Deacon Larry

 

Thursday of 16th Week in Ordinary Time

Ex 19: 1-2, 9-11, 16-20b; Mt 13: 10-17

Dc. Larry Brockman

“All the people in the camp trembled”.  Imagine that-  God making His presence so abundantly clear through nature, that everyone trembled.  And yet, even with such clear and unmistakable signs, people, as a rule, did not listen.  For, as we shall see, the ten commandments follow shortly in the Exodus story.  They were direct, plain talk about what to do and what not to do.  Yet, the people did not heed them; and did not make the Lord their top priority, even when truly marvelous and unmistakable physical signs were worked for them, followed by the plain talk in the ten commandments. 

Why?  Why is it that plain talk and clear physical signs don’t work.  I think it’s because we are born products of this world, conditioned to have a set of hopes and expectations that resonate with our knowledge of the world.  It’s that knowledge of the ways of the world that biases our expectations of what we want to hear.  We want to hear about justice in human terms; pleasure and happiness in human terms; and we hear that all men are created equal-   But that means to us that we are created first among equals, because of what we see and observe in others.  Certainly some people are not as equal, people like unborn babies; people with downs syndrome, and the wild natives in darkest Africa or New Guinea.  That’s what we see; and that fuels what we expect to see. 

So, the message of the Kingdom of God just doesn’t compute where everyone is truly created equal; where real happiness is Christian joy, which is not necessarily always about us, and is not pleasure oriented; and where justice and mercy are balanced by a set of rules that only God understands.  So, rather than the direct approach, Jesus uses another approach- parables, parables with layers of hidden meaning, and a wisdom that is not of this world.  Only those who seek God and respond to His grace can understand it.  It is a wisdom reserved only for those who choose to listen, to listen with their hearts.  Consider yourselves truly blessed.  Because you have the chance to really hear and see. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 7:44 am and is filed under Holy Family Weekday Homilies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.