Daily Reflection Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

On the surface our Gospel passage today -- an interrupter packaged between yesterday's preaching of the familiar parable of the sower and its very explicit explanation we will hear tomorrow -- can come across as a mere primer from Jesus on religious education methodology. "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" the disciples have asked with innocent curiosity. (Our question, too, perhaps, when we yearn for clarity or simplicity in times of complicated trouble. Just tell me what to do, Jesus!)

At first blush, Jesus' answer seems to add less clarity and more enigma. But he is not being coy. Surely he is not setting up in-crowd, out-crowd categories of those worthy to hear the Good News -- he who came to cross all boundaries, to expand the community of believers in a God who is for us and for all peoples. And he is not setting up a 'secret club' with membership open only to those with inside knowledge (echoes of the Gnosticism rejected by the early Church.) Our Alleluia read before the Gospel today -- "Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth; you have revealed to little ones the mysteries of the Kingdom" -- does away with swift work any sense of hierarchy. No, Jesus tells us that his lesson plan of teaching and preaching are formed by love and will connect only when hearts are softened, when eyes and ears are open with eagerness to see and hear. When the student is ready, the teacher will come. Then perception and understanding will flourish. It is in this context that the verse "Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what she has will be taken from her." finds its spiritual home. The floodgates are open. We see and hear more and more and respond to the Invitation to Mystery as our faith grows and flourishes. 

However, I couldn't help but think of this last passage stripped of all its spiritual gloss as we traveled last week to Vermont for a family vacation. We were able to make it to our resort destination with only a few detours due to the horrific flood damage, but one GPS turn sent us through a small community, where what appeared to be an immigrant family was crowded on the front porch, looking out at not only at soggy sofas at the driveway's end but at the flattened corn and tomato crops across the street whose harvest, I can imagine, was to have been their summer income. "Even what they have will be taken..." All week the image haunted me. I found it hard to be splashing in the pool with abandon knowing the alternative reality only 5 miles from the gates of Smugglers Notch.

Our Gospel passage ends with a new Beatitude from our teacher Jesus. "But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear." Leaving behind our 'gross hearts' (isn't that descriptor a pithy one?!), let's commit to being part of the in-crowd that uses eyes, ears, and hands to make Jesus present, to expand the membership in the Kingdom of those who are free to live life abundantly in this world and the next.