“Whoever has ears ought to hear.” Some of us may have hearing issues. We may not hear half of what we used to. Or half of what we want to. In baseball we used to call a few umpires who heard every word from the players bench, especially the bad stuff, “rabbit ears.” He heard everything and enjoyed throwing coaches and players out of the game if he heard something he didn’t like. Jesus is basically telling us to be like that umpire by way of hearing; have rabbit ears for the kingdom of heaven. Hear all that the Lord is saying about it, and respond to it in word and deed. “Whoever has ears ought to hear.” Hear what? The challenges and responsibilities that accompany our presence in the kingdom of God which stands among us in the present. When pondering the Lord’s kingdom, the true balance and full truth of his kingdom is to understand it in a two-fold way; that it is now, before us, within us, following us around like a hungry dog as we carry their food. And, that the kingdom in its fulfillment is a future condition for our souls and bodies, where the glory of God will enrapture us in life eternal. Some believers tend to emphasize one end of the kingdom over the other end. They focus so much on the good works of now that they have no vision of the future prize. Or, they have a vision of the future prize without practicing the importance of what it takes to get there; faith and good works. An overemphasis on either will create an imbalance in our spiritual lives. For those who have ears to hear, we build up God’s kingdom through his ever-present grace by faith and good works, making our world a better place and not a worse place, while yearning for eternal life with those we love. That combination hears Jesus loud and clear. The parables our Lord uses when speaking to the crowds reveal this 2-fold approach to our faith. In the famous parable of the wheat and the weeds, we recall that, in our Baptism, we have been sown in Christ. Therefore, we are wheat. We can only become weeds by outwardly and openly rejecting our faith in Christ. The goal of our wheat is to be stored into God’s barn. As we grow taller and older, or shorter and older, the barn gets closer and closer. Its’ seems like God’s barn is walking toward us to secure our place within. That’s the future element of this parable. The present element, the now part, is seeing ourselves as God’s wheat, and making an impression on weeds that they convert to wheat. That’s also called being a Saint. The weeds that end up in the bundles for burning, many of them didn’t have some wheat in their lives to lead them to the love and goodness of Christ. If they did, many of those weeds would convert to wheat. That’s how the power of love and mercy operate. That even the worst weed can be saved into the barn. The one crucified next to Jesus is the Scriptural proof of this; “Today, you will be with me in my barn in paradise.” The mustard seed has a greater focus on the present kingdom; to grow in the Lord and not in the culture of this world, because here we have no lasting home. To grow into adults who will share and defend our faith, and not grow cold or complacent with it. The mustard seed parable attends to being pruned, cut, sliced and diced, formed and shaped into letting God lead. That’s what good Christian parents do; they slice and dice, form and shape, they prune their children to be servants of the Most High, leading them to full growth. And the yeast parable, the bakery parable, is similar to the mustard seed in its growth. But the yeast symbolizes the Christian virtues, making the wheat the best tasting bread, and not some, green piece of whatever you want to call it. “Yuk!” That’s our life without the yeast of Christ; “Yuk!” The future part of this parable is the great paradox of Christianity; that when the wheat is fully baked with the yeast within, we reach our perfection through the doors of death. If anyone one of us is presently watching (slowly) a loved one going through the dying process, we’re watching their yeast within the wheat grow to perfection. When I looked on the face of my friend Fr. Bob Bruso last week as he lay in his casket, I saw him as never looking so good, knowing he was now looking on the face of God. That’s the yeast and wheat fully baked. “Whoever has ears ought to hear.” The parables of Jesus call us to the kingdom now and in the future. To live in his kingdom now is a world of both messiness and beauty, while preparing to be stored in his barn after our days here are complete.

The fruit yielders. A new name for all of you. You are a fruit yielder. Not a fruit destroyer, but a fruit yielder. One of the central teachings/understandings surrounding this famous parable of Jesus is the issue of protection. To be a successful fruit-yielder over the length of our years is to seek and be open for the spiritual protection God extends to us each day. We do not live the life of Job, where God said to Satan, “Okay, he’s yours. Test him. You can do anything you want with him except take his life.” Just the thought of such a possibility should send a shiver down our spine. Instead, the Cross of Jesus and all its meaning has removed any Old Testament possibility of God allowing the Devil free reign over us without the protection of the Spirit, his grace, his angels, and the Communion of Saints. When Jesus gave up his Spirit, our personal protection that comes down from heaven brought us from being a pure target for the enemy to being protected by the Lord’s power and grace. His death was the moment when the powers of love and protection became our closest friends. In the parable of the sower and the seed, the first three failures where the seed yields no lasting fruit, that failure results from the lack of desiring divine protection. And what a time to seek it, right now. The first 3 possibilities of seed-growth in this parable that Jesus teaches, they end in spiritual destruction. That section of the parable could be called The Parable of the Titanic, ending in disaster. What sort of disaster? The sort that prevents us from living a full life for the Lord, settling for some bad-tasting fruit that fails to make the world a better place in preparation for heaven. Instead, you are fruit-yielders. It’s written all over your faces. In your hearts; in your prayer life; in your search for peace; in your good works; in your love of neighbor; and in your unbreakable bond of love for your Savior. Bringing all these human and divine elements together, alongside the greatest protection of all that we have – the Eucharist – allows us to live in the Divine protection necessary to produce 30, 60 and 100-fold. God becomes a shield about us, preserving us for life eternal. There are some fruit-yielders in the present living in fear of a virus and other current issues. Some folks are understandably cautious. But others are living in panic mode. People who have not given in to the lure of riches; or worldly anxieties in the way Jesus means that term; they are not dealing with persecution; they have a deep root of faith. Us fruit-yielders here, we pray for them. we pray for them to do a U-turn to a safe place, receive that Divine protection found firstly in the Eucharist, and reach the fullness of the 4th person in our Lord’s parable. In the parable of the sower and the seed, the difference between the first three people who fall short, and the last person who yields much fruit, is our desire to do what needs to be done to ensure divine protection. That takes courage. It takes stepping out of our comfort zone. And it takes a deep love for the Eucharist.