Homily:
16th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A
Friends, today we heard
another parable about seeds and plants that produce fruit as a metaphor for the
kingdom of heaven that Jesus proclaimed was “at hand”. Last week the parable that we heard described
the different ways that the word of God, spread broadcast like seeds, would be
received. Although it was spread very
broadly and abundantly, only a small portion of it will produce fruit. Nonetheless, the fruit it produces will be
abundant. This week, the parable
highlights a different aspect of the kingdom, noting that the kingdom will have
its enemies and how the enemies will attack it.
In order to understand this parable more thoroughly, we’ll have to get a
little bit technical regarding the plants referred to in the parable.
When Jesus refers to the man
who sowed good seed, the “seed” he referred to is wheat: the grain of which is
a food staple of people in Palestine even to this day. The “weed” that Jesus says was sowed by this
man’s enemy refers to the cockle-seed: a plant that resembles wheat so closely
that it is almost impossible to tell the plants apart until the stalks begin to
mature. By then, of course, it’s too
late to separate them out while they are growing. To sow this seed in your enemy’s wheat field
is a sinister thing to do. You see, the
grain of the cockle-seed is toxic to humans and, if mixed with wheat flour,
will ruin any bread. Therefore, the
owner of the wheat field has a choice to make: either he cut down the whole
field and count it as loss or hire extra workers to spend many extra hours
carefully separating out the wheat from the cockle. Either way, it would certainly result in a
net loss of his investment, likely leaving him destitute until the next growing
season.
Knowing all of this now, we
can see more clearly what Jesus is saying about the kingdom and its
enemies. He highlights himself as the
man who sowed good seed in his field, which is the world. The good seed itself is the children of the
kingdom of heaven. The devil (or Satan)
is the enemy who sows the cockle-seed, who are the children of the devil (those
“who cause others to sin and all evildoers”, as Jesus describes them). Looking at both from afar, there doesn’t seem
to be a lot of difference between them.
When you look at the fruit that they produce, however, we begin to see the
difference. This is why the children of
the kingdom will not be separated from the children of the evil one until the
“harvest”—that is, the final judgement: because “by their fruit” they will be
judged. To uproot them before they are
fully mature risks sending the wheat into the fire of punishment with the
cockle—that is, the children of the kingdom into fiery hell with the children
of the evil one: which would be a great injustice.
Extrapolating this image a little,
we can call the “good seed”, “truth”, and the cockle-seed, “lies”. The Son of Man, therefore, can be said to sow
truth into the world and the devil, lies.
This works because a lie is something meant to deceive someone into
believing that it is truth. The best way
that it does this is by looking a lot like truth. For example, the word of God says, “You shall
love your neighbor” as well as “You shall not kill”. The devil, however, says, “it’s okay to kill
when it looks like you’re doing something loving for your neighbor.” This is the argument for euthanasia,
right? “Look,” it’s proponents say,
“this person is suffering greatly. It is better to allow him/her to end his/her
life (or to do it for him/her) than to allow him/her to continue suffering.” It’s a lie, disguised as a truth, meant to
deceive others into believing it’s true.
I could continue naming other examples, but I assume that you’d like to
go home sometime tonight, so I won’t.
So why do I bring this up
today? Well, because we are certainly in
a very turbulent time in the Church and in the world. I’m sure that I don’t need to tell any of you
that there is no shortage of opinions out there about what we need to do to fix
all of these problems (FoxNews, MSNBC, CNN and the like are built on the idea
that people can talk 24/7 about everything that’s wrong and about the various
opinions for how to fix it). Sometimes,
the solutions being proposed are attractive.
If so, it’s likely that they have an element of truth in them. Upon closer inspection, however, there’s
often other elements that contradict truth which cannot be accepted by the
“children of the kingdom”. It’s
tempting, however, to get on board with them because we desire the element of
truth contained within them, right?
Those elements contained within it that contradict the truth, well those
are unfortunate consequences of gaining that element of truth, we’d say. This is wrong, however. It is, in fact, the ruse of the evil one to
deceive us into accepting his lies so that they may continue to grow and
destroy the truth around it.
Believe it or not, however,
there is a body of teaching, 100% based in the truth that has been revealed to
us by God, in Jesus, that can help us to answer in truth the problems
facing the Church and the world today.
It is a collection of teachings called “Catholic Social Teaching” and
its seven themes provide a framework of understanding about the truth of the
human person as someone both unique and unrepeatable who nonetheless shares a
bond and a common end with every other human person which can point us towards
solutions that are rooted in truth, instead of being rooted in lies, dressed up
as truths. It is my firm opinion that,
unless we are pursuing solutions to the problems in the Church and the world
based on these teachings, we will never realize true solutions, but rather only
false ones that perpetually pit one faction against another: with the one wielding
the most power prevailing at any given time.
This only perpetuates a vicious cycle of division, instead of promoting
the solidarity that is the more natural end of the human person and which
Catholic Social Teaching promotes.
Friends, again, I say all of
this because, as children of the kingdom of heaven, we need to be the voice of
truth in the world. Without us, the
children of the evil one, that is “all who cause others to sin and all evildoers”,
will have free reign to sow the cockle-seed of lies throughout the world:
un-truths, deceptively disguised as truths in order to “choke out” the children
of the kingdom from producing fruit by accepting them. This work could be as simple as striving to
correct a family member, co-worker, or friend who mistakenly holds to one of
these lies as true, or it could be to use social media to promote the truth and
contradict the lies, or you could use your position on a school board or a municipal
or corporate board of directors to promote true teaching in your community, or
you could go so far as to run for public office in an effort to encode this
truth in the laws that govern us. There
are many ways that we can do this good work: ours is to choose the ones that
are at our disposal. What is not an
option, however, is to choose to leave this work to someone else.
The good news, of course, is
that, by living in accord with truth and promoting it, we are guaranteed a
place in heaven with God, the Father of Truth.
Because he is all-powerful, he has no worry about the cost of separating
out the wheat from the cockle on the day of judgment: it costs him
nothing. Those it will cost, however,
are those who stubbornly cling to the lies of the devil, who will be tossed
into the “fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of
teeth”. Woe to us if we had the
opportunity to convert them from these lies and yet failed to attempt it. Strengthened, therefore, by this Eucharist that
we celebrate, and by the Holy Spirit, who “comes to the aid of our weakness”,
let us give ourselves to this good work, so that the kingdom that began as a
tiny mustard seed may truly grow into the largest of trees, in which peoples of
every time and place may find their true home.
Given at Saint Mary Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – July 19th,
2020
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