for July 23
Thursday of the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time

The prophet Jeremiah was present both before and after the fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile, so his tone was sometimes a warning one, sometimes consoling. Today’s passage is addressed to the people of Jerusalem before its destruction. He describes the relationship between God and the people as like the love of a young bride and uses a plentiful harvest image recalling how they arrived in the promised land after their slavery in Egypt.

But things go wrong as it were from the beginning, the background being their worship of pagan gods. So the land is described as defiled and their heritage loathsome. The priests ignored God, the shepherds (meaning their rulers) rebelled and the prophets countenanced idolatry. Others are amazed and shudder with horror as the people forsake God, the source of living waters, the very source of life, in favor of broken cisterns that hold no water, which some interpreters apply in particular to alliances with foreign powers. Indeed, the only hopeful note comes from the psalm refrain which invites us to praise the Lord as the fountain of hope.

The gospel begins with disciples asking Jesus why he speaks in parables. Perhaps they did not like them or did not always grasp their sometimes unexpected conclusions. One scholarly definition of a parable is “a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt of its precise application to tease it into active thought.” Notice the conclusion. We are called to respond to parables not just intellectually but affectively. Parables invite us to encounter the kingdom or reign of God with all the love and forgiveness it offers. Yet sometimes they remind us how some accepted the message of Jesus and some did not.

The verse about more to who has much and less to who has little is not about economics but probably about opening ourselves to faith and hope. Its original context in Mark’s gospel is about grace and spiritual gifts, suggesting the more we have, the more we should share, also not about economics.

The first allusion to the prophet Isaiah about looking but not seeing and hearing but not understanding refers to those who don’t get or can’t grasp the message. The longer quote from Isaiah is more challenging. Here are more blameworthy people who look but do not see, who never understand. Their hearts are described as gross, closed lest they see and hear and understand and thus be converted and healed. Think how often in the Old Testament many are described as sadly rejecting the prophetic message about God reaching out to them. Let us pray for any such today.

We however are disciples who are blessed. We do see and hear and understand what people, good people who care, are longing for. As people of old longed for the messiah or savior to come, we long to share the message of Jesus about unconditional love and forgiveness and the salvation he came to bring this about.
—Edward O’Donnell SJ

Today’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website.