Responsible versus Scandalizing Leaven, 17th Monday (I), July 27, 2015

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Church of the Holy Family, Manhattan
17th Monday of Ordinary Time, Year I
July 27, 2015
Ex 32:15-24, Ps 106, Mt 13:31-35

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily,  please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• In the Parable of the Sower and the Seed last week, Jesus described the power of the seed when it hits good — receptive and responsive — soil: it can produce abundant fruit, 30, 60 and 100 fold over.  In the Parable of the Mustard Seed today, we see what can happen in the kingdom when the power of the Word meets with receptive and responsive faith. What starts as a tiny seed can become a huge shrub.
• This was likely a very consoling and personal message for the first disciples of Jesus. They likely felt themselves a very small minority surrounded by hostile forces. The Scribes, Pharisees and Herodians were already conspiring to kill Jesus their Shepherd. They saw the power of the Roman army, they saw the hostility of the religious leaders, they faced the rejection of those in the cities to whom they had gone to preach who met them with hardened soil by the wayside, and they knew their human abilities and probably tempted on occasion to think that what they were about was a hopeless enterprise. Jesus was reminding them that even though the kingdom starts small, it will become big because of the intrinsic power working through those with faith. Jesus would say elsewhere that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed we could move mountain ranges into the sea.
• We see this truth about the growth of the kingdom, of course, with the fiat of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that changed the history of the world. We see it with what the Lord was able to do beginning with the 11 faithful apostles. We see it in the history of many religious orders. We see it in the history of many missions, parishes and dioceses. The parable of the mustard seed has been repeated many times over now so that we should have even greater confidence in it.
• But for this type of growth to occur, we need to understand something important about the other parable Jesus gives: that of the leaven. We know that just a little bit of leaven is needed to leaven the whole dough, but leaven is necessary. One Christian on a street, or in a work place, or in a family, or in a parish can have a dramatic impact. But there’s another type of leaven at work. Jesus would warn the disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod, the hypocritical rigorists or the laxists. Just like good leaven can leaven the dough, so one bad apple can spoil the whole bushel. To see mustard side growth there needs to be good leaven.
• We see the contrast between good and bad leaven in today’s first reading in the contrast between Moses and his brother, Aaron, the first priest of the new Mosaic dispensation. While Moses was up on Mt. Sinai praying and receiving the Ten Commandments, they people grew impatient and wanted to have something tangible to worship. They wanted a golden calf, an image of what they were adoring and wanted to become: they were hungering ultimately to live according to animal instincts rather than God’s law and to place their treasure in money rather than in God. Aaron, rather than lead and correct them, sought to please their lower desires. Exodus says that Aaron “let the people run wild” (Ex 32:25). He had them bring all of their gold jewelry, put it in the furnace, and then — in the lamest excuse of all time said — and “this calf came out.” He accepted no responsibility. Moses didn’t let him off the hook with an excuse that even the most pathetic teenagers wouldn’t have attempted: “What did this people ever do to you that you should lead them into so grave a sin?” He had the duty to lead them to God as a priest and instead he fashioned an idol, built an altar to it and said, “Tomorrow we will have a feast to the Lord.” He led them in the worship of a false god. And his bad leaven spoiled the Israelites.
• We see, on the other hand, Moses’ good leaven. Even though he wasn’t guilty in the least of the sins of the Israelites, he took responsibility for them and went before the Lord begging him to be merciful, even saying that if he couldn’t spare them out of justice, to hold him accountable and strike him out of the book of life. The leaven that will help the kingdom grow happens when people take personal responsibility for the salvation of others, who do reparation for their sins, who pray for them, who seek to take them from the worship of various idols to the worship in cult and life of the one true God. In this intercession, Moses was a type pointing to Jesus who later would intercede for us in the same way, allowing himself to be struck down to take away our sins, so that our idol worship — which summarizes all our sins — would be forgiven. Jesus has placed that leaven in us and he wants our faith to rise so that others can take a pinch of us and place it in other dough to make it rise.
• This whole mystery of starting small and growing big is summarized in the Mass. If we receive even a little piece of the Host within us, we receive God and all his power. He wants to grow in us from that seeming small start to transform us in such a way that with him living in us we might leaven the whole world. He seeks to help us clean out the old leave at the beginning of Mass so that our hearts, souls and our lives might all be lifted up to the Lord. Let us receive this gift, this tiny mustard seed, this grain of wheat (Jn 12:24), on good soil so that we might relive in us the full meaning of the Parables Jesus today proclaims.

The readings for today’s Mass were: