This week’s teaching is centred on the famous Parable of the Sower. At its heart, this narrative highlights how important it is to allow God’s word to take root in our hearts. In the 1st Reading, we are reminded that God’s word will achieve its purpose. In short, the seeds of the Sower should fall upon fertile ground and to bear a plentiful harvest.
The questions we usually ask is what sort of soil or ground our hearts consist of. Are we the paths, the rocky grounds, the thorny patches or the fertile soil? Interestingly, the Sower, who symbolises God, is prodigious. Since He sows plenty of seeds, the invitation is to look at how receptive we are to God’s word taking roots in our hearts. Can we nurture His gifts and bring about a bountiful harvest?
That would be a usual way of understanding this parable. However, I have always been interested not in the fertility of whatever composition the soil is but to perhaps survey a matter which we seldom pay attention to and it is the seedsthat fall by the wayside.
According to the Gospel, the seeds scattered onto the path will have the birds come and snatch them away. Come to think of it, digital distractions are possibly a good explanation for one being taken away. But what do these snatched away grains actually symbolise? They can serve as tokens of individual Christians who have no connection to the community. How so?
In the past, religion was both social and spiritual. Today we tend to reduce religion to a personal choice and give little thought to its social context. Without a social netting, it is easier to cut corners in one’s personal commitment and fall away from practice. Even solitary monks and nuns who live alone are not so much alone because they are connected to the wider Church through their prayers. In fact, the Church is sustained by their unceasing prayers. As soon as a believer is not supported by a faith community, it is easy to fall away. The imagery of Satan as the prowling lion is most apt to describe the seeds taken away by birds.
Do you know how many of our youths who hail from East Malaysia come over here and without the spiritual support of a believing community and a sense of belonging have abandoned their faith? Or our local West Malaysian youths who after Confirmation go away for studies but when they return for home visits, they attend Mass to hide the fact that they had abandoned their faith. Of course, one can explain their lapse in the practice of the faith as seeds that have fallen onto rocky grounds or thorny patches, either from poor catechesis or beingchocked by distractions etc.
The nature of Christianity is that it is profoundly communal and highly collaborative as we read in the Acts of the Apostles. The Communion of Saintscomposed of the “ecclesia militans”, the “ecclesia triumphans” and the “ecclesia poenitans” are united as one Body even though these three distinct states or conditions are separated by time and space. Through Baptism, we have been gathered into the Body of Christ and this organic metaphor reveals that we are more connected than we admit.
We are happy that the Cathedral is getting more people attending Mass but we seem to worship as strangers. We should not. We should worship as brothers and sisters in Christ. A good way to gauge the level of our being—at—home with each other is simply through how we park our cars properly or how patient we are with someone who is slower. Of course it does not mean that when people are kind, we take it for granted. For example, I take my own sweet time and that the driver of a car being blocked from leaving should be patient and wait for me. No. Rather, all must strive to excel in charity towards one another.
We recently concluded our PPA and out of a body population of close to 2000 souls, the attendance numbered less than 200. I am not criticising parishioners for not coming though I am concerned with the philosophy behind our engagement as a community. We may be operating from a space where the community or the communion is extraneous or exterior to our identity as Christians. Perhaps we can consider the seeds that fell on the wayside as the embodiment of a Christian spirituality which is narrowly self-sufficient. We can be self-sustaining individuals but without a social netting, soon we will cut corners when it comes to our relationship with God and the way we perceive His commandments.
In our self-determined, achievement-centred world, we may hear the Gospel from a view of personal responsibility or capability. Nothing is wrong with that perspective. But recently there was a movie, an “indie” movie from China. Surprisingly, the original language is Teochew and it shines the spotlight on the experience of the “hua qiao’s” or the Chinese diaspora. There was a high degree of cohesiveness of that generation forced to emigrate from China in search of a better future. In the unknown, South-East Asia, their cultural cohesiveness was palpable in how the community held itself together. It explains the different “huay kuan’s” we have in parts of the world where the Chinese diaspora has been. The modern challenge is, in Europe or most of the developed West, they may still retain a lot of the social religion but minus a relationship with God whereas in Asia, we have kept the cultural connexions with some semblances of religious expressions but nothing more. As St Paul writes, we are a Body joined to the Head, who is Christ and therefore both cultural commonality and social netting are crucial to the maintenance of our relationship with the Lord.
The Gospel today certainly invites us to examine our receptivity to God’s word. While it is good to ponder, it can also be a self-absorbed exercise which makes us forget that the Sacrament of Baptism actually incorporates a baptised into the organic Body of Christ and as a result we are connected one to another. Yielding a harvest is amazing but it is never a test of an individual’s abilities or a measure of personal achievements. The seeds that fall by the wayside challenge us to think beyond a silo existence because the danger of being snatched away is real especially when one has no bond or kinship with Christ and with His Body, the Church.
