Sunday 16 (A- 2005): The Weeds and the Wheat
In
the parable of the weeds and the wheat Jesus teaches us many things about God’s perspective on human history and humankind.
First of all, in using the term “Kingdom of God”,
Jesus makes no distinction between the Church, on the one hand, and the State or society on the other. Elsewhere in the Gospel,
he certainly does recognize the distinction between Caesar and God, but in this parable he now shows that, from God’s
perspective, Caesar too is subject to God’s judgment.
In the end, Caesar, too, belongs to God. The field where God sows his good seed is also the world, not only
the Church. The field where the devil sows his weeds is also the Church, not only the world. So, while in human history, Caesar
and Pope must exercise their jurisdictions without confusion, both must recognize that weeds and wheat coexist in their respective
domains – and, at the end of time, God will separate, not Church from world, but weeds from wheat, wherever they are
to be found.
The wheat is the subjects of the Kingdom; the weeds are the subjects of the evil one. Of course, sometimes
we are ourselves both of these at the same time, driven by a relentless and exhausting pendulum of ambiguity.
The wheat and the weeds may also not be people, but attitudes, habits or decisions of people. Again, we all
have within us “wheaty” attitudes and “weedy” ones, both vying for the full terrain of our souls.
Our task before God is to work so that, in the end, the wheat prevails.
Recent events have shown that the Church cannot claim a monopoly on the wheat; they have also shown that the
State, by interfering with the laws of God, will not escape the judgment of God, no matter how forcefully it appeals to separation
of Church and State.
Neither God nor the devil is limited by human distinctions, and it is at our peril that we defend civil laws
which contradict the law of God. We would be like farmers who never expect harvest time to come.
While everybody “was asleep”, the devil came and sowed the weeds among the wheat. We are asleep
in the Church and in society when we do not remain active and vigilant in discerning what trends and initiatives come from
God and what ones proceed from the devil or from evil within us.
Discernment requires a deep understanding of how God works and of how evil works. It therefore requires prayerfulness,
docility to the wisdom of history, perceptiveness about the consequences of actions and decisions, a readiness to see beyond
appearances and intuit the truth behind them.
We sleep when we do not pray and pay no attention to the truth of our faith, or to the lessons of history.
We sleep when we condemn the past out of hand and exalt the present and the immediate future just because they are not the
past. We sleep when we do not hearken to the long-term future implications of our policies, approaches, decisions and attitudes.
We sleep when we give credence only to the appearances of the eyes or the immediate satisfaction of needs, often cleverly
and willfully ignoring the deeper and damaging truth of what those appearances hide.
When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, the weeds appeared as well. In other words, in due course, the true
effects of our misguided choices will begin to show themselves. Like the illness resulting from a careless and carefree spree
of self-indulgence -only worse- the weeds appear in our lives as witnesses of our failure to remain awake with the vigilance
of God.
We may want to root them out, but of their very nature, it may be too late – the damage has been done.
It is with us to stay, and all we can do is accept it and try to contain it. How many deaths, heartaches, sicknesses, injustices
and perversities afflict us as the result of unthinking decisions, taken individually or collectively, as Church or as State?
Of course, we must also remark on how many wonderful things humanity has brought about by listening to the
truth and the voice of God within and in the Church! But what a shame that we have so often failed to take the time and to
have the patience to discern properly the way ahead, under the sovereign majesty and guidance of God!
Our parable shows us the patience of God and the wisdom of God. He is patient because he wants the weeds,
as it were, to turn into wheat through his miraculous grace of forgiveness. He gives the weeds right up to harvest time to
change.
Even when some will refuse to change, he uses their stubbornness with great wisdom as a chance for the wheat
to exercise patience, charity, understanding and also to witness to the truth. Remember that Christ showed forth his love,
grace and truth most of all when he was being persecuted by weeds.
God tolerates the ambiguity, not because he loves the weeds, but because his grace can use the negative in
us and around us to strengthen the positive. This is true even although we confess our sins, for we still remain inclined
to sin through concupiscence, as the Council of Trent taught. Not only that, we also must endure the temporal punishment for
sin.
Concupiscence is not sin but comes from sin and leads to sin, but with the help of grace we can fight it and
that fight makes us stronger in grace, it ripens and matures our wheat.
Likewise, the temporal punishment for sin purifies us of the damaging effects our pardoned sins have wrought
within us. So the Lord, to the great anger of the devil, uses the very weeds the devil sows within us against him.
For our part, we must learn to have patience with ourselves, to have patience with God’s patience towards
us and be wise with his wisdom. Put differently, we must trust in God that the victory of Christ over sin may gradually and
finally be realized in us. The mystery and the wisdom of the weeds and wheat is the mystery and the wisdom of the Cross.
Be careful, however. Although God is patient with us in our sins, that does not mean he wants us to either
hold on to our sins or to keep committing them. Being patient with us shows his leniency and compassion, but God would rather
not have to be patient with us: he would rather see in us the innocence of heart born of our grateful response to his love.
So we should repent of and confess our sins as soon as possible, so as not to test or to try his patience.
Confession is an anticipation of the final judgment upon us. That judgment will come when it is no longer the time for God
to be patient but to bring in his harvest and to burn the weeds and store the wheat.
In receiving sacramental absolution we are stating that the time will come when God will intervene definitively
to end the history of sin and to inaugurate the eternity of love. Confession is a witness to the Church and the world that
sin cannot last, that iniquity will be destroyed, that God’s patience with the sinner will end and God’s love
will never end.
It is a witness to the frightening truth that those who freely have embraced iniquity, spurned God’s
patience and dismissed God’s law will be thrown into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and grinding of
teeth.
But it is also an encouraging witness to the ecstatic truth that those who have learned from God’s patience
and rejected sin will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.
It is right to ask, “but how will those who have not known God, through no fault of their own, be judged?
Are they weeds or are they wheat?” Vatican II gives a beautiful response to this problem: “For since Christ died
for everyone, and since all are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit
offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery” (“Gaudium
et Spes”, n. 22).
In other words, those who have not received the gift of faith, and have not been baptized with water, and
yet who listen to the voice of God in their conscience, by avoiding evil and doing good: these people, in ways known only
to God, do receive the grace which comes from Christ’s death and resurrection.
This is another way of saying that God has sovereignty over all people, and not just over the Church. The
Kingdom of God
is not coextensive with the Church, but with God, and the Church is at the service of the Kingdom. All who have ever existed,
and all who ever shall exist, therefore, are called in different ways to enter the Kingdom of heaven.
But those of us who are called to faith through baptism and membership of the Church, we have, for God’s
own good and loving reasons, been given the privileged, royal road to the Kingdom. It is our responsibility to treasure the
gift of belonging to the Church and to prove that we treasure it by living and witnessing unfailingly to the name, the love
and the power of Jesus Christ.
Let me conclude with the concluding words of Jesus himself, “Listen, anyone who has ears!”
Msgr. Peter
Magee
Sunday, July
17th, 2005 – St. Matthew’s, Cathedral, DC – 10.00 am
