FIFTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Posted on Jul 9, 2020

12 JULY 2020

About 25 years ago I paid my summer visit to my parents in Hatley.  My friend Mike came along.

I believe there are two things which mark a Polish household:

1.  There is always more food set out for guests than could possibly be eaten.

2.  And you don’t leave the table until you’ve eaten it all.

On this trip to Hatley I decided that I could politely refuse the food my mother would push.

After all these years, I should know better.

When mom came around, for the fourth time with the last of the new potatoes

just dug from their garden for us, I said: “I’ve really had enough.”

“God, doesn’t like it when we waste food,” she said

And then pushing aside my hands placed over my plate, scraped the rest of the potatoes onto it.

This reminded my father of a story.  He said:

“You remember Gerry Zalinski, don’t you?”

“Well, you know a couple of years ago he had that heart attack.

They rushed him to the hospital and he came out okay.

The doctor sent him home with all kinds of pills.

Gerry had a hard time keeping them all straight but he took him because they cost $28.00

After a couple of days Gerry wasn’t feeling so good anymore so he went back to the doctor. 

The doctor figured out that the pills were making him sick so he said:

“That medication must be wrong for you.

I want you to go home and throw out those pills and take the new one’s I’m going to prescribe.”

Gerry went home all right, but he figured he’d paid $28.00 for those pills and he was going to use them up first before he went out and bought any more new ones.  Well, he just got sicker and sicker and then he died.

Which goes to show you that a little waste in your life isn’t all bad.”

Just what is it, really, that Jesus intends to teach with this parable–

throwing seed wherever, instead of just on the good ground–that a little waste isn’t all bad?

Or is it that God has wild hopes for us all.

That God, who should know better, keeps believing in the power of the seed to transform,

Even the ground it lands on, even the most stony of any of our hearts.

Certainly, after all these years God must know better, know what produces a rich harvest.

Why would he even waste his time and the seed on some of us–

Unless of course of his wild hope and believing in us even when we don’t believe in ourselves;

like my parents who had no doubts about our capacity to eat all that food,

and then pulled out fresh strawberries and real whipped cream

…which of course amazingly, Mike and I had room