Author: Rosemary

Readings:

1 Kings  3, 5, 7-12,   The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream one night.

Psalm 119,   Lord, I love your commands.

Romans 8, 28-30,  All things work for good who love God.

Matthew  13, 44-52,  The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field.

Starting Mass

Homily

Some of you are aware that Judy and I were recently in Iowa for a memorial celebration of her mother’s life.   Judy’s mother came to what would be our birthplace in Iowa from a farm in Missouri to take Nurse’s training from nuns of the order of St. Francis who came from Peoria, Illinois. They had had been sent there some years earlier to serve in a hospital and to assist doctors who were also being trained in Keokuk.  These nuns served another purpose for us by catechizing Marie; she received the sacraments of the Church there when she was 21. The good news of Jesus Christ, the treasure buried in the field, the pearl of great value, the net used by the disciples to catch men, and the instruction on the kingdom of heaven had become the desire of her heart.

John reading 1 Kings

This town where Judy and I were born has a beautiful park.  It is the heart of the town and Judy began the first part of our memorial celebration of Marie there, with a reading from the Proverbs 31; the reading was part of the old spoken of in today’s gospel.  The theme of our celebration was Marie as a giver of goodness and justice.   I carried the theme forward with a reading that I gave to begin the service we had at the gravesite.  It was from the Letter of James where he reminds a sect of Jewish Christians of the Perfect law, we are to love one another as Christ has loved us.  This new way of loving had fulfilled the Royal law from Leviticus of the OT, to love your neighbor as yourself.  

Jean reading Romans

 In our first reading today from First Kings, Solomon has asked God for an understanding heart so that he could better serve God’s people wisely.  How were we shown this in 1 Kings? Recall the parable where Solomon determined which of the two prostitutes was the true mother of the child they had brought to him.

Mike

The wisdom that a scribe had read or heard about Solomon inspired him to construct that parable.   We were told last week that the seed sown by Christ spoken of in the parable was the Father’s word given to us by his Son. Today we were told that the treasure buried in the field, and the pearl of great value and the net sown in the sea to capture people is the good news of Jesus Christ that fulfills the wisdom of Solomon of the first reading.

Wendy, Shonda, & Ray

When the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, the priests disappeared.  Scribes who were the interpreters of the Law and Prophets were still involved in the Sabbath Synagogue Service for Jews.  Recall that this service was built around a calendar of readings from the Law and the Prophets  and the singing of the Psalms to praise God and a teaching by the Scribes on the OT reading.  [It was the liturgy of the Word of the Jews.] For the Jews who became Christians, disciples of the kingdom of God, the Christian Liturgy of the Word would fulfill the Sabbath Synagogue Service. The gospel reading would  fulfill the expectation of the coming of the Messiah given in the OT reading; the homily given on the gospel reading replaced the OT teaching.  [This couldn’t happen, however, until the first gospel was written, copied and given to the Scribes. But who were the inspired writers of the gospels and its parables, and where did they come from?

Zoe

 I propose to you that today’s gospel reading suggests to us that a good number of Scribes had been waiting for the coming of the Messiah. They believed that the sayings and teachings and writings of Jesus fulfilled that expectation given within the Law and the Prophets. They not only believed but wanted a good news of the Messiah preserved. Inspired Scribes, who were rabbis and disciples of the kingdom of God, were like a head of a household who took from their treasure both the new and old. The old was taken by the scribes from the OT; the new taken from the writings, teachings and sayings of Jesus, or in the case of this Matthew gospel, from earlier gospels.  The Sabbath Synagogue Service that kept Judaism alive they fulfilled by writing the gospels in parables so that Christianity, in harmony with the Law and Prophets, would be preserved.

Georgie

Kevin and Leo

Readings:

Wisdom  12, 13, 16-19,   You judge with clemency.

Psalm 86,   Lord, you are good and forgiving.

Romans 8, 26-27,  The spirit comes to the aid of our weakness.

Matthew  13, 24-43,  A farmer sowed good seed in his field.

Our first reading (Wisdom 12) is from the Book of Wisdom, written about 100 years before Jesus. Though the author is unknown, he was a member of the Jewish community at Alexandria in Egypt and wrote in Greek. Solomon did not write this book as we used to think; the author sometimes speaks as Solomon, a common artifice authors used to emphasize the value of their writings.

The second reading (Romans 8) continues Paul’s letter to the Christian community in Rome. This community was predominantly Gentile, though there were Jewish Christians there too. In this letter Paul is making a point that Christians were free of the Jewish law of Moses. Paul’s view was that Jesus and faith in Jesus was the only source of salvation and he was beginning to push Christian communities away from Judaism and toward a faith more compatible with Greco-Roman thinking.

The Gospel reading continues in Matthew (Matt 13). Most scholars date this Gospel as around the year 70, probably after the destruction of Jerusalem.  It points to a growing rift between the followers of Jesus and official Judaism. It is clearly anti-Pharisee and anti-scribe.  It quotes the holy books of Judaism a lot more than the other Gospels to show their promises were fulfilled in Jesus and that he is the Messiah. Matthew also writes about how Jesus was not accepted by most Jews but accepted by many Gentiles. It is clear that Matthew depended on Mark, written several years before. Matthew contains 600 of Mark’s 661 verses.

Homily 

I want to focus today on Jesus’ teaching that God is now and was always with us, and how we can see God. There’s that Bible verse in today’s Responsorial Psalm 86 vs.5 that says “You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness.” Stack has said it’s his favorite line in the Bible.  I decided to google this verse and found the same words in multiple places in the Bible.  Psalm 145: vs. 8-9 has exactly the same lines. And Psalm 103 vs. 8 has the same.  And it’s not just in the Psalms.  The Book of Exodus Ch. 34, verse 6 reads, “The Lord is a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness.” The Book of Joel Ch. 2, verse 13 has exactly the same line. And the Book of Jonah Ch. 4, verse 2 has the same.

The take-away from those verses that describe God as “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and rich in kindness,” could be that whenever we see those traits and those behaviors, we are seeing God.  Jesus’ said the kingdom of God is here, and is experienced when we share mercy and kindness with one another.

On July 4^th I joined a group of family and friends for the Fair Park fireworks display. At the end of the evening Leo & Freddie, seeing fireworks for the first time, said, “This was the coolest ever.”

Later I remembered some of what I saw and experienced about being gracious and showing kindness.

1. I got to Fair Park early and walked around, then sat on a bench eating a corn dog slathered with mustard. I saw a woman walking with 2 children and an infant in a stroller. The little one dropped a stuffed toy to the ground. Another woman saw it and, noticing the mother hadn’t seen it happen, called out to her and pointed to it.  They made eye contact and I saw them connect with a smile as the mother picked up the toy. This was a brief but gracious human contact.
2. At one point after our group got together at the lagoon, my nephew Merik, offered to take Leo and Freddie on a walk around the lagoon. He entertained them for 30 or 40 minutes, and his act of kindness allowed the other adults time to visit.
3. Gina, a close friend of my daughters Joey and Sam, came with her husband and 2 daughters, who are a little older than my grandsons. Gina thought about the 4 kids who would be there and brought snacks for all of them and also light sticks to make necklaces or bracelets or, like Freddie, just to wave around. The kids loved it and I took note of her thoughtful kindness.
4. Most of the group had gotten snow cones while walking around. So I decided to get in line for a snow cone for myself (I was told that there were sugar free ones) and for Gina’s daughter who had missed out on one. It was a really long line of more than 30 people. After a while I struck up a conversation with a woman in line. Later another woman, also in line, joined in the conversation. At one point the latter woman, who was sort of ahead of me and the first women (line not straight but uneven), offered that we both go ahead of her. Of course by this point we had all been in line a long time and had tired feet. That was another act of kindness and mercy.

 My question: when have you seen God lately?  And when do others see God in you?

Readings:

Isaiah  55, 10-11,   My word shall not return to me void.

Psalm 65,   The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.

Romans 8, 18-23,  We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains.

Matthew  13, 1-23,  A sower went out to sow.

Kevin says, "Welcome, Everybody, It is good to be back home.

Isaiah, The Great One, observations—

Who:  One of the Big 3 prophets, the greatest in my estimation.  Jeremiah and Ezekiel are the other two.  Actually, the book includes the work of 3 prophets.   Our selection is the last chapter written by Isaiah 2.

Time:  Isaiah 2 was living during the Babylonian Captivity, ca. 555.  Isaiah 1 writes before the Captivity, maybe 150 years.  Isaiah 3 writes after the return to Jerusalem.

Georgie also says, "Hi, Everybody, It is fun to be home again."

Subject today: better times will come.  I am expanding today’s passage, because it is so good.

Isaiah 2 has some of the most beautiful passages, many of which are seen as foretelling the coming of the Savior.  His readings are used all through the Advent & Christmas readings, as well as in Lent.  Handel uses Isaiah 2 in his marvelous work, The Messiah.

Both the Isaiah reading and Psalm 65 are beautiful.  

And Zoe, Tori, and Buddy all say, "Hi, Folks, it is so fun to be back again."

And My Seed Landed Where?

This morning I would like to talk about how Jesus is said to describe how the farmer’s seed is scattered on four different types of ground, the path, the rocks, the thorns, and the fertile.  Where did your seed fall?  Where did my seed fall?  I’m sure a lot of volunteers would be happy to let me know where my seed fell.

If you are a sinful gambler poker player you would look at this explanation and notice the bad odds, one out of four.  I would propose, however, that we all landed on fertile soil.  Let me offer some examples. 

I’ve shared this example once before, so you might remember it, but probably not. 

Cupcake of The Week to John on his birthday.

When I was a little kid about 5 years old, I was playing in the driveway of our house in University Park.  There were no fences and the drive went from the street, through the space between our house and the neighbor’s, and to the back up against the alley. 

The neighbor was Sam Berger, who owned a hat store in downtown Dallas.  He was Jewish and lived next to us all during the Holocaust.  I was oblivious to it all.  He & his wife had a big black lady who not only worked in the house, but lived in the back in an apartment attached to the garage, the servant quarters.  This black lady was not nice to me.

And a Cupcake of The Week to Beth on her birthday.

So this day as I am playing in the driveway, the lady steps out of the kitchen door & stands on the steps.  Without thinking, I say, “You are a big fat elephant.”

To the lady’s credit, she marches right across the drive and tells my mom.  My mom comes out of the house, drags me in, and spanks me.  Thinking back, I am impressed that my mom respected the lady.  The spanking, however, and her treatment of me confirmed my suspicions that my seed had fallen at least on the path or rocks, if not right on the thorns.   I definitely grew up with the belief that I was a bad kid. 

And a Cupcake of The Week to Harper for her 3rd birthday about 3 weeks late.

Despite the fact that you folks might agree with that assessment, I would propose that I was just a normal little boy doing silly things. 

This habit of doing silly, not bad things, can continue into adult years.  I know a guy who gets on his bike and rides off for an hour leaving the driver’s door of his car wide upon. 

I know a lady who last week let her Lincoln run out of gas in rush hour traffic.  Her husband, a bit nettled, brought gas, but then could not start the car.  It had to be towed.

Zoe seriously at work.

I know a dear friend who drove into her garage with a canoe strapped to the top of her car. 

You do this stuff and you begin to believe the bad news, ‘I am a loser, I am bad, my seed obviously landed in the ditch.” 

And then there are the malicious acts.  You know where I come in on this.  Kids hurt and abused grow up to hurt and abuse.  They are not bad.  They are damaged. 

So, who landed on fertile soil?  All of us.  God don’t make bad seed.

So, what do you think about all this?

Emma and her pal say, "It is so nice to be here."