15A23.       Isaiah 55:10-11.    At the beginning of John’s Gospel he writes of the ‘Word,’ which I understand to mean divinity’s human expression of love in the Person of Jesus.  Here in Isaiah I understand ‘word’ to mean the expression of God’s loving activity bringing about the achievement of God’s purpose in cultivating the harvest of those who choose to respond to God’s love in this world so to be with him in heaven.

Matthew 13:1-23.  “The disciples approached him and said, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’” Jesus replied, “Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says: You shall indeed hear but not understand, you shall indeed look but never see. Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes.”  I understand the meaning of the word ‘gross’ here is that those people who have developed hearts  hardened against the love that God has for them and rejected seeing the truth of what God has to offer them have made themselves into a soil in which it is impossible to bear any good fruit.  Jesus’ point is why try to give something to people that they really do not want nor have allowed themselves to be prepared to receive by the Holy Spirit.  Jesus knew the hearts of those to whom he explained the parable and of those to whom he did not.

Romans 8:18-23.  “For creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.”  God did not make this world to have the capacity to achieve true happiness on its own and with its own resources.  This world was created to disappoint us when we try to do it all on our own and, so as a result, we are led to seek the only One who can get the job done, our loving God.

15A20.     Isaiah 55:10-11.  “My word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”  Just before this last line, the Lord says that the rain and snow that he sends make the earth fertile and fruitful.  God sends down his grace or word, like a seed, to do the work for which he sends it, as he says, to “do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”

Matthew 23:1-23.  Jesus speaks in parables so they who are like the rich soil that produces fruit may produce even more fruit but the others who have not prepared themselves to be fruitful like the rich soil will hear words but not understand them.  In school, students are taught at the level for which they are prepared, first grade lessons are taught to first graders.  They are not given second grade lessons because those lessons are not suited to their level of learning.  The parables likewise are given to those who have prepared themselves to understand by living their life in Lord’s hands.  Those who have failed to live their past life by living their life in their own hands and not in the Lord’s hands have not prepared themselves to understand the parables.  It is as though they played hooky for those lessons.  Growing in the Lord is a day by day process of learning more and more from him daily throughout our life time.  That is the difference between living as a creature of God and living as a creature of this earth without God.  Living daily in God and with God and for God is an absolute requirement for entering heaven.  Jesus said in Matthew 7:13a, “Enter through the narrow gate,” and in Matthew 7:14, “How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.”

Romans 8:18-23.  “For creation was subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.”  This earth and its material things must all one day rot and pass away.  This earth on its own is incapable of changing its destiny.  God can and wants to free us from the slavery to corruption which is that we will just disintegrate in the grave so that, instead, we can “share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.” That share is that we will one day partake in, with the One who loves us infinitely, an eternity of happiness in heaven.

15A.  Isaiah 55:10-11.   Nature prepares the earth with rain and snow to make the soil fertile so that it will be fruitful.  Nature desires life in abundance.  The Holy Spirit prepares souls so that the word of grace that issues from God’s mouth will do his Will, making souls holy, preparing them to be with The Father in his heavenly household, as his sons and daughters. God’s Will is to share Himself, his love, his life infinitely.  His end, intent is that those who choose life shall have life forever and that those who choose death shall have their choice granted them.  “Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words has something to judge him: the word I spoke, it will condemn him on the last day, because I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say and speak.  And I know that his commandment is eternal life.  So what I say, I say as the Father told me.” (John 12:48-50)

Matthew 13:1-23.  “The disciples of Jesus approached him and said, ’Why do you speak to them in parables?’”  Unlike the soil on which the sun and the rain and the snow fall, we humans can choose not to be nourished and be made fertile by the word and the grace of God and to make ourselves like the hardened path, the rocky ground, the ground with thorns so that we are not like the rich soil that could produce abundantly.  “Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.” (Mt. 7:6)  Parables were meant to protect what is holy from those who did not choose to grow holy in the Spirit.  “This is why I speak to them in parables, because they look but do not see and hear but do not listen and understand.” “Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes.”  ‘Gross’, that is to say dull, thick or hardheaded, with a stoneheart, they have chosen to shut out anything that might invade and possibly destroy a false vision or mental construct of a world they have embraced and given themselves over to. To his disciples who entrusted their hearts and minds to Jesus and grew daily in him, Jesus explains the parables.  “But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.”  Without an ongoing growing commitment to God, what is holy, spiritual, sacred makes little or no sense.  Outsiders who have other values and commitments in life cannot make any sense out of submission to an Almighty who is the one and only truth that exists.  “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many.  How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.” (Mt. 7:13-14)

Romans 8:18-23.  “Brothers and sisters: I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.”  Paul’s faith in Christ leads him to endure suffering for a glorious reward in heaven.  “We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”  What God has created, a world order, is groaning to “be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God,” desiring to be no longer a world where the devil roams tempting the children of God but to be a world, along with our physical bodies,  adopted and redeemed with our bodies.  “For that which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality.” (1 Cor15:53)

 

14A23.     Zechariah 9:9-10.   God comes like a king who brings salvation.  He makes good things happen for his people by doing good and not by imposing his will through the use of brutal, savage force.  He is a humble king who lifts his people up and never uses his power to oppress and smash down.  His dominion is universal, without any limits.

Matthew 11:25-30.   God gives his wisdom only to those who are willing to be open to what he has for them and do not think that without God they have already learned what is worth learning.  Jesus gives us access to God the Father only when our hearts and minds are ready to accept him as our Father, the God of our lives.  All people labor for what they consider valuable and reject whatever they consider to have little or no value.  To get what we treasure we must often labor or work hard.  When we choose to belong to Jesus, we choose to be submissive to his will, that is to be live servant workers or beasts of the field who have him put the yoke of his Will upon our shoulders as a way of life for us.  However, the burden of his yoke is light and, at times, even sweet because he carries our burden with us.

Romans 8:9, 11-13.  “Brothers and sisters: You are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells within you.”  Our human bodies can only give us natural, earthly life, the same life that the other living beings of this world have.  Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit so that we can live spiritually while we are beings living on this earth.  The burden of his life within us gives the wonderful fullness of the spiritual life that bodily life alone cannot offer us.

14A20.     Zechariah 9:9-10.   “Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem!”  There is great joy because the Hebrew captives have been set free from slavery in Babylonia. Their king comes but not as a military victor, but as a meek and humble savior.  His rule encompasses everything and everyplace but not by the power of armed force.

Matthew 11:25-30.  In the verses before this, Jesus rebukes those who have not accepted him despite the mighty deeds and miracles he had performed.  They thought they were so wise that there was nothing they could learn from Jesus.  “All things have been handed over to me by my Father.”  Jesus was made the fount of divine wisdom given to him by God the Father.  The greatest of all knowledge is to know God, the divine Person. That knowledge is the closeness of one person to another that makes us dear to one another.  It is the meeting of hearts, minds and wills.  Jesus was given the power to reveal or to make known the Father to us so that we would be able to develop a close relationship with the Father as he himself had.

“Come to me, you who labor and are burdened, and I will you rest.”  As the God who is love, he embraces us to relieve us from a life that can weigh us down and can even oppress us.  He never seeks to overwhelm us but to love us into a deep, intimate relationship with him.  He is “meek and humble of heart.”  He is the caring shepherd who tends his flock.  “For my yoke is easy and my burden light.”  We are the flock who obediently follow our Savior through this world to heaven.

Romans 8:9, 11-13.  “Brother and Sisters: You are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.”  Biology lists us as an animal of this earth; physically we have all the bodily functions that all the animals of the earth have.  Spiritual life that the Holy Spirit instills in us raises us to be a heavenly people, even while we live on this earth.  What Paul ends up saying is stark.  “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”   Prayer enables us to live by the Holy Spirit as we endlessly during the day talk to him, petition him, plead with him, cajole him, and laugh with him.  The truth is that we were created to enjoy our loving God for all eternity and not a casket in the ground with the worms.

14A.   Zechariah  9:9-10.  “See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek, and riding on a colt the foal of an ass.”  How humble and meek is this king, not coming in on a horse or chariot with a warrior’s bow at his side.  And yet he is all-powerful.  “His dominion shall be from sea to sea.”

Matthew 11:25-30.  True wisdom comes not from earthly learning but from God himself to those who humble themselves before him like little children.  It is the knowledge to know the person of God who is God over me and not the knowledge about the person of God and divine things so that I can maintain my independence from God without submitting to his authority over me.  It is not knowing about God but rather knowing God himself.  When I submit myself to the yoke of his Will over me, the Son reveals the divine person who is God the Father to me because I respect him for who he infinitely is.  God is God and I am not.  In prayer he makes the warmth of his love known to me, his child, his sheep.  His Will, his yoke is on my shoulders but it is easy and light because he loves those who love him humbly as their God.

Romans 8:9, 11-13.  Paul gives us a little lesson on the dynamics of spiritual warfare here.  As human beings, we are creatures of the earth with the potential to be saints in heaven.  If we live according to what is natural or of the flesh, we will terminate with what is natural or of the flesh, i.e., earthly corruption or rot in the soil.  If we live according to what is supernatural or of the spirit, we live eternally in heaven in the love of God our Father.  The Holy Spirit will give to those who belong to him, not only God’s spiritual life to our souls but also to our bodies so that our whole person will be redeemed.  “But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit that you have leads to sanctification, and its end is eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 6:22-23)

13A23     2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a.   In his travels Elisha, appointed by God to be a prophet, was chosen by a woman of influence to have him as a guest in her home to receive gratuitous room and board because he was “a holy man of God.”  In effect by being generous to Elisha because he was a prophet of the Lord, she was being generous and gracious to God.  Elisha, knowing the mind of God, rewarded the childless woman with the promise of her having a baby son a year later.  This Sunday’s gospel says, “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.” Whenever we do good out of our desire to be gracious to the Lord who is so gracious to us, the Lord recognizes our graciousness and in turn is abundantly gracious to us.

Matthew 10:37-42.  “Jesus said to his apostles: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”  It is humanly natural to love our family members.  However, Jesus demands that the fount or well spring of our love is divinely based.  If our love springs out of the love God has for us, that resource, since it is divine and almighty, will give us the capacity to love with a love that will be far greater than the love we can have just loving out of our human capacity  to love.  Jesus said in John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”  In today’s gospel Jesus said: “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”  The cross Jesus is calling on us to bear is to die to trying to live our lives out of own personal capacity to live without Jesus but rather to rise to a new life of living our lives in Christ.  Whoever tries to get along without God is doomed.

Romans 6:3-4, 8-11.  “Brothers and sisters: Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”

13A20.    2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a.   The woman who extends hospitality to Elisha, says, “I know that he is a holy man of God.”  In extending hospitality to Elisha, she is honoring  God at the same time.  Anyone whom God sends to do God’s work, spirituality has the presence of God in him.  Elisha, in turn, recognizes the presence of God in her, as she is honoring the presence of God in him, and so grants her a son.

Matthew 10:37-42.   Jesus said to his apostles: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”  Not only did God create us but also he created within us the capacity to love and be loved.  God is love.  He is one and only source of love.  The first of the two great commandments says, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)    The God who is the source of all the good we have should be the one who is entitled to receive all that same goodness from us.  One way we express our love for God is to love all those whom he loves, our fellow human beings.  Jesus is saying we are only worthy or deserving of him when we put him first, the root from which all our love flows.  In John15:5a, Jesus said, ‘Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.” Also in John 13:20, Jesus said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me,” God the Father. That same God is present in anyone who serves him and his will.

Romans 5:12-15.  Paul writes, “Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.  That newness is our life in Christ.   Each day we live “through him, and with him, and in him.”  The old self was a person, whose life was one’s body, keeping it well, pleasing it, and guarding it.  It was all about one’s physical, material life.  Now the newness of life is a body that is about its spiritual self because Christ now is the source of one’s life.  Now we “must think of ourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.”

13A.  2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a.  A woman of Shunem, who was a person of influence, was accustomed to offering hospitality to Elisha, the prophet, keeping open a small furnished room so that he would have a place to stay overnight whenever he passed through.  Elisha, asking his servant if anything could be done for her in turn, was told that she had no son.  Elisha calls her to say to her, “This time next year you will be fondling a baby son.”  Our Gospel this Sunday says, “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.”  The Church has given us an example of this from the Old Testament.

Matthew 10: 37-42.  From this world’s perspective and the perspective of each living being, one’s survival on this earth is of absolute, prime importance.  Expanding from that and from one’s innate, natural bent, it is consummately natural to want to experience the maximum amount of good feelings and pleasure and the minimal amount of pain or bad feelings.   In a totally different vein, this Gospel begins with Jesus saying to his apostles: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.”  He goes on to say, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (also Mt. 17: 24-25)  Luke’s version (14:26) uses even stronger language: “If anyone comes after me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”  Jesus is saying that we must commit ourselves totally to God and to nothing else other than what comes out of our commitment to God and his Will and not to our own natural desires and will.  In Mt. 22:37, Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.”  Jesus goes on changing the Second of the Two Great Commandments, saying, “I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” (Jn. 13:34).  God is the measure of all things.  In Mt. 5:48, Jesus says, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect,” in other words, to the capacity that God has given you, be holy as God is holy.  We are to be people whose guiding principle is of the heavenly spirit and not to be people of the worldly flesh.

In this Gospel Jesus says, “Whoever receives you receives me and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”  The principle stated here, I believe, is that as God the Father works in union with the Son and so the Son works in union with each one of us who belong to him.  He is Emmanuel, God with us.  Jesus in John 15:4a said, “Remain in me, as I remain in you.”  Also Jesus said in John 14:23b, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”  Receiving one who has the presence of God within him, a prophet, a righteous man, a disciple receives the God who is within him and a reward that is equal to God’s work within each.  Jesus says in John 13:20, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

Romans 6:3-4, 8-11.  Paul writes, “If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.”  The life within us is far more than the bodily life that earthly animals have but Christ himself sharing his divine life with us.  As a true follower of Jesus it is never I alone every once in a while appealing to the lord as I see fit, but the Christ, who is my Lord and Master, always living within me.  Paul continues, “As to his death, Jesus died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God.  Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Jesus Christ.”  We are a new person with him and in him in us.

12A23.    Jeremiah 20:10-13.   Jeremiah’s inner self trembles at the recognition that everything he has fought for is in danger of completely falling apart.  Babylon would come to obliterate Jerusalem, since the people there did not remain faithful to the Lord. However, Jeremiah puts his trust in the Lord because the final result remains in his hands.

Matthew 10:26-33.  “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”  Fear is a person’s necessary reaction to danger.  It requires of us to fight with the power that the Lord gives us or to take flight into the safety of the hands of the Lord.  Those who live in God’s hands rest and live in his strength and not in their own natural weakness.  We must seek to let God be the life we live and not our natural human reactions.  We can stand up to our natural fears within and the dangers outside of ourselves, confident that all will be well, no matter what.

Romans 5:12-15. “For if by the transgression of the one the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many.” In God’s creation there was no death.  Man, in the person of Adam, created death when he sinned.  Man, in the person of Jesus, reinstated eternal life in place of Adam’s sin.  By his death on the cross, death died and eternal life arose.