SIXTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (2023)
Readings:
Wisdom 12:13, 16-19
Psalms 85:5-6, 9-10, 15-16
Romans 8:26-27
Matthew 13:24-43
In the last few weeks of Ordinary time, the why and wherefore of parables has been front and center, and this week is no exception. With almost rapid fire, Jesus delivers three parables regarding the kingdom of heaven, once again explaining why Jesus uses parables, and the always unusual explanation of the first parable of the wheat and the chaff.
Notice that in the first parable “the kingdom of heaven” is likened, not to the seed, but “to a man who sowed good deed in his field.” This is then played out in the Matthew’s full explanation of the parable where the man becomes the “Son of Man” (a messianic title) and his field becomes the world. The owner is quite sure that the reason for the large number of weeds in the field is due to the “enemy” sowing them there. We are given no reason as to why the “enemy” would want to do this. It doesn’t really matter, because the focus changes from the “enemy” to the industrious “slaves”who desire to go into the field and get rid of the weeds by pulling them out. The Master of the field is the epitome of calmness, and doesn’t waste his time worrying about where the “enemy” might be. He doesn’t waste his time thinking about why the “enemy” might have done such a thing. He reaches a practical decision to wait it out, and let them both grow until the harvest when the weeds can easily be identified and pulled out and burned.
The second parable about the mustard seed (not really the smallest of all seeds) has much to say about the nature of the kingdom Jesus came to initiate. That planted seed will grow into a large shrub (tree) where the many and diverse “birds of the sky will come and dwell in its branches. Even from the smallest of things (people!), a newly started kingdom can grow exponentially. And that same kingdom can grow mysteriously as in the third parable where three measures of wheat (enough to feed 150 people) can grow through the nearly invisible presence of leaven.
Matthew’s collection of parables has much to say to all people, living at any time, about the nature of God’s kingdom. They say what is enforced elsewhere in the gospels – that the kingdom started by the patient and loving God of all who have breath, will begin small. But size doesn’t matter, for eventually it will imperceptibly grow big enough so that the many and diverse birds of the heavens can make their home there. But even more importantly, we live in a world where the conduct of people is closely scrutinized, and some are deemed unworthy to even be called our neighbor, or live in our neighborhood. But Jesus tells us that in God’s kingdom there is lots of space, and, like God, we can wait until God sorts it all out at the end. The energetic slaves of the first parable still exist today, and they would Iike a lot of people who don’t look like us to be punished prematurely. They are people who don’t always act like us, and who sometimes even do “evil”- they would like them to be swept up right away and thrown into a blazing furnace, But that is not what God wants. We live in a time of many cultural wars, a time of “us” and “them,” and like the slaves in the gospel we want it sorted out now. God, however would sooner wait until the end time when the deeds of mankind will make it eminently clear who will get thrown in the furnace. There will be no doubt at that time, and no risk of not recognizing the wheat in our eagerness to cleanse the world of those who are unworthy of sharing space with us.
We would all like to be Messiahs, meting out justice prematurely, and sadly some try to do the cleansing themselves, creating anti-semitism, racism, nationalism. But we have one Messiah, who resides at the right hand of the Father, and He alone is capable of separating the wheat from the chaff, the good from the evil. Let us remind ourselves often that in the kingdom established by Christ, there is only one Messiah, and He was sent into our world by God, His Father.
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