1.Wisdom 12:
13,16-19
|
2.Romans 8:
26-27
|
Gospel:
Mt13:24-43
|
" Let both of
them grow together"
Dear brothers and
sisters as we celebrate the 16th Sunday of the year A we are invited to be very
patient and vigilant in dealing with our fellow brothers and sisters as
explained by the parable of the weeds and wheat. One striking feature of the
parable of the wheat and the weeds that is easy to overlook is the balance and
maturity of the servants. If there were immature or unbalanced servants among
them, the parable might have ended in a different way, such as this:
And
the slaves of the householder came and said to him, " Master, did you not
sow good seed in your field? Where then did these weeds come from?" He
answered, " An enemy has done this." The slaves said to him, "
Then do you want us to go and gather them?" But he replied, " No; for
in gathering the weeds you would uproot
the wheat along with them." And one of the slaves answered," Not me,
Master, for I know exactly the difference between wheat and weeds. " And
he went out and began to pull out the weeds but some of them turned out to be
wheat as the Master had foretold.
In the world we are
living today, too many Christians are like such over-zealous servants who could
not tolerate the evil weeds. In their zeal to serve God they go on a crusade
against those they perceive as evil with the intention of cleaning up the church, the nation, or the
world. In the end they discover they have made a big mistake.
We can imagine the
surprise and shock the servants must have felt when they went to the farm owner
to report the presence of the weeds in the farm and asked for permission to go
and pull them out. As far as the servants were concerned that was the right
thing to do in order to maximize output,
as any good farmer knows. We can then put this question in front of us that why
then did the farm owner restrain them from pulling out the weeds? We can think
of two reasons:
First, the master knew
that the wheat would survive in spite of the presence of the weeds. The weeds
might inconvenience the wheat temporarily but they would not choke them to
death or take over the farm. Secondly, and this is crucial, he knew how
difficult it is to distinguish between the wheat and the weeds. They look so
much alike. Only at harvest time could they be distinguished for sure by their
fruits. If it were possible to distinguish with accuracy the weeds from the
wheat he would probably not have prevented them. But he prevented them for this reason, "
Lest in gathering the weeds you root up
the wheat along with them"( Matthew 13:29)
Jesus then went on to
explain to his disciples that " the
field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the
weeds are the children of the evil one.( verse 38). This explanation makes
it clear the point of the parable is that Christians should not try to get rid
of bad people from the world. We must let good and evil people live side by
side in the world till the Day of Reckoning
when they will be known for sure by their fruits. We should be content to let good and evil
people live in the same house, the same apartment buildings, the same
neighborhood, the same country and in the same world for the simple reason that
we cannot absolutely identify without
error who is good and who is bad guy. Of course we all have our ideas of who is
good and who is bad, like the servants we could be wrong. Faithful servants are
those who recognize this possibility that they could be wrong and so are
prepared to suspend judgment and action.
Intolerance, the desire to get rid of evil people around us, breeds
fanatics who end up being unfaithful servants of our God who "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the
good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous"( Mt
5:45)
As we go forth from
this Eucharist today, let us resolve to take on the task of doing something
about a problem in our society and to do something in our personal life to draw
us all closer to Jesus.
0 Response to "HOMILY FOR THE 16th SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME YEAR A"
Chapisha Maoni