The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed
good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed
weeds among the wheat, and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain,
then the weeds appeared also[1].
If, along with
me, you watch the news every evening, or read the paper every day, you
experience a nonstop barrage of terrible things that happen in the world. A
young lady testifies what her life was like after being attacked. Doctors
detail numerous beatings a little boy received before his death. Earthquakes
and other occurrences of nature kill thousands. Perhaps tragedy may strike our
own families. Or we may read about corruption within the government, or even
Churchmen behaving immorally. When these situations take place, we sometimes
are tempted to ask in our prayer time, "Why didn't God do a better job in
creating the world. Why is there so much evil around us? Why does God allow
terrible things to happen?”[2].
Well, my brother,
my sister, these questions are the same ones asked by the Early Christian
community that experienced assault from outside the community and, even then,
corruption within the community. To
these questions the Lord addresses the parable of the weeds and the wheat,
today's gospel.
The darnel, the
weed referred to, looks like wheat. It even has a head similar to wheat. When
the plant is young, it is almost impossible to distinguish it from wheat. Only
when its fruit, or the lack of fruit, a head without grain, is seen, can it be
separated from the wheat and burned.
God is aware of
the evil in our world! Evil is the price of freedom. If mankind did not have
the ability to choose between good and bad, he wouldn't be free. The choice of
bad effects all people, but it is the price of having the ability to choose
good. The farmer does not refuse to plant because he might find weeds among the
wheat. He plants knowing that the result might not be perfect, but there will
be wheat.
God created man
with the ability to bear fruit. That also gave him the ability not to bear
fruit. We call out to God in times of tragedy, in times of evil. We want to be
vindicated for doing good and suffering evil. Like the blood of the martyrs
under the altar in the Book of Revelation we ask, how long, O Lord until you vindicate your people[3]. The Lord responds that he recognizes our
suffering and suffers with us, but he will give others time to choose him also,
to be numbered among his wheat. God sees
the weeds among the wheat. They are the price of freedom. But without freedom there would be no wheat.
So where does
this leave us? Are we to ignore evil? Are we to ignore pain and suffering? Should
we keep our mouths shut when evil is around us? Absolutely not. We are called
to till the soil of the Lord. We are called to bring forth fruit. We can't
allow evil to exist when we come upon it, particularly in ourselves.
Today, as we
pray that we might withstand the onslaught of evil against us, we also pray
that we might fight to eliminate evil in our lives. With confidence, with hope, we realize the
Lord who sees all will in the wisdom of his time remove the weed from the wheat
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