At the end of the day, we are all sinners in the hands of a loving and forgiving God.

As I reflect on today’s Gospel of the parable of the wheat and the weeds, my conviction is we live in a very weedy world.  Isn’t it true, there is much too much violence, hatred, power-grabbing, self-centeredness in the world today?  We have to look no further than ourselves to recognize too much self-centeredness and not enough God-centeredness and other-centeredness. 

Where have the weeds come from?   In the Gospel, the servants said to the master:  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 the harvest.”

I have that same question when I look out at my garden:  Where have the weeds come from?  Their ongoing presence in my garden is more the result of my laziness of myself as a gardener than some spiritual wisdom.

Not so with Jesus.  Jesus tells that this parable to illustrate the patience of God in dealing with weeds.  Wait until the harvest.   The Church of Jesus is not to grow impatient with the weeds.

What weeds are we talking about?  This is an important awareness in the spiritual life of anyone of us and in the spiritual life of the Church as a whole.

\

Yes, the weeds of life are about us.  We are all sinners.   We all have demons.  In term of this parable we all have weeds – the weeds of pride, the weeds of materialism, the weeds of anger, the weeds of lust, the weeds of self-centeredness, and the weeds of holding grudges.  Often enough, we are more aware of these weeds in the lives of others than ourselves.

There are significant weeds in the life of the Church – the weeds of sexual abuse, the weeds of power, and the weeds of not living out the Gospel that is preached?

What are we to in the face of the weeds that are about us?  The parable suggests that God is patient – much more patient than ourselves.   Matthew’s Gospel could be renamed the Gospel of Punishment Postponed.\

I confess I am impatient with myself when I am not the person of prayer, the person of humility, the person of unselfish love that the Gospel calls me to live out.  I am disillusioned with the Church that we do not communicate the love, the healing, and the forgiveness of Jesus in the lives of people. 

May we pray for the grace of the patience of God.  This does not mean passivity or helplessness or an attitude of giving up.  Does this mean that we are to sit back and pick daisies while the innocent suffer?  It means we are to love ourselves and others who are sinners and who have weeds that disappoint us.    The truth of our lives is that we are all sinners whom the Lord has turned his gaze upon.

The Gospel tells us that God can tolerate weeds far better than we can.  This God sounds a bit like that crazy landowner who left the weeds with room to grow.  A mentor for me is Pope Francis who said:  “Who am I to judge?”  Following the example of Pope Francis, may we refrain from judgment.  May we experience the joy of the Gospel and witness to the kindness and patience of God in the way we are with one and all.

The evangelist Matthew is concerned that no punishment be meted out prematurely.  Beware of overzealous volunteers, anxious to “weed out” undesirables, supremely sure of their ability to identify such undesirables with unfailing accuracy.   What looks like weeds to us may well be wheat.

In acknowledging the weediness of our own hearts,  Paul challenges us to believe that the Holy Spirit can bear the burden of our weakness  and can pray in and for us, leading us in the kind of prayer that opens us to God’s will.  In the second reading, Paul writes:    “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.”

I have always taken great comfort in this reading from Paul to the Romans.  Even though priests are supposed to be experts in prayer, I confess that my mind is capable of wandering in prayer.  I am capable of getting caught in the busyness of life and not focus on resting in the Lord Jesus.  If you too are capable of being too distracted in prayer and think that your prayer is accomplishing precious little, take heart in the words of St Paul.  Thanks be to God, the Holy Spirit who bears the burden of our weakness is praying within us.  The Holy Spirit brings our distracted and useless prayer to our loving God.  Because our prayer is joined with the prayer of the Holy Spirit, that prayer is very precious in the sight of God.  Our “very weedy prayer,” so to speak, will deepen our union with Christ Jesus.

What are to make of the weediness of our very Church that doesn’t always reflect the love of Jesus in the lives of people?  Do we look for a Church without weeds so that we can focus more fully on God. As illustrated in the parable, as disillusioning as this may, the weeds are going to be present till the harvest at the end of the world.  The Church will always be a Church of sinners.  Again, this doesn’t that we are to the passive recipients of evil as in sexual abuse.  We are to stand for the Gospel and hold ourselves and others up to a Gospel way of living.  But at the same time, as long as people are people, there is going to be some weediness in our own hearts and in our world.

What are we to do?   In fact, aren’t we in the field ourselves, still growing?   And just what are we, weeds or wheat, or both at different times?  Would we want someone other than God  misjudging us before we have had time to grow to full maturity?

The apostle Paul said something very remarkable in his second Letter to the Corinthians:  Paul boasted of his weakness.  He boasted of his weediness so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  Like Paul, we do not have to deny the weeds of our lives or the weeds of the Church.  We can let them grow till the harvest to make us more aware of our need for God’s grace.  At the end of the day, we are all sinners in the hands of a loving and forgiving God.

Have a blessed day.