First Reading - Jeremiah 18:1-6
Gospel - Matthew 13:47-54
In the first reading, we have a lesson from the potter and the pot. Jeremiah is asked to observe what happens with the piece of the potter which incured any defects while making a pot. The potter had to begin his work afresh. Here, however, the message that God wanted to convey to people through the prophet was that he could change his mind to respond to the good will of people, If people would turn back to the Lord and allowing the potter to reshape them. Consequently, he would also avert the disaster which was impending them. The message of the passage contains the invitation to allow for a change in oneself.
Today’s Gospel presents the third in a set of three parables Jesus preached on the Kingdom of God/Heaven and the conditions for entering it. The parable of the fishing net: In Palestine, there were two main ways of fishing. The first was with the casting-net, which required a keen eye and great skill in throwing the net at the correct moment. The second was with a dragnet or seine. Galilean seine nets were tied to two boats and drawn through the water. The catch was sorted only afterwards, with edible or kosher fish going to market and unacceptable fish being thrown away. Just as a dragnet collects good and bad fish indiscriminately, so the Church is bound to be a mixture of all kinds of people, good and bad, useless and useful. This parable encourages the Church to adopt an open approach to Evangelization. The parable also teaches that the time of separation will come in the Final Judgment, when the good and the bad will be sent to their respective destinies. This parable is, thus, a counterpart to the parable of the weeds and the wheat. The concluding simile or mini parable: Jesus concludes his parables by advising the listeners to imitate wise scribes (Jewish religious teachers who specialized in Sacred Scripture and its application to life). A scribe/scholar need not give up his scholarship when he became a Christian; rather he should use his learning for Christ. Christians are also expected to be like scholars who study both the old wisdom of their ancestors and the new vistas of knowledge. They have a duty to pass on to others the Christian teaching they have received in language their hearers can understand.
Dear friends, we need to learn tolerance and compassionate understanding. The lesson of this parable is that the Church is a mixed body of saints and sinners (good and bad fish). There will be always a temptation on the part of some who feel they are more “faithful” to separate themselves from the “unfaithful.” But Jesus reminds us that the final judgment resulting in reward or punishment is the work of God. Thus, we must learn to be tolerant, patient, compassionate, and understanding of those who seem to us to fall far below the requirements of the Gospel and the Kingdom. Let us humbly admit the fact that only Jesus and Mary were not a mixture of good and evil. Let us acknowledge as St. Paul did, “I am what I am with the grace of God.
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