Wednesday of the 16th week in Ordinary Time
Readings of the day: Jeremiah 1:1, 4-10; Psalm 71:1-2, 3-4a, 5-6ab, 15, 17; Matthew 13:1-9
This homily was given at the chapel of Kateri House Women's Residence of St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
Have any of us ever been
asked to do something we thought to be difficult, or even unreasonably beyond
our capabilities?
Today’s readings are especially
meaningful to me for a few reasons: Our reading from Jeremiah was the first
reading during my ordination as a deacon three years ago this upcoming
September. And, well before I was a priest, or a deacon, or a seminarian, or
even a microbiology lab tech, the job I had immediately before entering the
seminary, I was a mushroom farmer.
On the farm, if I may
describe the process of planting or, as we called it, spawning the mushrooms,
it was not like planting most ordinary vegetables. The spawn is like little
sticky grains, each of the size and consistency of cooked rice. To spawn the
mushrooms, the farmer takes a handful of these little grains and scatters them
somewhat haphazardly on the growing beds that have been layered with soil. Most
of the spawn lands on the fertile soil, where it quickly takes root and, after
a month or so, produces tasty mushrooms. But some spawn lands on the farmer’s
clothing, or on the floor of the growing room where it is trodden under foot,
or in other places where it will not grow into mushrooms.
Does this sound familiar to
any of us? Perhaps few if any of us have been mushroom farmers, and yet Jesus’
parable of the sower reminds me of the mushroom farm every time I hear it: The
sower scatters seed haphazardly. Some seed falls “on good soil” and brings “forth
grain” of a sizeable yield, but as much or more seed falls “on the path,” where
the birds eat it. “Other seeds fall on rocky ground” where they lack soil and
are scorched by the sun; still other seeds fall “among thorns” and are choked
out.
I question God’s efficiency
as a sower! Could our Almighty God not have sown seed more efficiently than
haphazardly scattering it to fall where it may? Even we mushroom farmers are
(maybe) more efficient and less messy when spawning than the sower is in
Matthew’s Gospel. And, most inefficiently of all, God asks us to take part in the sowing!
As a priest, I consider
this to be a most difficult task, although not beyond my capabilities most days.
An exception lately has been when we hear and many are scared by the latest
horror in the world: Terrorist attacks; police shooting or being shot; wars;
other violence; gossip and bullying… I want to protest, in Jeremiah’s words, “Truly
I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.”
And there God is to say to
me; to us: “Do not be afraid… Now I have put my words into your mouth.” Imagine,
then, God handing us a large container of seed; a handful of mushroom spawn,
and asking us: “Will you help me to scatter this seed; to speak my Word to a
world in need? Do not worry first about efficiency. Do not be afraid; together
we will make a great big creative mess in our world! Enough seed will fall on
fertile soil that the yield will be amazing. I promise.”
