Sixteenth
Sunday in OT A 2020
If you reverence and respect all
life,
If you can forgive and forget,
If you wish peace to all – to none
harm,
If you do not judge, criticize or
condemn,
You have God’s heart beating in your
body.
In today’s
Gospel parable, Jesus is suggesting that we let the weeds in the garden grow
along with the wheat till harvest time.
When the question was asked: Do
you want us to go immediately to pull up the weeds? The response was given: “No, if you pull up
the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until the harvest.”
With this
parable, Jesus is telling us clearly we are to be an inclusive church. Since its earliest days, the Church has preferred
to tolerate different levels of commitment and holiness. I wonder if you can observe in your own
family life different levels of commitment and holiness. Even
if this is true, are we not called to love and embrace each and every member of
our family.
This
attitude of acceptance is also in line with the revelation of God “as merciful
and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in kindness.”
An inclusive
Church that is kind and lenient toward its own members and toward everyone else
should be an inspiration to a divided world that has a tendency to judge
harshly, to be quick to anger, and to uproot weeds even at the cost of damage to
the good plants. The Church is to stand
forth as a sign that we are all brothers and sisters which allows honest
dialogue and invigorates it.
A Church
that is welcoming and has room for everyone, a Church that can forgive and forget,
a Church that does not condemn, criticize or judge has God’s heart beating
within the Church.
As I reflect
on today’s Gospel of the parable of the weeds and the wheat, 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.
Jesus tells
us 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? Yes, the weeds of
life are all about us. We are all
sinners. We all have demons. In terms 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 do in the face of the weeds that are all 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.
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 we are to sit back and pick
daisies while the innocent suffer? It
means we are to love ourselves 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
evangelist Matthew is concerned that no punishment be meted out
prematurely. Beware of the 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.
What are we
to make of the weediness of our 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 be, 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 mean that we are to be passive recipients of evil as in sexual
abuse. We are to stand for the Gospel
and hold ourselves and others 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? What did Jesus do? Recall the story that Jesus told of the Good
Shepherd who left the 99 and went in sheep of the lost sheep that had gone
astray.
Recall the
story of the woman caught in adultery when Jesus said to her accusers: “Let him
who is without sin cast the first stone.”
And to the
thief that was crucified along with Jesus: “This day you will be with me in
paradise.”
I call your
attention to the words of St. Paul in the second Scripture reading: “The Spirit
comes to the aid of our weakness: for we do not pray as we ought.” I have always taken great comfort in this
reading from Paul to the Romans. Even though
I’m sure your prayer is always very focused, and you never get distracted, I
confess that my mind is capable of wandering in prayer. I am too capable of getting caught in the
busyness of life and not focus on resting in the Lord Jesus. But I am very comforted that the Holy Spirits
brings my distracted and useless prayer to our loving God. My “very weedy prayer,” so to speak, through
the grace of the Holy Spirit deepens my union with Christ Jesus. Thanks be to God.
To sum up
the parable of the weeds and the wheat, at the end of the day, we are all
sinners in the hands of a loving and forgiving God.
Have a
Blessed Day.
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