STORIES FOR A SUMMER SUNDAY
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
Wisdom 12:13, 16-19; Romans 8:26-27; Matthew 13:24-43
Everybody loves a good story, and summertime is a great time for “spinning a yarn” We make them up as we go along on a road trip. We share scary stories around a campfire. We tell humorous and sometimes embarrassing stories during family reunions. Jesus was a master storyteller. Today, we find ourselves in the middle of a three-week cycle where Jesus presents us with stories for a summer Sunday. But his stories weren’t meant to be just cute little stories that entertained his disciples on a hot afternoon. These are parables, meant to teach, to enrich, to confound, and to challenge the disciples . . . and us . . . to grow.
Today we hear the parable of the wheat and the tares. Tares were a poisonous weed called the "bearded darnel." In the early stages of growth, the tares so closely resembled wheat that it wasn’t possible to distinguish one from the other. By the time they were distinguishable, the roots of the wheat and tares were so entangled that it wasn’t possible to weed out the tares without uprooting the wheat. It was essential to let them both grow together and then separate them at harvest time because darnel is quite bitter and mildly toxic.
In the parable, a farmer sowed good seed in his field, but in the night an enemy came and sowed tares with the wheat. When the crop began to mature, it became obvious that the noxious weed had been sown with the wheat. The servants offered to pull up the tares, but the wise farmer said: "No, let them both grow together until harvest time. Then we will separate the tares from the wheat."
The parable raises some important questions concerning the existence of evil - questions I’m sure you’ve asked at some time or another, and if you’re like me, questions you might currently be trying to come to grips with. Questions like: if all God created was good, how did evil enter the world? Why does good and evil exist side by side in the world? Why is it very difficult sometimes to distinguish evil from good? Will there ever be an end of evil? Can evil be prevented?
And the answers that it gives us might not exactly be the ones we wanted to hear: that we live in an imperfect world where evil is present as an unavoidable part of life; that there are evil persons and evil situations which we cannot change; and that there’s an evil force in the world which is beyond our power to fix. But that all of these will be properly handled in the end by God who alone has the wisdom, the power, and the right to judge.
How very often, we are like the servants in today’s gospel. To us there’s no room for the weeds; there’s no room for those whose sexual conduct is embarrassing or whose ethics are questionable; there’s no room for those who treat people unkindly or who have committed shameful sins. Something has to be done immediately! Yank the weeds and cut the losses!
But the sower of the good seed has a different course of action in mind - "Do nothing," he says. Nothing! Leave both grow together until harvest time. It’s shocking to consider that God lets evil people damage our world and damage our Church. And what’s more, God seems to do nothing to stop the actions of murderers, rapists, robbers, abusers, liars, cheats, embezzlers, adulterers, racists, bigots and criminals of every sort. They often prosper and frequently avoid human punishment.
Whereas the servants in today’s parable, and we, are preoccupied with weeds, the sower is preoccupied with wheat. The sower is not so much interested in condemnation as he is in transformation. Most of us would want to weed out a liar, cheat and a thief, but if did, we would weed out Jacob, the son of Isaac and the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. Most would want to eliminate an adulterer and murderer, but if we did, we would get rid of King David. Most would want to weed out a corrupt young carouser whose drinking and womanizing caused great heartache for his mother. But if such a man were weeded out, we would have eliminated St. Augustine. Unlike God, we cannot know people’s hearts; where their lives might take them, or their potential for good. We are sinners living among sinners and we cannot judge too harshly and condemn too quickly. All the evidence isn’t in and the game is far from over.
There’s a danger in today’s parable and that danger lies in taking an “us” and “them” attitude: to identifies ourselves as the wheat and those guilty of serious sins or horrific crimes as the weeds. But we need to realize that every act of ours, every thought, word and deed of ours - is a seed. Our minds and hearts, our words and deeds are the seed bag from which we sow ourselves in the lives of those around us, in the world around us and in our own lives, too.
If your seed bag is anything like mine, it holds seeds for a good harvest and it holds seeds for weeds. It holds the seeds of my good will, my good intentions and my desire to lives as I know God calls me to live. And my seed bag also holds the seeds of my jealousy, my anger, and my selfishness. Jesus calls each of us to take great care in what we sow, lest we plant weeds that choke and cut short the growth and life of all around us. So we need to ask ourselves, in the week just past, how many seeds have I planted: how many seeds that hurt, how many seeds that heal? And in the week ahead how many seeds will I plant: how many seeds that hurt, how many seeds that heal?
Jesus allowed himself to be the seed that dies that others might have life. He allowed himself to be, sown, planted in the earth that he might raise up in a harvest of God’s grace and peace, for us. And that harvest is what he shares with us at the altar in the Eucharist: the harvest of wheat, become bread, become his Body for us; the harvest of grapes, become wine, become his Blood for us.
May the seeds of grace Jesus plants in our minds and hearts today yield a harvest of grace, a garden of blessings, leading each of us to sow the seeds of life and to reap the harvest the Lord desires.
