Reflection on the Sunday Mass readings for July 16
Is 55: 10-11
Ps 65: 10, 11, 12-13, 14
Rom 8: 18-23
Mt 13: 1-23
A few weeks ago, we celebrated Juneteenth, a celebration of the order ending slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865, in the last part of the Confederacy after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.
The order by Major General Gordon Graham informing the people of Texas that all formally enslaved people were now free was met with jubilation by those formerly enslaved. Juneteenth became the occasion of an annual celebration in Galveston, Texas, that has now spread to the whole nation as a second day of national liberation.
The celebration in June also begs the question why the date of the Emancipation Proclamation is not the day celebrated as the end of slavery. The answer is that, although it set the groundwork for the freedom of those enslaved, it was ignored by the states in rebellion, ineffective in the states that remained in the Union, and unknown by many until proclaimed with the authority to make it effective.
St. Paul uses the image of being set free from slavery to proclaim to us the joyful truth that as children of God, we are set free from the futility of the corruption of this world that would enslave us.
We celebrate this truth each Sunday, but do our celebrations have the power to inspire and instill the spontaneous joy of those who first heard the news of freedom proclaimed on that first Juneteenth? Why not?
The good news that St. Paul proclaims is a far more profound freedom than that proclaimed to those enslaved in Texas. Though now free, those liberated that day still died, and without the sacrifice of Christ, would still be enslaved to the corruption of this world, as so we all would be.
But why do so many people still live as if the news of our freedom is unknown?
Is it because Christ’s sacrifice is as ineffective as the Emancipation Proclamation was in the areas not controlled by the Union? By no means.
God reveals to us in Isaiah that just as surely as the rain goes forth and does not return without making the land fertile, so too his Word does not go forth without changing the world.
Is it because the proclamation is passé and no longer has the power to move hearts? Again, by no means.
Jesus tells the parable to all but reveals its meaning only to his disciples. There were already those whose hearts were closed to the good news that Jesus proclaimed, so its message had no purchase in them.
There were those who had an initial burst of the message of Christ but were not prepared to become disciples with all that entailed. Is it because we might be ineffective in our proclamation? Ah, and there it is. That is almost certainly part of the cause.
If you are reading this, you are not likely to be among those who have heard the Word and it could not enter your hearts because they had been hardened. You are also unlikely to be among those who have heard the good news and then fallen away.
Why – because let’s face it – you are reading a column that is entitled “Believe as You Pray.”
But the third image in the parable is where many have landed. We let the cares of this world and the pursuit of riches choke the fruitfulness from our faith and render ineffective the proclamation of the good news of our freedom.
What is the answer? The path of freedom is the path of Christ who died to this world so that he might become the first fruits of a new creation. The Jewish Feast of First Fruits was celebrated on the day after the Sabbath of Passover. In other words, Jesus rose on the Feast of First Fruits. He is the seed who died and yielded a hundred-fold.
We are also called to be first fruits. The Spirit groans that we might share in the freedom of the children of God. As disciples of Jesus in word and deed, the message of the mysteries of the kingdom of God have been given to us.
The proclamation of our freedom from the slavery of death overcomes the traps of this passing world that would continue to enslave us. Dying to those traps is the only way to yield a hundred, or sixty, or thirty-fold in our proclamation of the true gift of freedom that all have been given in Christ.
Msgr. Timothy Keeney is pastor of Incarnation, Charlottesville.