Gospel: Matthew 13, 24 – 43
Jesus proposed another parable to the crowds, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.” He proposed another parable to them. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field.
It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.’” He spoke to them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.” All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:
I will open my mouth in parables, I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation
of the world. Then, dismissing the crowds, he went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” He said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom.
The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels,
and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear.”
Homily
The Gospel passage for this Sunday returns to the theme of the sower and gives us another insight into the sower’s relationship with the ground and the seed which grows. The seed has fallen on good soil, it has begun to give fruit but an enemy has sown darnel among the good seeds. The wheat and the darnel are now growing together, probably intertwined. The sower’s reaction is to let the wheat and darnel grow together. When the wheat is ready for harvesting it will be easy to separate the wheat crop from the darnel. Because the two plants are so closely intertwined, if it is done before harvest time there will be the risk of destroying the good wheat with the darnel. We must search again this week for the lesson that Jesus is trying to teach us. It must be a very important lesson because Jesus closes with “Listen, anyone who has ears!”
Your willingness to forgive will be a gift to your spouse and to viagra pill on line your children as well. The good news is tadalafil 20mg no prescription that people all over the world are too embarrased to talk about their sexual problems. Census Bureau using the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP); CDC and the tadalafil 20mg generic U.S. It is wrong because some of treatments are effective and affordable and ensure there is buy cialis pill not much of financial burden on our clients. It seems to me that one of the problems that all organizations and individuals carry within themselves is the problem of perfectionism. We want a church of the perfect, and we very often do not tolerate imperfections in others and in ourselves. We want it all to be good wheat, we do not tolerate the darnel. Yet life is full of imperfection and the truly mature person knows how to accept the imperfection while at the same time trying to enhance the virtue that is present.
Since the darnel always grows entangled with the wheat, we have to be patient and gentle lest in trying to uproot the darnel we kill the wheat also.
This is especially important for those of us who are responsible for the growth of others, be we parents or heads of organizations. Because we want those in our care to be perfect, we often focus so much on the negatives that we don’t see the positives and in trying to root out the negatives we run the risk of breaking the spirits of those in our care.
We forget the story of the Gospel. The servants of the sower say to him “‘Do you want us to go and weed it out?’ But he said, ‘No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it.” I am reminded of the words of St. Paul “Where sin abounds, grace does all the more abound” Our task is to recognize the grace and help it to grow. The stronger the grace, the less the sin. If we focus on building the grace, the sin will diminish.
All of us know stories of parents who have been so harsh in correcting their children that the children have become just what their parents did not want them to become. The same is true for the church. The Church, here on earth, can never be a church of the sanctified. It is for sinners that Christ came; it is for sinners that the Church exists. When however we focus on the good that people have within them, we build them up and they in turn become persons able to help others in their need. They become attractive persons drawing others to themselves. The gospel passage intimates this when it tells us that Jesus spoke another parable to them and said, ““The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.’” In fact goodness is so attractive that when goodness grows it is capable of leading others to be good also. The gospel explains this with another parable; “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.” It is noteworthy that in this gospel passage, the sower does not worry about the darnel. Once the wheat is healthy, it can survive the presence of the darnel. When the time comes, the darnel will be destroyed and the wheat gathered into barns. So it is with us. If virtue is strong, we will survive the onslaught of sin and one day we will be what God wants us to be. When we live with the attitude of the sower, we become people with belief in others and belief in the future.
Today then we remember and thank God for people who focus on the good in others. We thank God for people who believe in rehabilitative justice. We thank God for teachers, who see the enormous potential in students and work to develop that potential, not focusing on the negatives but on the positives. This was in fact the attitude of Jesus, who saw the potential in Peter, and James and John. He did not condemn them for their impetuosity. He worked with the good that they had in them. When we do likewise we continue the great tradition of our church and we keep it alive. May this Gospel meditation help us to enter into that tradition.
Prayer
All powerful and ever-loving God, we have often misunderstood the injunction ‘Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect’ and been unable to forgive ourselves the imperfections within us and also the imperfections of others. Help us to focus on developing the good and virtuous within us and within others so that what is not good or virtuous will diminish. We ask this through the intercession of Mary our mother and your Son, Jesus. Amen
