Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR
Friday, July 24, 2020
In today’s Gospel, Jesus explains the Parable of the Sower. The Parable of the Sower is similar to the Parable of the Lost Sheep. In the Parable of the Lost Sheep, Jesus compares God to a shepherd who has a hundred sheep, of which one of them goes astray. Upon learning of the disappearance of the sheep, the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine in the hill and goes in search of the missing one. After finding it, the shepherd celebrates and rejoices. Every shepherd in Jesus’ time would definitely shake their heads in disbelief for no shepherd will be so foolish to do that. And that’s precisely the point. God’s love is so lavished, so extravagant, so excess, so elaborate that it breaks everything we consider rational and reasonable.
In the Parable of the Sower, God’s love is quite extravagant that he spreads and sows it everywhere— good places and bad places, worthy places and unworthy places, beautiful places and ugly places. As limited beings, we are fond of talking and setting limits to God’s love. In our own way of thinking, we conclude that God only loves those who love him. We convince ourselves that He only loves those who are in the right church and who practice the right doctrines. We argue that God loves only those who pray to him, who worship him, who praise him, who honor him, who are righteous and upright. But if there is one thing the Parable of the Sower teaches us, it is that God spreads and sows his love on receptive hearts and unreceptive hearts, on fertile hearts and on hardened and infertile hearts. God sows his love in places we consider right places and in places we conclude are wrong places. His love has no limit and nothing can ever limit his love. God loves us with an everlasting love. He loves us not because of anything we have done, but because who He is. If God only sows his love in the hearts of those who please him, then someone like St. Paul who wrote most of the books in the New Testament wouldn’t have got the chance to turn his life around and did what he did for God and Christianity. Someone like St. Augustine of Hippo, a great scholar and theologian of the fourth century, and one of the giant saints in our Catholic Church wouldn’t have had the chance to say notably, “O Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in you.” If God’s love is only sowed in the hearts of the saints, St. Augustine would have perished in the world, God wouldn’t have found him and he wouldn’t have been able to respond. If only the righteous are loved by God, St. Augustine would have lost the chance to make this declaration, “Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new.” Even St. Peter who denied Jesus thrice would not have found his way back on track.
I am so glad that God loves saints and sinners alike. He loves the weak and the strong alike. He loves the faithful and unfaithful alike. He loves those who believe in him and those who don’t. If God only loves the saints, if his love is only sowed in the hearts of the faithful ones, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. I would have been totally lost many years ago. I am sure many of you listening to me now would have been lost as well. But thanks be to God for the God we serve is lavishly, extravagantly and excessively generous in the distribution of his love. Amen.
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