The Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
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."
—Matthew 13:27-28
In an essay found in the book A Maryknoll Reflection on the Liturgical Year, Father Ken Tesing, a Maryknoll priest, recalled a conversation he had with his brother during a visit to his family years before:
I came back to the United States from my mission in Tanzania, and I was visiting my brother and his family at their farm. As farmers always do, we went out to look at the fields and crops. My brother asked me, “Look, do you recognize those weeds?” I replied, “No, I don’t think I have ever seen them before; how did they get into your fields?” He said, “Some years ago herbicides were developed; the weeds and grasses we struggled with in the crops when we were just growing up have all been eliminated. All these seeds were just lying dormant in the ground; they could not compete earlier with the dominant weeds and now they have sprouted and come forth.” We talked about this.
My brother said farming is like life; there will always be challenges, always be differences. We need to be patient and tolerant, to recognize the problems, the evil amid the good, and find ways to work with it and around it.
This simple, practical explanation by an observant farmer gives us an insight into the mystery that Jesus is breaking open for us in Parable of the “Weeds Among the Wheat”.
This particular parable, which only appears in the Gospel of Matthew, is a challenging one. In essence, Jesus tells the story of a farmer whose crop is attacked by an enemy who sows the seeds of weeds among the farmer’s wheat. This was an act of violence which threatened the farmer’s livelihood, but there was no going back. The wheat and the weeds had to be allowed to grow up together. It would only be at the time of the harvest that the separation could finally take place.
Jesus isn’t concerned with providing any sort of backstory or explanation as to why the weeds were sown in the first place. Instead, he focuses on landowner’s wise response to the situation. And so, when the slaves suggest pulling the weeds, the landowner refuses: removing the weeds might uproot the precious wheat.
To most of us, this probably seems like a reckless decision.
Won’t the weeds be absorbing valuable nutrients and water from the soil—the very resources needed to make the wheat flourish?
How will the harvesters even separate the weeds from the wheat when the time for harvest comes?
While we may be quick to jump to these sorts of questions and practicalities, we have to remember that Jesus isn’t trying to teach us a lesson in farming techniques. This parable is ultimately a story about the Reign of God and God’s mercy and patience.
To make sense of this, it will help us to look a bit more closely at the “wheat” and “weeds” that are at the heart of the parable.
The word that Saint Matthew used here for “weeds” is zizania (ζιζανια), which is sometimes translated as "tares" or "darnel." Rather than just being a general word for "weed," this is a specific plant whose scientific name is lolium temulentum. What makes this detail so important to the story is that zizania looks like wheat as it begins to grow, and it is only when it is nearly mature that you can tell the difference between the two plants. Jesus makes it clear that the determination as to what is zizania and what is wheat can only be made at the time of the harvest, when the harvesters will gather up all the plants together.
In this parable, Jesus is trying to illustrate for us how the community of disciples is made up of a mixture of sinners and saints. But, the parable goes further by highlighting for us that only God has the right to judge (see Wisdom 12:16-19; James 4:10-12). It isn’t possible for us to make a decision, here and now, about the identity or worth of those who are growing up alongside us in the field of the Church. First, we are all still growing—works in progress and at different points in our spiritual journey—and the time for the harvest (the eschaton) has not yet come. Beyond this, however, is the risk that you or I would presume that we are the righteous “wheat”, and that we have the wisdom or authority to decide who of those around us is a “weed” to be disposed of.
Saint Augustine of Hippo brings this point home when he explains:
Consider what we choose to be in his field; consider what sort of people we are found to be at the harvest. The field, you see, which is the world, is the Church spread throughout the world. Let those who are wheat persevere until the harvest; let those who are weeds change themselves into wheat. This, you see, is the difference between people and real ears of wheat and real weeds, because with those things growing in a field whatever is wheat is wheat, and whatever are weeds are weeds. But in the Lord’s field, which is the Church, wheat which used to be grain sometimes changes into weeds, and what used to be weeds sometimes changes into grain; and nobody knows what’s going to happen tomorrow.
And so, here we are left with a lesson in God’s mercy and a call to patience and acceptance of those around us. This is what makes this parable so challenging in these politicized and polarized times. Many people today—including within the Church—see mercy or compassion as letting someone “off the hook” or “excusing” sin. Sadly, we too often find this mentality at work in the fights surrounding immigration reform, or in questions about government assistance for low-income families, the mentally ill, addicts, or vulnerable peoples. It is also present in the debates around the rights of LGBTQ persons or divorced and remarried Catholics and their place in the Church, along with so many others who might not comfortably fit into our theological, political, and economic worldview.
How many times have we heard—or said ourselves—”They made their decision; they have to live with the consequences!”?
How often have we wrestled with a “nest” mentality, “jealously guarding ourselves in the small group of those who consider themselves good” and flashing what Pope Francis has called our “Believer’s License” in order to justify ourselves, even as we distance or dismiss others?
Are we really dedicated to promoting the Reign of God or to trying to build a “perfect” faith community based on our own preferences and prejudices—a space that is more defined by who is excluded than as being a place of encounter?
This kind of judgement or exclusion is not what we find in the Reign of God, as we see in the First Reading for this Sunday:
“Though you are master of might, you judge with clemency,
and with much lenience you govern us;
for power, whenever you will, attends you.
And you taught your people, by these deeds,
that those who are just must be kind;
and you gave your children good ground for hope
that you would permit repentance for their sins.”—Wisdom 12:16-19
God’s great and wondrous deeds are most especially revealed in patience, clemency, and kindness, and we see this embodied in Jesus’ own willingness to offer forgiveness and acceptance. With this in mind, we recognize our own need for mercy, even as we are being called to find new ways to journey together in mutuality and solidarity. This brings us to the heart of the Parable of the Weeds Among the Wheat, as Pope Francis has reminded us:
“The Lord invites us to adopt his vision, one that is focused on good wheat, that knows how to protect it even amid the weeds. It is not those who are always searching for others’ limitations and flaws who cooperate well with God but, rather, those who know how to recognize the good that silently grows in the field of the Church and history, cultivating it until it becomes mature. And then, God, and he alone, will reward the good and punish the wicked.”
As disciples, we aren’t called to judge. Rather, we remember that God is infinitely merciful and that this mercy provides each of us with that time and space which allows for conversion and renewal, so that we can truly come to that abundance of life promised to each of us.
Show favor, O Lord, to your servants
and mercifully increase the gifts of your grace,
that, made fervent in hope, faith and charity,
they may be ever watchful in keeping your commands.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
