Gospel reading: Mt 13:24-30
Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds. “The Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ 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; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”
REFLECTIONS: Let them grow together
The parable of the Weeds among the Wheat is a bit counter to what seems common in, say, rice farming. For, normally, as soon as the rice seedlings are transplanted and begin to grow, the weeds will start to emerge as well, and so, the farmer begins to remove the weeds so as to remove the “competition” for the soil’s nutrients. He does not wait till the rice plants begin to yield or are harvested before he uproots the weeds!
But we have to make sense of the parable as Jesus tells it. Now, the advice of the farmer to let the weeds and the wheat coexist up to harvest time is sound because, indeed, it is possible that in pulling up the weeds some of the grain-bearing wheat may also be included and thus wasted. Anyway, in the farmer’s mind, in due time the weeds will eventually have to be separated and will go where they properly belong, that is, to the fire.
This parable explains why God allows for evil to coexist with good in the world. Would that there were no evil, we say, but the fact is that it does exist. At the same time, while we may be impatient at seeing evil “taking advantage of the nutrients of the soil” (making people’s lives miserable), the parable makes it clear that evil has a time limit; its sure destiny is to be destroyed.
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SOURCE: “365 Days with the Lord,” ST PAULS, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 895-9701; Fax 895-7328; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.
