The 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 13, 2014
Listen to this homily (.mp3
file)
Today’s readings bring to mind for me the time,
some twenty years ago, when we were renovating the cathedral. We were at
the point where we needed to make decisions about the altar, the baptistery,
the bishop’s chair, the ambo, or pulpit – what they would look like and
where they would go. For the ambo – this ambo - we decided to engage
the services of a fine young Jewish artist by the name of Randall Rosenthal,
whose extraordinary carvings and sculptures in wood had gotten our
attention.
But choosing an artist is one thing; settling on a
design, quite another. I remember some preliminary sketches Mr. Rosenthal sent
us from his studio in New York. While we were very impressed with his
work, we were less than impressed with his initial ideas for the ambo. I recall
one drawing in particular. It had three crosses on it with a tendril of ivy
climbing up the central cross. I hope it doesn’t sound irreverent or
unecumenical when I say that it looked for all the world like a Protestant
Easter Card!
I remember calling Mr. Rosenthal to give him my
reaction, and telling him that there were already a lot of crosses in the
Cathedral (more than I could count) and that something else might work better.
When he asked what I had in mind, I told him about a favorite passage of mine in
the 55th chapter of the Prophet Isaiah. I’m sure he didn’t miss the irony
of a Catholic priest steering him away from the cross in favor of a passage from
the Jewish scriptures, In any case, he liked the idea and went with it!
That passage from Isaiah was today’s first reading.
It was all about God’s Word: the power of God’s Word, the efficacy of God’s
Word, the fruitfulness of God’s Word that always achieves the purpose for which
God speaks it. It’s that very Word God spoke through Isaiah so long ago
that stirred the creative imagination of a gifted artist to use the tools of his
trade to speak his own word – this word, this remarkable work of art – which is
today’s first reading brought to life in delicate and dazzling detail. If you’ve
never looked at it closely, you should. It’s quite amazing and beautiful,
and it almost shouts ‘Pacific Northwest!’ with our clouds, our rain, our snow,
our leaves, our plants, our trees. Whenever I give a tour of the
Cathedral I tell people that this ambo is nearly the only thing in an otherwise
Italian Renaissance cathedral that speaks boldly and unmistakably of the Pacific
Northwest!
And it speaks boldly about the Word - the human
word, the divine Word. It speaks about a word I spoke in a conversation with a
remarkably gifted artist; it speaks about the word the artist spoke through his
art, and it speaks about the Word God spoke through Isaiah: the Word God never
stops speaking, the Word that, like rain and snow that water the earth and bring
forth living things and growing things, always achieves the purpose for which
God speaks it.
The Word of God. So important is it that we devote
the whole first-half of the Mass to reading from it. As you know, for some
of the readings – the lessons, the letters, the instructions - we sit in a
receptive posture like students. Then, for the gospel, we stand out of respect
for Jesus who speaks to us directly through the words of the evangelist.
Standing for the gospel also speaks of our readiness and our eagerness to go
forth from this place to preach that gospel by living it.
Long Catholic practice, aided by a theology that
became one-sided, thanks to the polemics generated by the Protestant
Reformation, downplayed the whole first part of the Mass. It treated the Word
almost as background music or as a warm-up for the really important part of the
Mass, the Eucharist. In fact, every Catholic school child of my
generation was taught that the Mass had three “principal parts”: the Offertory,
the Consecration, and the Communion. Believe it or not, the Word wasn’t
even mentioned! And not only that, you fulfilled your obligation to attend
Mass as long as you arrived in time for the Offertory (well, maybe in time for
the collection which came just before it it!). Happily, the Second Vatican
Council put that impoverished theology to rest and made it clear that the Mass
has two parts, not three: the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the
Eucharist.
Parenthetically, and not to embarrass anyone, but
that should provide strong motivation for arriving at Mass on time! We
should be no more willing to forego the nourishment of God’s Word than we are
the nourishment of the Eucharist!
Today, appropriately, the Church paired the reading
from Isaiah about the power of God’s Word with the familiar parable of the sower
and the seed. Think of the seed that is sown as God’s Word, God’s all-powerful
Word. Think of it as Jesus himself who is God’s Word made flesh. God
is the sower who sows this seed - this gift of Jesus – sows it far and wide,
sows it on soil that is receptive and soil that is not so receptive; sows it in
conditions that favor growth and conditions that stifle growth. We are the
soil and our job as disciples is to be good, receptive soil for the Word.
Good soil for Christ. Our job is to let Jesus and his gospel take root in
us, grow in us, change us, and bear fruit in us: thirty-fold, sixty-fold, one
hundred-fold.
That’s our job. Daunting? Yes. Doable? For
sure. After all, God is the sower and Christ is the seed. How can we miss!
Father Michael G. Ryan
