postID: 6965; title: The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
groupKey: secondary
groupKey: other
The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that, by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 28)
Array
(
[date] => 2025-11-16 16:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 428230
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => formatted
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2025-11-16 16:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2025-11-16postID: 231973 (Margaret of Scotland Queen (1093))
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 231973; date_type: fixed; year: 2025
fixed_date_str: November 16
fixed_date_str (mod): November 16 2025
formattedFixedDateStr: 2025-11-16
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 231973
displayDates for postID: 231973/year: 2025
Array
(
[0] => 2025-11-16
)
postPriority: 999postID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6965; date_type: variable; year: 2025
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6965
displayDates for postID: 6965/year: 2025
Array
(
[0] => 2025-11-16
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2025-11-16 with ID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
Array
(
[date] => 2025-11-16 16:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 428230
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => simple
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2025-11-16 16:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2025-11-16postID: 231973 (Margaret of Scotland Queen (1093))
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 231973; date_type: fixed; year: 2025
fixed_date_str: November 16
fixed_date_str (mod): November 16 2025
formattedFixedDateStr: 2025-11-16
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 231973
displayDates for postID: 231973/year: 2025
Array
(
[0] => 2025-11-16
)
postPriority: 999postID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6965; date_type: variable; year: 2025
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6965
displayDates for postID: 6965/year: 2025
Array
(
[0] => 2025-11-16
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2025-11-16 with ID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
Scripture citation(s): Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
A Sermon by
The Rev. Dr. Luigi Gioia
on
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
✛
Blind Spots
Array
(
[0] => 60755
)
book: [Array
(
[0] => 60755
)
] (reading_id: 73603)bbook_id: 60755
The bbook_id [60755] is already in the array.
No update needed for sermon_bbooks.
audio_file: 428173
One of my favourite hobbies is listening to audiobooks in my spare time. It is remarkable how many audiobooks you can get through while walking, commuting, cooking, doing cardio, or even shaving! Just a couple of weeks ago, I finished a fascinating history of the crusades by the British historian, journalist, and broadcaster Dan Jones – something I had wanted to do for a long time. Jones masterfully tells the tale of the medieval so called “holy” wars through the lives of popes, kings, knights, pilgrims, and their Muslim opponents. He recounts the story of how the crusading movement began with an ideal of armed pilgrimage: a penitential journey meant to defend Christian holy places, aid Eastern Christians, and win spiritual merit. Yet he emphasizes how corruption set in almost immediately. As the First Crusade advanced, its preaching inflamed hatred and became a pretext for slaughtering Jewish communities along the Rhine. Over time, the crusading ideal further unraveled: ambition, greed, and power struggles turned crusading into a tool for suppressing rivals and persecuting dissenters. Later crusades, such as the infamous attack on Constantinople, revealed how far the movement had strayed from its initial purpose of rescuing fellow Christians from Muslim domination in the East.
What strikes me is the extent to which virtually the whole of Medieval Christianity supported this movement. Some authors denounced its excesses and corruption, but almost everyone agreed that killing in the name of Christ and forced conversion of Pagans were justified, and that armed conflict against Muslims was a Christian duty. Early crusaders saw themselves as imitators of biblical warriors like Joshua, the conqueror of the promised land, and the Maccabees, the fierce Jewish rebels who fought foreign rulers who tried to impose Hellenism in Israel. The crusades were promoted by preachers, included revered figures like Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who endorsed violence and murder as a way of taking up the cross, practice self-sacrifice, be a faithful follower of Christ.
Equally striking is the fact that nowadays virtually no Christian thinks that Scripture even remotely warrants such practices. Even Christians who still remain antisemitic, see Islam as a threat, or believe that non-Christians are in mortal danger or destined for hell would be loath to support forced conversions or the killing of those who are perceived as the enemies of faith.
How is this possible? How can Christianity as a whole and authoritatively have once believed that Scripture justifies such practices and now utterly reject them? And, incidentally, the same pattern is true of other appalling behaviors, such as slavery, antisemitism, and the treatment of women.
The usual explanation is that human cultures change and moral awareness deepens with time. As this happens -so the argument goes- we gain a better understanding of the meaning of Scripture. And yet here we are not dealing with nuances or minor variations of interpretation – what we have here is a radical shift from teaching that Scripture endorses murder as a way of promoting Christianity to the total rejection of this interpretation.
The reality is that there was an immense generational blind spot that prevented even those we otherwise venerate as saints – think again of Bernard of Clairvaux!- to see what should have been plain as day. A blind spot so profound that almost no one recognized the shocking incongruity of declaring that killing could be a way of worshipping the same Jesus who promptly and harshly rebuked Peter when he took a sword to defend him in the garden of olives.
You might remember the passage – the details are significant: Jesus is about to be arrested. A perennially impulsive and misguided Peter decides to take action, grabs a sword, and instead of striking an armed opponent, lunges at a defenceless servant and cuts off his ear. Jesus immediately stops Peter, then touches the servant’s ear and heals him. This detail is not meant to point out Peter’s pathetic clumsiness – the injury to the ear is clearly symbolic.
Is it that violence prevents people from hearing the good news once and for all?
Or that the very resort to violence is the sign that one has failed to listen to Jesus’ message, totally misunderstood it?
Surely both interpretations are valid.
In the passage from Matthew’s gospel we have just heard, Jesus compares the preaching of the gospel to someone who sows seeds everywhere, regardless of the hospitality of the soil. Not a good farmer if you ask me! Should not valuable seeds be carefully planted only on a good soil – a soil rich in nutrients, permeable to water, free of thorns? Apparently not if you are a farmer in the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ followers are asked to imitate Paul who declares “Preach the word in season and out of season […] with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2). So, not only reckless waste of seeds on all kind of soils but also regardless of the season! Yet another recipe for financial ruin in agricultural terms!
The truth is that Jesus has no illusions about our receptivity to the novelty and demands of his message. We all have immense blind spots. We all excel at cherry picking when we read Scripture.
If you have a Yorkie, like I do, you know what selective hearing looks like. My litte adorable Giotto – this is his name- reacts swiftly and eagerly when I say words like “walk”, “let’s go out”, or the name of his favourite toy “Porcellino” (“piglet”), but is capable of completely ignoring my calls when he is intent on chasing a squirrel in Central Park! We practice the same kind of selective hearing with the Gospel – we are incredibly resourceful at using it to validate our prejudices, justify our shortcomings, or ignore its demands when they clash with our interests.
The good news though is that virtually no soil is so rocky, or shallow, or covered with thorns that at least one among such an extravagant abundance of seeds does not eventually manage to take root.
Jesus has no illusions about our blind spots and selective hearing whether personal or generational – and yet he is not fatalistic about them.
In God’s kingdom a soil that is rocky, shallow or thorny today can turn into a good soil tomorrow. It is the very one seed that manages to take root that can eventually change the whole field into a good soil, a soil capable of bearing good fruit.
Jesus declares that this happens when those who hear the Word also “understand” it – or, in the parallel passage of Luke, “holds it fast” or “clings to it”. At one point indeed “our eyes are opened” (cf Lk 24:31) and the real meaning of Scripture becomes clear to us.
The tragic history of the crusades, slavery, antisemitism and misogyny in Christianity tells us that this “opening of our eyes” can take an unbearably long time – that monstrous blind spots and selective hearing can choke most of the seeds for generations – that all sorts of violence constantly cut off our ears and the ears of those to whom we should be bringing the Gospel.
And yet here is the good news: the ever-loving, patient, and forgiving Jesus remains committed to lavishing seeds regardless of the inhospitality of the soil and the inclemency of the weather. He is committed to constantly healing the ears severed by our senseless violence. He keeps restoring our hearing again and again – so that at one point finally one tiny seed takes root for good and then finally we bring the fruits of peace, forgiveness, care, generosity, and love that are the true hallmarks of authentic Christianity.
