29 January, 2020. Wednesday of Week 3

1st Reading: 2 Samuel 7:4-17

Samuel reports God’s promise to build up the house of David

That night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”
Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings. But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.’
In accordance with all these words and with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.

Responsorial: Psalm 88:4-5, 27-30

Response: For ever I will keep my love for him

With my chosen one I have made a covenant;
I have sworn to David my servant:
I will establish your dynasty for ever
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;
for him my covenant shall endure.
I will establish his dynasty for ever,
make his throne as lasting as the heavens.

Gospel: Mark 4:1-20

The parable of the sower and the seed

Again Jesus began to teach beside the sea. Such a very large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the sea and sat there, while the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them:
“Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” And he said, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”
When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; so that ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.”
And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. These are the ones on the path where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, they immediately receive it with joy. But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the ones who hear the word, but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, an it yields nothing. And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.”

Arable and mouldable

God’s promises are being worked out quietly, in ways beyond our understanding. The parable of the Sower likens the mysterious working of grace to the inner life-force of the seed (the Word of God) and also to the potential of the soil — whether rocky and shallow or fruitful and arable. But human freedom also comes into play in the process of our fulfilment. Since God has breathed into us his own Spirit, we are not clods of inanimate earth, but malleable clay for the divine potter to form. Our free response to God’s grace makes us both arable and pliable.
After the Sower parable come some of the most difficult words in all of the Bible, “They will look and not see, listen and not understand, lest perhaps they repent and be forgiven” (quoting Isaiah, chapter 6) But the text ends with hope, for the trunk of the oak remains alive even when its leaves have fallen. Jesus says that this hope will blossom in due time; but he also mantions differing levels of receptivity to the grace of God. These are suggested by the different kinds of soil, by the thistles and thorns, rocks and other obstacles to growth.
We are not meant to wait passively and do nothing, simply waiting for God to make us grow. While many things are outside our control and eventually we must leave all to God, we still need to seek to do his will. Salvation is the interplay of God’s grace and our response. If we try to do our part, in the end we can say, like Paul, “I planted the seed and Apollos watered it, God made it grow” (1 Cor 3:6.)
The parable of the sower was probably spoken by Jesus as an encouraging word to his disciples, assuring them that God is at work in the world, like planting seeds in a field. St Mark has developed this parable, to explain the many difficulties and obstacles Jesus encountered, and the fact that only a small number have followe him up to this point. The religious leaders accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath and claimed that his healings were by the power of Satan. His own relatives have tried to block his ministry, thinking he was mad. In reply, he points out the obstacles faced by any farmer sowing seed on a Galilean hillside.
Much of the soil is rocky and dry, with the result that many seeds never takes root, or never properly ripen. Yet, in spite of all kinds of obstacles, there can be a good harvest. The underlying message remains: Look beyond the obstacles, the set-backs, the disappointments; God is at work in Jesus, and the harvest will be great in the end. Any of us can focus too much on what is not going well, by the failures, the diminshment of the church as we knew it. He encourages us to keep hopeful in the midst of loss and failure, because He is always at work in generating life, even when drought seems to kill the landscape.