Wisdom 12:12, 16–19; Romans 8:26–27; Matthew 13:24–43
I think Jesus is talking about my yard in this week’s readings, because regardless of how much I water and tend it, I constantly have weeds in my flower beds, and I have stopped even trying to sort them out. Clearly, if I’m following scripture correctly, I’m supposed to let the angels sort them out at the end of time. That means my yard will look awful for the time being but will look fantastic at the final judgment.
I wish I had the patience to wait that long.
In last week’s readings, the disciples questioned Jesus about his use of parables, and this week, we really get a good dose of Jesus’ parabolic teachings. I want to focus on the first one because I think it highlights a particular bit of spiritual nearsightedness that many of us have, yours truly included. We see the master sowing good seed in the field, but as everyone sleeps, the enemy comes and sows weeds. Our English translation uses the word weeds, but the actual word, tzitzania, refers to cheat grass or tares—a plant that looks a lot like wheat when it’s growing, but when mature is a lot easier to identify.
So the servants are able to see that something is not right in the fields, but the master knows that uprooting the weeds will also cause some, perhaps many good plants to be uprooted and destroyed as well. This decision on the master’s part no doubt rankles a few of his servants, who probably believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If they take care of the weeds now, they won’t have to work as hard separating them during the harvest. The danger is that they will accidentally destroy the good with the bad. The master recognizes this and stays their hand, instructing them to wait until they can clearly see the fruits that have been sown. In the master’s wisdom, judgment has been reserved until the fruits are obvious to everyone.
Now, the master in this parable is obviously God, and clearly He knows the outcome before we can see it. So why does He wait to sweep the field? Why does he let the unclean mix with the clean? It seems counterproductive to us at least, but even dangerous if the weeds somehow stunt the growth of the healthy plants or even choke them out altogether.
Does this line of thought sound familiar? I hear it pretty frequently from various parties in our Church concerning the people on “the other side.” Those people who can’t really be Catholic because they don’t hold the right opinions. I recently read about a proabortion and procontraception politician back east who was touting her credentials as a devout Catholic and decrying how her faith had been hijacked by extremists who didn’t believe in abortion or contraception. I have to wonder just what faith she was actually practicing since the teachings of the Church have always since the first century condemned both.
On the reverse side of the coin are those who insist that Catholic teaching is equivalent to US policy or capitalist ideology. Anyone who suggests that US policy might be errant or that capitalism might need constraint are branded as Godless communists. But the Church has never declared capitalism as sacrosanct, and US policy is made by very fallible human beings.
And very recently we’re hearing a whole lot in the news and elsewhere about the problems down on the border. Now here’s a perfect example of our moral blindness at times, when we can look at the wheat and see nothing but weeds. When we look at children coming across the border and all we can see is an illegal alien. There’s a problem with our perception. In most other countries, when a child is sent away from home because of violence and danger, we don’t call them “illegals.”
We call them refugees.
So who of us are being truly Catholic and truly Christian in our perceptions? Now I like to apply the original meaning of the word Catholic in such instances. Katolikos means universal in Greek, so whatever is truly Catholic should universally offend and rankle those on all points of the political spectrum. To be Catholic is to be universally irritating and challenging. I say that with tongue in cheek, and hopefully not with foot in mouth, but there is some truth to this as well. Our faith isn’t meant to reconcile us to our culture. Our faith is meant to help us to see through God’s perspective. We are supposed to be leaven in the mix and cause the dough to rise, to start as a small bush but give everyone a place to perch. Our Church is a broad net that catches all kinds of fish, and it needs to accommodate that diversity without being undermined and distorted. I frequently tell people that Catholic social teaching has something to tick off both progressives and conservatives. That is not a sign of falsity but of truth, because our culture and its biases tend to obscure our vision.
The problem here is that we ideologues don’t see the world by the infinite wisdom of God. We look at the world through our own culturally conditioned lenses, through our own rose-colored glasses. And that means we never see what is true. We see what we expect to see and judge accordingly. We lack mercy, wisdom, and a true notion of justice.
The reading from the Book of Wisdom brings to the foreground how we should understand God’s perspective. First, He has care over all:
and not just those who conform to whatever we with our personal preferences consider righteous. He knows who is truly righteous. Might is the source of his justice, as the reading from Wisdom asserts. His power is what allows him to be just. He isn’t worried about anyone’s opinion, so He applies true justice untempered by external bias.
We underestimate just how different we are from God. We forget that our notions of justice, of mercy, of might, and of wisdom are all limited and fragmentary. For us, these are all separate qualities, but God is infinitely simple. That means that there is no difference for these qualities in Him. His justice is His mercy is His might is His wisdom. When we read that there is no partiality in God, that is meant both in how He judges us and in how He knows our world. This isn’t to say that we don’t need to discern objective moral right and wrong, but we do need to recognize that we do not see the big picture, and we never will until we meet God face to face.
Our Catholic faith is one of few hold outs for objective truth. Our faith insists that there is an objective truth by which all will be judged, but it also insists that we not judge the hearts of our fellow travelers in this world. We have to seek communion rather than division. And that means that we have to forgive. And sometimes we need to recognize our own need for forgiveness because all of us fall short of the kingdom.
In a few minutes, we’re going to celebrate the paschal sacrifice of our Lord. This celebration has always had two realities as both a sacrifice and as a meal—one shared with friends and family. Just like a family is one even though it is made up of very different personalities and opinions, our family in faith is also diverse.
But in a greater sense we are one. We are one Body of Christ, and we need to hang together. We’re seeing signs of new pressures in our country that will be coming down on us, and we need to recognize that if we’re for Christ, we also have to be for each other—one bread and one Body, to quote the hymn.
Our Catholic faith is counter cultural and it challenges all of us. If you want to be a rebel, be Catholic. If you want to resist the inexorable drumbeat of so-called progress and seek instead the kingdom of God, be Catholic. You will be walking in the footsteps of Christ if you reject the popular road and stick with the Lamb of God. You might be crucified for it… but you will be raised in the end.
I think Jesus is talking about my yard in this week’s readings, because regardless of how much I water and tend it, I constantly have weeds in my flower beds, and I have stopped even trying to sort them out. Clearly, if I’m following scripture correctly, I’m supposed to let the angels sort them out at the end of time. That means my yard will look awful for the time being but will look fantastic at the final judgment.
I wish I had the patience to wait that long.
In last week’s readings, the disciples questioned Jesus about his use of parables, and this week, we really get a good dose of Jesus’ parabolic teachings. I want to focus on the first one because I think it highlights a particular bit of spiritual nearsightedness that many of us have, yours truly included. We see the master sowing good seed in the field, but as everyone sleeps, the enemy comes and sows weeds. Our English translation uses the word weeds, but the actual word, tzitzania, refers to cheat grass or tares—a plant that looks a lot like wheat when it’s growing, but when mature is a lot easier to identify.
So the servants are able to see that something is not right in the fields, but the master knows that uprooting the weeds will also cause some, perhaps many good plants to be uprooted and destroyed as well. This decision on the master’s part no doubt rankles a few of his servants, who probably believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If they take care of the weeds now, they won’t have to work as hard separating them during the harvest. The danger is that they will accidentally destroy the good with the bad. The master recognizes this and stays their hand, instructing them to wait until they can clearly see the fruits that have been sown. In the master’s wisdom, judgment has been reserved until the fruits are obvious to everyone.
Now, the master in this parable is obviously God, and clearly He knows the outcome before we can see it. So why does He wait to sweep the field? Why does he let the unclean mix with the clean? It seems counterproductive to us at least, but even dangerous if the weeds somehow stunt the growth of the healthy plants or even choke them out altogether.
Does this line of thought sound familiar? I hear it pretty frequently from various parties in our Church concerning the people on “the other side.” Those people who can’t really be Catholic because they don’t hold the right opinions. I recently read about a proabortion and procontraception politician back east who was touting her credentials as a devout Catholic and decrying how her faith had been hijacked by extremists who didn’t believe in abortion or contraception. I have to wonder just what faith she was actually practicing since the teachings of the Church have always since the first century condemned both.
On the reverse side of the coin are those who insist that Catholic teaching is equivalent to US policy or capitalist ideology. Anyone who suggests that US policy might be errant or that capitalism might need constraint are branded as Godless communists. But the Church has never declared capitalism as sacrosanct, and US policy is made by very fallible human beings.
And very recently we’re hearing a whole lot in the news and elsewhere about the problems down on the border. Now here’s a perfect example of our moral blindness at times, when we can look at the wheat and see nothing but weeds. When we look at children coming across the border and all we can see is an illegal alien. There’s a problem with our perception. In most other countries, when a child is sent away from home because of violence and danger, we don’t call them “illegals.”
We call them refugees.
So who of us are being truly Catholic and truly Christian in our perceptions? Now I like to apply the original meaning of the word Catholic in such instances. Katolikos means universal in Greek, so whatever is truly Catholic should universally offend and rankle those on all points of the political spectrum. To be Catholic is to be universally irritating and challenging. I say that with tongue in cheek, and hopefully not with foot in mouth, but there is some truth to this as well. Our faith isn’t meant to reconcile us to our culture. Our faith is meant to help us to see through God’s perspective. We are supposed to be leaven in the mix and cause the dough to rise, to start as a small bush but give everyone a place to perch. Our Church is a broad net that catches all kinds of fish, and it needs to accommodate that diversity without being undermined and distorted. I frequently tell people that Catholic social teaching has something to tick off both progressives and conservatives. That is not a sign of falsity but of truth, because our culture and its biases tend to obscure our vision.
The problem here is that we ideologues don’t see the world by the infinite wisdom of God. We look at the world through our own culturally conditioned lenses, through our own rose-colored glasses. And that means we never see what is true. We see what we expect to see and judge accordingly. We lack mercy, wisdom, and a true notion of justice.
The reading from the Book of Wisdom brings to the foreground how we should understand God’s perspective. First, He has care over all:
- not just those who are properly documented
- not just those who are pacifists and proponents of gun control
- not just those who are straight
- not just those who support nationalized health care
and not just those who conform to whatever we with our personal preferences consider righteous. He knows who is truly righteous. Might is the source of his justice, as the reading from Wisdom asserts. His power is what allows him to be just. He isn’t worried about anyone’s opinion, so He applies true justice untempered by external bias.
We underestimate just how different we are from God. We forget that our notions of justice, of mercy, of might, and of wisdom are all limited and fragmentary. For us, these are all separate qualities, but God is infinitely simple. That means that there is no difference for these qualities in Him. His justice is His mercy is His might is His wisdom. When we read that there is no partiality in God, that is meant both in how He judges us and in how He knows our world. This isn’t to say that we don’t need to discern objective moral right and wrong, but we do need to recognize that we do not see the big picture, and we never will until we meet God face to face.
Our Catholic faith is one of few hold outs for objective truth. Our faith insists that there is an objective truth by which all will be judged, but it also insists that we not judge the hearts of our fellow travelers in this world. We have to seek communion rather than division. And that means that we have to forgive. And sometimes we need to recognize our own need for forgiveness because all of us fall short of the kingdom.
In a few minutes, we’re going to celebrate the paschal sacrifice of our Lord. This celebration has always had two realities as both a sacrifice and as a meal—one shared with friends and family. Just like a family is one even though it is made up of very different personalities and opinions, our family in faith is also diverse.
But in a greater sense we are one. We are one Body of Christ, and we need to hang together. We’re seeing signs of new pressures in our country that will be coming down on us, and we need to recognize that if we’re for Christ, we also have to be for each other—one bread and one Body, to quote the hymn.
Our Catholic faith is counter cultural and it challenges all of us. If you want to be a rebel, be Catholic. If you want to resist the inexorable drumbeat of so-called progress and seek instead the kingdom of God, be Catholic. You will be walking in the footsteps of Christ if you reject the popular road and stick with the Lamb of God. You might be crucified for it… but you will be raised in the end.