The weeds among the wheat

Homily: 16^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A

          Friends, we have been considering over these past weeks certain parables given by Jesus which he used to give his disciples a vision of what the kingdom of heaven would be like.  These he gives so that all of us—even the most simple among us—might have an idea of how this mysterious kingdom that Jesus often proclaimed would look.  Even the fact that Jesus uses the word “kingdom” to describe it is a metaphor in itself, which separates it from other forms of political organization and government.  In other words, it would be much different if Jesus said “the republic of heaven is like…” or “the empire of heaven is like…”  In describing heaven as a kingdom, he sets it apart and defines its basic structure.

          Perhaps, then, people were confused when Jesus proclaimed to them “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  At first, they might have thought, “Great!  We’ve been waiting for Yahweh to send us the Messiah, the great King, who would establish God’s lasting kingdom and subdue all of our enemies.”  Looking around, however, they quickly found that none of those things were happening and so, perhaps, began to become perplexed.  Thus, Jesus began to teach them in parables what the kingdom—which, he proposed, was at hand—looks like.  One of these—the parable of the wheat and the weeds—was meant to dispel any confusion about why all of God’s enemies—that is, those who do evil in the world—had not yet been subdued.

          In the parable, Yahweh is shown as the wise farm owner who, not knowing that his enemy had sown weeds among his wheat, allows the weeds to grow alongside the wheat until the time of the harvest, so as not to uproot any of the wheat along with it.  He knows that his wheat—that is, the children of his kingdom—are strong and can withstand the presence of weeds among them and still produce fruit.  Thus, he leaves the weeds among the wheat knowing that, ultimately, the plans of the enemy will be squashed as the wheat is gathered into his barn (that is, into heaven) and the weeds will be thrown into the fire to be burnt (that is, in to the depths of hell).  For the children of Israel who were looking for a kingdom of heaven in which all of their enemies would be subdued and purged from their midst, this parable provided an explanation that demonstrated the wisdom of leaving evil doers and sinners among them.

Still, there’s a problem with the parable, right?  In last week’s parable, Jesus taught that the wheat sowed among weeds was choked and so produced no fruit.  This week, however, he shows the wheat growing up with the weeds, but, instead of being choked, they produce fruit anyway.  So, how do we reconcile what seems to be a contradiction?  Well, by remembering that these are metaphors and that metaphors are always limited: they are meant to highlight certain aspects of things.  In doing so, however, they often give an incomplete picture.

In the parable of the sower who sows indiscriminately, Jesus was teaching his disciples not to allow themselves to get intertwined with those who do evil, for the evil doers will choke out the divine life within them so that they produce no fruit.  In the parable of the weeds sowed among the wheat, however, he was teaching his disciples that it is possible to coexist with those who do evil and still produce fruit.  In the first, Jesus is warning his disciples not to give themselves over to the ways of those who do evil, because even their good intentions to be righteous will fail because of the constant influence of evil around them.  In the second, Jesus is saying that the mere presence of those who do evil is not enough to keep the righteous ones from producing fruit, because they have not given themselves over to evil ways.  Both are true, in spite of what seems to be a contradiction, and so contribute to create the rich image of the kingdom of heaven which Jesus is trying to construct.

Still, there is one other troubling thing in this parable.  In it, Jesus indicates that there are “children of the kingdom” and “children of the evil one”.  In doing so, he seems to say that there are some who are destined for heaven and some who are destined for hell.  We believe, however, that God creates all men good and destines them for heaven; and so why does Jesus say that there are “children of the evil one”?

Contrary to what was commonly believed at the time, Jesus was teaching that the kingdom of heaven would be open to all, not restricted to one ethnic race, predestined by election beforehand by God.  This is why he proposed the parable of the mustard seed.  In it he showed that the small seed of the kingdom would blossom into a large bush in which all the birds of the air (an image for the many nations and ethnicities of the world) would come and make their nest.  Being a member of either kingdom, therefore, is a matter of choice, not predestination.  Thus, the “children of the kingdom” are those who have turned to the way of righteousness—in other words, those who have chosen to become children of the kingdom—and the “children of the evil one” are those who have refused the way of righteousness, thus choosing to become children of the evil one.

Now, because each of these has chosen their way (instead of having been predestined to a certain way), each of these can still choose the opposite way: the children of the kingdom to become children of the evil one and the children of the evil one to become children of the kingdom.  Thus, Jesus proposes the parable of the yeast, saying that the kingdom is like a little yeast that is mixed in with dough.  Having been mixed in, it causes the whole batch of dough to rise.  With this parable, Jesus is indicating that the children of the kingdom, mixed in with the children of the evil one, can lead them to convert and choose the way of righteousness and so cause the greater growth and expansion of the kingdom throughout the world.

My brothers and sisters, these parables are reasons for us to have great hope while living this world.  It is obvious that God, through his divine grace dispensed to us in the Church, has raised up children of the kingdom throughout the world.  It is also obvious that the evil one, who is the devil, has stolen from the children God has raised up men and women who have given themselves over to evil, thus becoming children of the evil one.  All of us, I suspect, would be glad to see this evil banished from our midst.  As we can see, however, it is not God’s plan to act in an outwardly powerful way to accomplish this.  Rather, he leaves the children of the evil one among us; and this for two reasons: 1) because uprooting those who do evil could cause some of the weaker ones among the righteous to be uprooted, too; and 2) because he longs to see the children of the evil one converted to become children of the kingdom.

Therefore, we, who consider ourselves to be children of the kingdom, have some work to do.  We are called to be yeast in the midst of the world: glorifying God in our prayer and in our work so that those who have given themselves over to be children of the evil one would be converted and the kingdom of heaven would grow and expand throughout the world.  This is the task given to us as disciples and there is no more worthy work than this in the world.  In this Eucharist, therefore, let us give thanks for the grace to be children of the kingdom of heaven; and, strengthened by it, let us take courage and embrace this work so that our king, Jesus Christ, may truly reign among us.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – July 22^nd & 23^rd, 2017

The cure for selfishness? How about NFP?

          My first real "hitting" attempt at preaching on a moral issue.  I think that I did pretty well in clearly making my point while also emphasizing the Good News.  I wish I could have said more, because I know that I pretty much caricature-ized everyone who uses contraception, but I felt like God was moving me to speak about this rather frankly.  Hopefully you all will take the week to learn more about NFP and its benefits for promoting strong families and faithful discipleship of our Lord, Jesus!

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Homily: 16^th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle A

          I remember back when I was a kid that during the summer, and after I was old enough to be trusted to cross Theodore Street, which was a busy street close to the house in which I grew up, my mother would send me over to my grandmother’s house to help her with little projects around her house.  Grandma Lucy always had vegetables growing in her gardens and so one of my regular jobs at her house was to weed the gardens.  I was always glad to help out my grandma, but this was one of the more unpleasant jobs for me as a 13 year old.  As many of you know, I’m sure, it is a very tedious job and for a teenage boy it can be very difficult to maintain the concentration necessary to do that job well.

          One of the difficulties that I encountered in the job was making sure that I only pulled out the weeds and not the sprouts of grandma’s vegetable plants.  I often learned the distinction the hard way: when grandma would come out to check on me and find one of her tomato plants uprooted.  Now, I love my grandma Lucy, but she was pretty rough around the edges, so when I screwed up like that, I heard about it from her.  She never gave up on me, though, because she always let me back into her garden to go after those weeds.

          Sometimes, in the years that followed, when I would hear today’s Gospel reading, I would think back to those summer hours spent weeding grandma Lucy’s garden and I would think to myself: “Man, I wish grandma would have paid more attention at Mass; because it sure would have saved me a lot of headaches and heartaches if she would have just let those weeds grow!”  My guess, however, is that she did pay attention and that she knew that Jesus’ parable means slightly different things depending on which level you apply it.

          Taken as it is, Jesus’ parable about the wheat and the weeds applies to a pretty grand scale: the kingdom of heaven.  Applied at that level, the parable speaks very generically and the people he speaks of are “caricatures”, that is, identified by a major characteristic: in this case, whether they are good or wicked.  Now, parables are, essentially, metaphors; and a metaphor does two things: it both highlights certain things and hides others.  For example: to say that “time is money” highlights that time is something valuable and that it can be spent.  What it hides, however, is that time cannot be saved: it just keeps ticking on no matter what we do.  Thus, in the parable of the wheat and the weeds, Jesus highlights that on the earth there will always be wickedness mixed in with the good; but that’s ok, because at the final harvest the good will be separated out from the wicked.  What it hides, however, is that people can change, while wheat can never be anything more than wheat and weeds never anything more than weeds.  Thus, the wicked (that is, the weeds) are not doomed to always be wicked, nor are the good (that is, the wheat) predestined to remain good; for they, too, can fall into wickedness.  And so the scale that Jesus is working in is important for our interpretation.

          Speaking at the level of the kingdom of heaven, the interpretation means exactly what we’ve said: that always there will be the wicked mixed in with the good and that the good will be preserved from the fire at the final harvest.  Brought down to the individual, however, the interpretation will have to change a bit.  At this level, Jesus would certainly speak of rooting out the weeds as soon as they appear, because, as we heard last week, the good seed that falls among thorns is quickly choked and produces no fruit.  In other words, there is no room for both wheat and weeds in the individual heart of a person.

          We can also apply an interpretation of this parable to the level of small groups, such as a family.  There we’ll find a mixture of the grand, kingdom-of-heaven scale interpretation with the small, individual scale interpretation.  Here we see that wickedness can, indeed, be sown among the good seeds of the members of a family.  Yet, as on the individual level, it is important to root out wickedness at the first sign of its growth, for wickedness sown in the midst of the family can destroy the entire family altogether.

          One of the most destructive weeds that can be sown in the midst of a family is selfishness.  In a family—more so even than on the level of a neighborhood or a town—the individual members are dependent on one another.  When selfishness takes root in a family it begins to separate members one from another as each seeks to satisfy his or her own wants and desires often at the expense of the others, thus stripping the family of the good fruit it could produce.  Dare I say that one of the most sinister seeds of selfishness in a family is the use of artificial means of contraception?  Sinister, because it appears to be something benign, that is, completely harmless, while it quietly destroys the rich harvest a family might produce.

          Contraception is the seed of selfishness in a family because it cuts God out of the parents’ relationship.  In effect, it says “God, you can’t be trusted to direct this part of our lives, so we are going to decide for ourselves when we’ll have children.”  For many, what it also says is “We want to have sex without consequences, that is, without responsibility”, which is nothing more than saying “Sex is about satisfying my desires; it has nothing to do with my family (that is, unless I want it to).”  That sounds pretty selfish, doesn’t it?  When that kind of selfishness grows up in a family, it’s like poison that ruins the whole harvest.

          “But Father, we can’t afford to have an unlimited amount of children.”  Yes, I know.  And God knows that, too.  That’s why he designed our bodies—particularly the female body—with a discernible fertility cycle that can be cooperated with to space out pregnancies: in other words, a natural way to prevent a pregnancy when it’s not feasible to support another child that nonetheless acknowledges God’s control over life instead of selfishly taking control for one’s self.  The various methods for discerning and utilizing this cycle are called “Natural Family Planning” (or NFP, for short) and they are like a natural herbicide that destroys selfishness at its roots and fertilizes the individual members of the family so that together they produce a rich harvest.

          NFP forces couples to be attentive to one another so as to “listen” to the female body’s natural signals indicating when it is fertile for conceiving a child.  Thus, in order to space pregnancies, couples have to periodically abstain from sex during these fertile periods, causing them to restrain their passions (and, thus, their selfishness) and to find other ways to express their intimate love for each other, which teaches them greater self-giving and often causes them to grow more intimate with one another.  Now, is there anybody here that doesn’t want more intimacy—that is, deep, meaningful connections with others, especially their spouses—in their lives?

          This week the Church is sponsoring “NFP Awareness Week” and so I invite all couples, young and not-so-young, married and engaged to be married, and anyone who thinks they might be married in the future, to explore the benefits of NFP for their family.  (You can start by reading the “extra page” of our bulletin this week.  Additional resources can be found on the US Bishop’s website: www.usccb.org.)  Talk to your friends about it.  Find someone who is using NFP and ask them what it has done for them personally and for their family.  Pray about it and ask God for the courage to trust him and his plan for you and your family.  Most of all, try it.  Test its claims for benefits and let it test you.  Perhaps you’ll find some weeds within you that you didn’t realize were there.  NFP may help you to root them out.

          My brothers and sisters, spilling seed lifelessly is like sowing weeds of selfishness among the wheat of your family.  With NFP, however, one lays down a strong defense against those weeds; for he or she acknowledges that God is in control; and that that is a good thing!  With NFP trust in God and trust in his power to overcome evil, even as it grows up around us, grows and we flourish.  Thus, at the final harvest, we will be gathered together among the wheat and welcomed into the barn that is eternal happiness—that is, the satisfaction of all of our desires—in heaven.  Strengthened by this Eucharist, let us take courage to choose this life of happiness today.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – July 20^th, 2014