Wednesday of Week 14 in Ordinary Time (Year II)
Hosea 10:1-3,7-8,12 | Psalm 104:2-7 | Matthew 10:1-7
Sow integrity for yourselves, reap a harvest of kindness, break up your fallow ground: it is time to go seeking the Lord until he comes to rain salvation on you. (Hosea 10:12)
I think we all have “fallow ground” in our lives, areas which we’ve given little to no thought on whether we exemplify true Christian living by our actions (or lack thereof). Perhaps it’s in our mindless daily routine, or the conduct of our work affairs, or in the dismissive way we treat the service personnel around us.
Wherever it might be, the prophet Hosea is calling on us to plow that fallow ground, to examine it thoroughly for the boulders of obstinance and the hard soil of unkindness, and move or break them up to allow the seeds of love to be sown and receive the life-giving rain of the Lord.
Last night, I found some fallow ground of my own.
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Embedded in the crush of commuters at Bishan station and engrossed in a tech podcast, I paid scant attention to a gentlemen seated on the ground near an escalator, with one leg stretched out and another man by his side. I remember nothing else about him, not his face, not the clothes he wore. Instead, like everyone else, I flowed around him and went on my way to catch a connecting train. I was speeding away from the station when it finally dawned on me that he was probably in physical distress.
Brother, I am truly sorry for not stopping to help in your hour of need. I pray that you have received the help you needed, and I promise, with the healing grace of Almighty God, to be more responsive in future.
It’s time for me to get plowing…
Holy Spirit, till the fallow ground of our spirit, replenish our depleted faith and break our hearts of stone, that the seeds of mercy may flourish in us and through us, so all around us may come to know and love our Eternal Father. Amen.