil: they hear the word and accept it
and yield a harvest, thirty, sixty and a hundredfold.” Indeed, this
parable is intended to encourage the early Church that they should not become
demoralized when the efforts they put into the work of evangelization did not
always bear fruits in plenty. God will work everything to His good.
God reaches out to different groups of people in different ways, offering each
one the graces that are needed for the person to respond. Whether
we are rich or poor, intelligent or simple, diligent or lazy, God will grant us
the necessary grace to respond according to our situation and in our own time.
The parable wants us to
be assured of God’s fidelity to us in providing us sufficient grace to do His
will. Just
as God assured David of His fidelity to him in preserving his house and
dynasty, Christ is assuring us of God’s grace for every one of us who seeks to
be true to His word. Indeed, God’s fidelity to His people is never
withdrawn, even when His people were not faithful to Him. Of course, in
order to bring the people back to Him, He permits suffering and punishment so
that the people will come to their senses. Even His punishment itself is
grace. Indeed, He said to King David, “I will be a father to him and he a
son to me; if he does evil, I will punish him with the rod such as men use,
with strokes such as mankind gives. Yet I will not withdraw my favour
from him, as I withdrew it from your predecessor. Your House and your
sovereignty will always stand secure before me and your throne be established
forever.”
God is faithful!
All we need is to make room for Him. He invites us to welcome His
word. He wants to enter into our hearts, in our relationships and in our
daily life. In the
responsorial psalm the Lord declared, “I have made a covenant with my chosen
one, I have sworn to David my servant: I will establish your dynasty
forever and set up your throne through all ages. He will say to me: You
are my father, my God, the rock who saves me. And I will make him my
first-born, the highest of the kings of the earth. I will keep my
love for him always; with him my covenant shall last. I will establish his
dynasty forever, make his throne endure as the heavens.”
What we need to do is to
cooperate with the grace of God.
We must not have a fixated mind that is no longer receptive to the Word of
God. Some of us because of our prejudice, upbringing and arrogance cannot
be open to the Word of God. Often, intelligent people think too highly of
their knowledge and skills, deceiving themselves into believing that they can
do everything in life. Others simply have no depth in their faith because
they do not seek to deepen their knowledge of God. Then again, there are
those who, although interested in their faith, allow their preoccupation of
worldly pursuits and interests to crowd out their mind from God and their
spiritual growth. They are often too busy to pray, meditate, read the
Word of God or spend time with God. Indeed, the things of this world take
over their life.
Hence, we should not be
too worried about the kind of soil we are in. What is important is how receptive we are
to the Word of God. Whether we are rocky ground or a path or thorns, God
has created us thus. But we can make full use of our strength even in our
limitations. Furthermore, in each one of us, we are a combination of rocky
ground, thorns and path. We have been given the necessary graces to turn
our disadvantages into strength. Even for those who are blessed with
advantages over others, these can turn against them because of complacency and
taking their privileges for granted. So in life, regardless of the kind
of soil we are in, the Word of God can take root in us so long as we are ready
to open ourselves.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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