Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we heard very prominently another parable from Our Lord Jesus in which He told His disciples about the kingdom of God. And in fact, this parable is related to what we have heard in last Sunday’s parable, if we still remember it, on the parable of the sower. Today we heard the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the wheat and the weeds.

The Lord kept on using these parables, with various links to the lives of people living then, as farmers, shepherds, fishermen and others because through these stories and parables, they would come to know more about the truth of God even when most of them were uneducated and illiterate. Had the Lord spoken about concepts and teachings that were intellectual and difficult to grasp, no one would have understood Him. Instead, He used terms and words that most of the people would understand.

In our parable today, we heard first of all the parable of the wheat and weeds in the field. In that parable we heard how a sower sowed seeds of wheat in the field and then an enemy quietly came at night sowing seeds of weeds in between the wheat. The wheat represents the good things that have been brought by the Lord, and as the Lord Himself said, also means those who have obeyed the Lord and were faithful to His Law. Meanwhile, the weeds represent the wickedness and the evil brought by Satan, as well as those who have rejected the love and truth of God.

Wheat grows in the field just as weeds also grow in the field at the same time. And there are a few ways how weeds can harm wheat, some of which involve competition for resources and space, as overcrowding leads to poor crop output and gain, as the wheat would not be able to get sufficient nutrition for their growth. The weeds could also strangle the wheat as they grow or damage their roots and stems when they grow, depending on the type of weed involved.

Ultimately, in the end, only the wheat will be wanted and the weeds will be discarded as the parable showed us, which is something that the farmers and most of the people of Jesus’ time would also understand. But as the parable also showed us, when the servants told the master that the weeds had grown along with the wheat, and their roots intermingled together, then the master told the servants not to take out the weeds until the time of the harvest, lest it might kill the wheat prematurely.

In this, we can see how the Lord is so loving and merciful towards us. One of the symbolic representation and meaning of these turn of events is that, He, the Sower and Master of the field gave us the opportunity and time to grow and develop through life, and as another Scripture passage also said, that the Lord let His rain fall and sun shine on the good and the wicked alike, then, all of us mankind are truly equal before God with equal opportunity and chance to be redeemed and be reconciled before it is too late for us.

That is why, all of us must realise just how blessed and fortunate we are that despite our sins and waywardness, God still cares for us and love us each and every minutes and seconds of our living moments. God has shown us His love and desire to forgive us our sins. But are we willing to accept it? Are we willing to be loved and forgiven by God? Are we able to commit ourselves to follow Him and change our ways, rejecting sin and wickedness from now on?

This is where we then need to take note of our second parable today, the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast and flour. Each of these parables spoke of the building of the kingdom of God, and how a small, minuscule mustard seed when nurtured well and properly, would grow into a large, healthy and mighty tree. And with the yeast, when flour is added with yeast in the right condition, then the dough will rise and become bread, increase in multiples in size.

All of these require the right conditions, or else, for example, for the seed, without proper condition like water, the right temperature or presence of oxygen in the air, the seed will remain dormant and not germinate. And without sunlight and further right conditions further on, the plant will not survive and grow well, less still becoming a large and healthy tree. Similarly, if the dough is never sealed and kept in oxygen-less situation, with the right temperature and condition, the dough will not rise at all.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through all of these things, we are all reminded that God has given us the seeds of faith, the seeds of hope, the seeds of love, the yeast of wisdom, the yeast of justice, the yeast of virtues among others. But if we want all these to grow and bear fruits, then we must give these the right conditions and put the effort in our lives, in our everyday actions and deeds, in our every words and works.

How do we do this, brothers and sisters in Christ? It is by living our lives with faith, by spending the time and effort to make ourselves more attuned to God through prayer. If we do not pray regularly or spend some precious time to be with God, how can we expect to grow in faith and be fruitful? A Christian who does not pray and who does not strive and put the effort to lead a more Christ-like life will not be considered as true Christians.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all keep this in mind as we discern our path going forward in life. We have received God’s wisdom, His truth and His grace, and we have also received His love, all that we need to go forth and be fruitful. Let us all realise that each and every one of us have been called to do our best to provide the best condition in which our faith can flourish, by living our lives with faith, by dedicating ourselves to prayer, and by constant and regular reading of the Word of God in the Scriptures and learning more about the teachings of the Church.

God has called on all of us to act, and now it is really up to us to decide whether we want to be the wheat and bear rich fruits, or whether we want to be the weed of sin. The choice is now in our hands whether we want to be righteous, virtuous and obedient to God, or whether we want to remain in sin, to submit to our desires and the many temptations present all around us. Living in faith is not easy, brothers and sisters in Christ, and require from us that genuine dedication and faith.

Let us all turn towards God with a renewed faith and with new conviction, with the desire to follow Him and love Him with ever greater sincere devotion and commitment, to be the builders of the kingdom of God in this world, that by our good examples, we may inspire many others to also be faithful to God and that many more will be inspired to believe in God because of us. And we may be surprised just how great an impact we can have in our community and world today, no matter how insignificant we may think our actions may be.

Each one of us can inspire others around us, and those whom we inspire and touch, those to whom we have shown God’s love and truth, they will in turn, inspire and touch even more people. And that is how we become the ‘wheat’ in the sight of God, and the ‘mustard seed’, to bear rich and bountiful good fruits for the Lord, bearing as what in the related parable of the sower of the last Sunday said, a thirty-fold, sixty-fold and a hundred-fold return in harvest.

Let us all be truly Christ-like in our every actions, words and deeds, and let us all heed the words of the Lord, and embrace His calling for each and every one of us to follow Him, to be faithful to Him and to be dedicated at all times. May the Lord bless us and all of our efforts and works, and may He guide us to the right path and help us to live our lives from now on fruitfully, and to inspire one another at all times. Amen.

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday each and every one of us heard from the Sacred Scriptures very interesting set of readings which reminded us of what we can and what we should be doing as Christians in our daily lives, in our actions and in how we interact with each other. These readings remind us of our true Christian calling and mission, in our mission to be the bearers of God’s Good News in this world, and spread His truth and light amidst this darkened world.

In our first reading today we heard of the words of God spoken through the prophet Isaiah in which the Lord referred to His Word coming into the world, and how His Word would do His will and would not return to Him before doing and fulfilling everything for which the Word had been sent for. This was yet another prophecy revealing the truth about God’s Messiah or Saviour, many of which prophecies were spoken by Isaiah and recorded throughout the Book of his sayings.

The Word of God became incarnate in the Flesh, conceived in the womb of Mary of Nazareth and born as a Man, in Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, the Divine Word Incarnate, Our Lord and Saviour. He is the Person in Whom the two natures, Divine and Man, though distinct, were united perfectly in love. Jesus was therefore, the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah, the Word that was to come into the world, the Son Who would obey and fulfil His Father’s will.

And what is the Father’s will that He has entrusted to His Son? It is what St. Paul has spoken of in our second reading today in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in Rome, regarding the hope of new life in God, the birth of the children of God and the freedom from the subjugation and enslavement by sin and darkness, all of which have kept us chained since the beginning of creation. Through Christ, as St. Paul said, we have been given a foretaste of the true glory and new life that was to come, with Christ and in Christ.

In our Gospel today, we then heard of the famous and well-known parable of the sower, which all of us must have been very familiar with. In that parable, the Lord used the example of a sower spreading seeds that ended up landing on different surfaces and on different types of soils and conditions. The Lord used this parable as many among the people were farmers or were involved in various agricultural works and practices, especially many of those who followed Him, and by doing so, in fact, He was spreading the ‘seeds of God’s word and truth’ among them by making the truth more easily understood by them, by speaking in terms that they could understand better.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, when the Lord spoke of the sower in the parable, He was actually referring to Himself, the true Sower, Who spread the words of God’s truth among us. The world and all of us are the whole places where the seeds were being spread upon, and just as the seeds landed on different soils and different conditions, thus, the word of God, His truth and its revelation were treated differently by those who received them.

There were those who hardened their hearts and refused to receive the truth at all. And these were those who were represented by the seeds that fell on the wayside, and the birds of the sky came up and eat up the seeds, and none of the seeds even got the chance to grow. These were like many among the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who despite having seen the many miracles performed by the Lord, heard His wisdom and great authority in teaching, His words and revelations, still refused to listen to them and accept them.

There were also others who refused to listen to the Lord and accept His truth and words, and as a result, the devil and his forces, represented by those birds in the sky in the parable, easily took up all the seeds that landed on them, and brought these away, and no faith grew and sprouted in them. That was why, despite having listened to the Lord, even followed and pestering the Lord and His disciples on many occasions, many of them did not have faith.

And then, there were those who received the word of God but were lukewarm towards them, and did nothing to them, and these were like those seeds that fell on rocky grounds. These were at least able to land in a more appropriate place, and symbolises those who did not directly reject the word of God, the truth as revealed by the Lord. Nonetheless, they still refused to act on them, or to open their hearts fully to accept and embrace the truth.

This is why, the rocky grounds and soil represented those whose hearts were still hard like stone, and did not allow God’s truth and love to penetrate inside them. The seeds were unable to grow strong roots, and as the sun arises, the newly grown plants were scorched and destroyed. This is what happened to those who only had superficial faith, those who treated the faith as if a mere formality or worse still, as a chore and an obligation imposed to them. They did not have faith and neither did they make the effort to cultivate the faith. In the end, nothing good came out of it.

Then, there are also those who have accepted the word of God, acted on them, and yet, in the end, these also failed to bear fruits, as those seeds that fell among the thistle branches and brambles showed us. This is also actually related to what the Lord had also taught using a separate parable, of seeds of weeds spread by the ‘enemy’ among the seeds of wheat, resulting in the wheat being grown entangled by the weeds. In the case of the thistles and brambles, they choked the life out of the fledgling plants, and the latter perished.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that was a reference to all of us living in this world, who are always vulnerable to various temptations present in life all around us. We may be willing to listen to God and accept His words, but at the same time we are also easily swayed by our many desires, the desires of power, of worldly glory and fame, the desires for material wealth and possessions, for earthly pleasures and the satisfaction of the flesh. All these distract us and keep us away from God and His salvation.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, as the Lord then continued saying, that there were those seeds that fell on the rich and fertile soil, which bore fruits thirtyfold, sixtyfold and one hundredfold, many more times that what had been planted. This is a reference to how a single seed could grow into a healthy and fruitful plant when allowed to germinate and grow under the optimum condition, and from that single seed that came from a single fruit either from one seed or many seeds in that fruit, each one of them have the potential to bear tens, hundreds and even thousands of fruits given the right conditions.

What is the significance of this, brothers and sisters in Christ? Each and every one of us have received these seeds, the seeds of faith from God, the seeds of hope, the seeds of love, of wisdom and good judgment, of righteousness, justice and holiness, and of many other virtues. And having heard of how those seeds that fell by the wayside, on the rocky ground and among the thistles and branches have ended up, failing to grow, being snatched away or being destroyed without any results, all of us must realise that as Christians, each and every one of us have to contemplate the gift of the word of God, the seeds of faith that God has given us.

Have we been too stubborn in our ways, our pride, ego and our ambitions that we ended up rejecting God’s grace, His love and kindness towards us? Have we been hardening our hearts and closing our minds to the Lord’s constant and subtle reminders and outreach of love towards us? Have we been so preoccupied with the matters of worldly concerns, our desires and wishes, our greedy pursuits of power, material possessions, pleasures of the body among many others that we have forgotten about God and walked away from His path?

These are important and genuine questions that we must ask ourselves from time to time to remind us and to keep us focused on the right path. Temptations are always there, just as conditions in growing seeds into good and healthy plants are never constant. There are always threats to the survival of the plant, but good farmers will never give up on his crops, and no matter how difficult it is, they will always try to give the best condition available to them. And this is why, we too must give the best condition to nurture ourselves in faith and in this life.

How do we then do this, brothers and sisters in Christ? To have that ‘rich and fertile soil’ for the ‘seeds’ of our faith, we have to make the effort to create the right environment in which our faith, our dedication and love for God will be able to grow optimally. And the best way for this, is through prayer. A Christian who live without prayer is not a true Christian, and without prayer and indeed, not just prayer but genuine prayerful life, we will be easily swayed, tempted and turned away from God and His path.

Through prayer, we will be strengthened by our deeper connection with God, and we will be able to know His will better. The Lord Jesus Himself often prayed to His Father, and in His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane just before His suffering and death, He too prayed to His loving Father. And from prayer, our faith deepened, our understanding of His truth deepened, and we also should spend more time studying the Sacred Scriptures and the teachings of the Church, and even more importantly, of course, to live our lives according to that faith which we have in God.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, we are all challenged today, to be those seeds that grow into healthy and fruitful plants, those that bear fruits thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold if not more. What does this mean? It means that each and every one of us have that tremendous potential in us to effect a great change in our community, and many among the people can be touched by our lives, our actions and our efforts.

We may then think, how can that be possible? That can’t be right, is it not? We are after all just simple humans, unworthy and many of us surely are not great evangelisers and know a lot about our faith, right? Or so we think. The reality is that, we do not always need to know a lot about faith or be bible scholars or theologians to be fruitful in faith. Rather, it is by how we live our lives, with genuine faith, sincerity of our love for God and for our fellow brothers and sisters that we will bear plenty of fruits.

Do not underestimate every single little actions we do, brothers and sisters in Christ. In those seemingly little actions, are power and potential for us to heal or to harm, to love or to bring hatred, to lead people towards God or to make them go further away from Him. If we touch the lives of others by our faith, our genuine dedication, righteousness, virtues in life, then these people we touch will likely to touch the lives of others too, in what is often known as the ‘ripple effect’.

Even little ripples, when harmonised with one another, will create a great wave that is powerful, hundred and thousand and more times more powerful than any singular ripple. In the same way, our efforts, little it may seem, but when done in faith and with genuine love and commitment, by the grace of God, will lead us into a very bountiful harvest, as our actions and attitudes, our faith and belief can lead many, in numbers beyond our imagination, to come to the Lord.

Let us not underestimate our actions, and instead, from now on, let us all be wholehearted in our commitment to God, and devote our every actions, our every deeds, and our every words to the glorification of God, loving our fellow brothers and sisters, and reaching out to those in need, and there are particularly many out there these days who need help, after everything we have gone through in the past few months. If not for material support, then at least for our company, love and guidance, and many desperately need these now.

May the Lord, the Sower of our faith, continue to guide us all and strengthen us, that we may indeed be blessed and bountiful in everything we do, that hopefully, by whatever we say and do, we may bring many others to righteousness and towards God’s salvation, and be good witnesses of His truth, be bearers of His hope and light into our darkened world, to bring His Good News to many who have not yet heard or believed in Him, that many more souls may be saved, together with us. Amen.