Homilies & Thoughts

We often criticize Saint Peter because he fails so often. He can be outspoken and quick to jump into things. In today’s Gospel, he speaks and acts quickly: he gets out of the boat, and he fails. It is easy to focus on that failure.

But it is also important to see that he did it: Peter got out of the boat. No one else even tried. No one else had enough faith to begin. Peter at least made it that far. And the Lord does not rebuke him in quite the same way he does elsewhere. His question—“Why did you doubt?”—implies that faith had already been there: Peter wavered. There is certainly a rebuke, but there is also, I think, a kind of praise for Peter’s faith and willingness to try, even though he ultimately fails.

It is easy to sympathize with the disciples in this moment. They are tired. The Lord himself has already endured so much this day. His relative, John the Baptist, has been killed—beheaded.

The Lord withdraws to a deserted place to be alone, surely to spend time in prayer and to prepare for all that is to come. But the crowds hear of it, and they follow him. It does not matter what he is going through; they have needs too. And the Lord has pity on them. He heals their sick. He continues to labor for them.

The Lord tells us that not one letter—not even one mark—will pass away from the law. In that moment, he is speaking of the law of Moses: nothing will pass away until it finds its fulfillment in him. Christ came to fulfill that law completely and thus bring that covenant to completion.

Yet the Church presents this Gospel to us on the feast of Saint Alphonsus. In a spiritual sense, she is applying these words to the law of the Gospel and, in particular, to the moral law God has given us. That moral law will not pass away, because it is an expression of God’s nature and is inscribed in his creation.

The Gospel tells us that the people took offense at him. I think a couple of things are going on.

The first is simple familiarity. They are saying to themselves: We know this man. We remember him growing up, and he was not special then. We know his parents and family; they are not special. So how could he be special now?

We all have some of that tendency in ourselves. Once we have known someone for a long time, we do not always allow that person to change. They have to remain whatever we once knew them to be.

The statement that every scribe instructed in the Kingdom of heaven brings out what is new and what is old refers, I think, in its immediate context to both the old law—the Law of Moses and the books we know as the Old Testament—and the new Gospel that Christ proclaims.

The word “scribe” is exactly the same word Jesus uses when he speaks about the scribes and the Pharisees. There is no difference; it means the same thing. A scribe could have been a major administrative expert or, more specifically, an expert in law—in this case, Jewish law. That, I think, is the immediate context in which Jesus speaks.

Ordinarily, we do not want to conflate the Gospel accounts. We should not take the same scene from two different Gospels, merge the accounts, and try to make every detail fit into a single coherent historical event. Each Gospel was written fundamentally as a self-contained work with its own perspective.

Nonetheless, the Church received all four of them into the canon. So sometimes it does make sense to read across the Gospels, as long as they are showing us different moments.

Wheat was especially important in the ancient world. It remains important to us—we all enjoy bread—but ancient people depended upon it. Bread was an essential, daily food. Without it, people faced hunger and could not sustain a fruitful life.

Keeping that in mind helps us hear one of the Lord’s subtler points in the parable he explains in today’s Gospel. If you open a Bible, you will often find this passage under a heading such as “The Weeds among the Wheat.” Yet the disciples call it “the parable of the weeds in the field.” Matt 13:36. Their attention is fixed on the weeds, and I think that matters.

The merchant searches for fine pearls. He searches. That detail is essential to understanding the parable. The merchant does not merely happen upon the pearl; he actively looks for it.

Solomon does something similar in the first reading. When God allows him to ask for anything, Solomon does not ask for riches, power, or a long life. He asks for an understanding heart. He knows which treasure is worth seeking. The psalmist likewise declares that God’s word is more precious than gold and silver.

One element of Jesus’ parables that often stands out is their compression of time. This is especially true of the agricultural parables. In just a few sentences, an entire growing season passes before us. The seed is scattered, birds arrive, shoots spring up, the sun scorches them, thorns choke them, and the good plants bear fruit.

Every gardener knows that this is not how we experience these things. Seeds do not grow and fail in a matter of moments. Roots develop beneath the soil where we cannot see them. Plants may endure several days of intense heat before withering. Thorns grow gradually around them. Fruit takes time to ripen.

I think today’s Gospel can initially be unsettling. It can sound as though the Lord is intentionally withholding his message from certain people. But we have to look more carefully to understand what he is really saying.

Our lectionary says, “Gross is the heart of this people.” Other translations say, “[T]his people’s heart has grown dull.” NRSVCE The word behind “gross” and “dull” literally means “to make fat” or “to fatten up.” Gk pachyno The image is of a heart that has grown heavy and sluggish—a heart that can no longer move as freely or respond as readily as it was meant to.

The Lord tells Mary Magdalene, “Stop holding on to me.”

At first, we can understand this simply as a very human moment. Mary thought Jesus was dead, and suddenly he is standing before her. Of course she runs to him. Of course she embraces him and holds on, perhaps a little too tightly. We can imagine doing the same thing if someone we loved had been gone for a long time—someone we thought we would never see again—and then suddenly appeared before us. We would not want to let go.

Ordinarily, when we think of family, we think of a natural relationship. We are born into a family, and its members are who they are. We may not always like them. We may even sometimes wish we could get rid of them. But they remain our family.

That natural bond shapes our customs, our affections, and the way we respond to one another. When family arrives, we acknowledge them and attend to them. Somewhere deep within us, we know that this is simply what we ought to do. Hopefully we do it willingly, out of love—but even when we do not feel like it, we still sense the obligation.