This weekend, in all three church sites of the New Prague Area Catholic Community, we are celebrating the harvest during Mass. This coincides with the readings of this Sunday being the most eschatological/ the End of the World readings. I am preaching at two of the Masses and the following is the homily I will be giving.
HOMILY FOR THE 33RD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR B
I want to first express my great gratitude for all the hard work and sacrifice you do to provide myself, my family, and all of the world with the food we need in order to live. I personally know about farming through relationship, that is in having the great honor and privilege of courting and marrying a farmer’s daughter. Needless to say, I have had my share of bailing hay and stacking hay bales in the barn. I often thought her dad tied our visits to the farm to correspond with the cutting and bailing of alfalfa. I will be the first to admit that all of you can speak far more eloquently about the tremendous amount of work and skill it takes to plant and to harvest crops, and to care for livestock.
As a city slicker, I have observed that the two busiest and most important times in the year are the times of planting and harvesting. Prior to planting, great care is taken to prepare the soil, fertilizing the soil, and, then, planting the seeds. The time in between planting and harvesting is spent in caring for livestock, and handing over control of the crops planted to God. Much prayer is offered for the correct amount of rain, sunshine, humidity, and the absence of storms that can destroy a crop. This is a time best thought of as God’s time. St James, in chapter 5 of his apostolic letter, writes, “See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.” And, following comes the time we have just completed the harvest. An equal amount of care goes into preparing and repairing the machinery that will be used for the harvest, prayer offered up for dry weather, prayer that all will remain safe during the long hours of the harvest, that machinery will not break down, that the crop can be stored safely in bins and silos, and that a good price may be had for the crop. Scripture calls the time between planting and harvesting as the time that belongs especially to God. Once all that has been done, then we can give thanks to God and relax.
The scriptures today, also talk about harvest. The theological word used to describe God’s harvest is the word, “Eschaton”. It means the “end times” or the “end of the world.” Truth be told, we have been living in the end times, harvest time, from the moment Jesus ascended into heaven. While there will be one, final great harvest, the harvest has been going on from the moment we were born. In the Divine Harvest, it is you and I who are the crop. Our lives are the seed that God has planted. God planted us in the soil of this world the moment we were born. The soil in which we are planted is the soil of our family, and the soil of our community. Our lives are fertilized by the knowledge we acquire in school, in the skills we have learned, the life experiences and events that occur in our lives, and the choices we make in our lives. God waters us with the life of his Son, Jesus and with the sacraments, and then, like all farmers, patiently watches us grow, hoping that our lives will bear great fruit. ”What kind of fruit will our lives bear?” We have the choice of either bearing great fruit or no fruit at all. And then, after a lifetime of growing in the soil of this world, you and I will be harvested by God.
So just what does it mean to bear great fruit? It is quite simple. Our fruit will be determined by how we have we loved throughout our lives. Two weeks ago, Jesus gave us the definition of what it means to bear great fruit. It is to love God with all our heart, strength, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are to love as Jesus loved, completely and unequivocally, just like the story of the widow from the gospel last week, who gave all she had to God. How do we love God with all our heart, our strength, and our mind? What role does prayer play in our daily lives? Do we spend time in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening giving thanks to God for the blessings of our day? Do we spend time reading Holy Scripture? Do we faithfully spend time with God on Sunday, at this great celebration of thanksgiving we call the Mass? Prayer and celebrating the sacraments are all big ways in which our lives bear great fruit. However, that is not enough. If our prayer and celebration of the sacraments are bearing great fruit in our lives, it will show in how we love the presence of God in our neighbor. In Matthew’s Gospel, the Last Judgment is all about how people have loved the presence of God in others. Jesus asks those being judged, “Have you fed the hungry? Have you given drink to the thirsty? Have you clothed the naked? Have you cared for the sick? Have you visited those in prison? Have you welcomed the stranger, the immigrant?” Jesus tells us that if we have done all these acts of love for others, our lives have borne great fruit and we will have eternal life. If we have not done so, then we will be condemned for eternity. Jesus reminds us that just as the farmer separates the wheat from the chaff, so God will separate those who love from those who do not love. In John’s Gospel, Jesus describes this in terms of him being the vine and we being the branches. Those branches that bear great fruit are saved. The branches that bear no fruit at all are cut off and thrown into the fire.
The sole purpose of planting seeds, watching them grow, and then harvesting them, is to provide life and sustenance for all. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The sole goal of our lives is to learn how to love as Jesus loved, and then love as Jesus loved. Jesus said it quite simply and accurately, “Love one another as I have loved you.” If we do this, then we bring Christ’s life to our world. This weekend is a good time to pause from the busyness of our lives and reflect on the fruit our lives have produced. Have we produced great fruit, our have our lives been fruitless?
