Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Wisdom 12:13, 16–19; Romans 8:26–27; Matthew 13:24–43
Today’s Gospel gives us three parables about the kingdom of heaven:
a man who sowed good seed in his field, a mustard seed, and yeast hidden in flour.
But let us stay with the first parable.
A man sows good seed.
Then, while everyone is asleep, an enemy comes and sows weeds among the wheat.
This is one of the oldest questions in the human heart.
If God created the world good, where does evil come from?
If the field belongs to God, why are there weeds in it?
The parable does not explain everything.
It does not solve the mystery of evil.
It simply says:
An enemy has done this.
That is already important.
The field is not evil.
The seed is not evil.
The harvest is not evil.
God’s creation is good.
Evil is not part of God’s original dream.
Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas would later say that evil is a lack, a corruption of the good.
Like blindness in the eye. Like sickness in the body. Like rot in a fruit that was meant to be sweet.
The enemy cannot create a field.
He can only damage one.
He cannot make wheat.
He can only sow weeds.
He cannot give life.
He can only twist, poison, and destroy.
But the servants in the parable also make a dangerous suggestion.
They want to pull up the weeds at once.
The master says:
No.
Wait.
This is the wisdom of God.
The Book of Wisdom says that God’s power is the source of His justice, and because He is Lord of all, He is merciful to all.
God is powerful enough to wait.
We are not.
We want quick judgment. Quick separation. Quick punishment. Quick answers.
But God sees more than we see.
He knows the field. He knows the roots. He knows how easily our zeal for purity can become another violence.
So He waits.
He waits because He is merciful.
He waits because He wants repentance.
He waits because He alone can judge without destroying what still may live.
The parable ends with judgment.
The weeds will not last forever.
Evil will not have the final word.
We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
But until that day, we live in the field.
A mixed field.
Wheat and weeds. Grace and sin. Goodness and corruption. Hope and sorrow.
And even in us, the field is mixed.
We do not fully understand evil.
We do not fully understand ourselves.
We do not fully understand why God waits.
But one day, we shall know.
Until then, we live in the field.
The weeds are real.
But so is the wheat.
And the field still belongs to the Lord.
Biblical Reflections on the Gospel of Matthew
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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