Saturday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 23, 2022

Matthew 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.’ ”

Reading the Gospel of St. Matthew, we find a lively portrait of life in the Ancient Middle East: its characters, activities, and details of both town and country life.  This liveliness and color makes the scenes in this Gospel especially memorable and easy for us to picture.  The verses that make up the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass tell of an incident in the life of a farmer from that time.  It is a simple story, and the Lord uses it to impart an important teaching on the problem of good and evil, a philosophical conundrum that perplexes many today.

“The Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field.”  This is the second of three consecutive parables with an agricultural theme that Matthew recalls for us.  And, as the Lord explained the first, the Parable of the Sower, so he will explain the second.  Now, when the Lord says “good” seed, he is saying the seed was unmixed with lesser things.  It is seed carefully extracted the year before from the seed heads of harvested wheat crops and preserved in a cool, dry place.  For the farmer, it was like gold.  “While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.”  More specifically, the Greek tells us that his enemy sowed darnel in his field.  The verb in the sentence is also very specific, and it means to “sow over” or “sow on top of”.  This shows exact knowledge of planting techniques.  “When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.”  More literally, according to the Greek, “When the grass sprouted and produced its fruit, the darnel also appeared.”  It is very hard to distinguish wheat from darnel even after their spikes appear, but it is necessary to do so because darnel can make a person sick.

“Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?”  The slaves are bewildered because they had been the ones to separate the wheat seeds from the darnel seeds the previous year.  They know the seed was good, pure wheat seed.  The slaves are also afraid of being blamed for what has happened.  “An enemy has done this.”  The Greek makes clear that he believes the enemy to be a man, and not God, whom we are so ready to blame for our problems.  The farmer at the same time frees his slaves from worrying that he suspects them.  “Do you want us to go and pull them up?”  It would have made an enormous task to do this on the field.  The farmer recognizes this: “No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.”  These are good servants, willing to go out in the heat of the day to pull out the darnel, but the farmer wisely avoids doing this as it would be nearly impossible.  “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.”  This would make for a laborious process, but easier to do in a barn than in the field.  We notice in this parable that the farmer know an enemy has threatened his crop, but he does not take action against him.  Certainly he must know who this enemy is.  His whole care is for the crop.  It is as though he is confident of his ability to take care of the enemy and does not mention him again because he does not need to do so.  

The Lord, in his explanation (which will not appear this year in the weekday Gospel Readings because next Monday and Tuesday are important feast days) will teach that the wheat are the holy ones of God and the darnel are the wicked, who belong to the devil.  The two plants are so alike that darnel is called the evil twin of wheat.  Only a studious look at the fruit allows us to see the difference.  An expert can see right away, but those of us who are not experts will struggle to do this,  the key is not to be satisfied with the appearance of the stalk of the plant but to note its fruit.

The good and the wicked are allowed to grow together in this world because the good can benefit from the wicked through the perseverance needed to hold onto the Faith despite the wicked attempting to choke the good of nourishment and sunlight.  The wicked can benefit too, because they may convert due to the example given them by the good.  In the end, though, all are “harvested”.  The Lord means the judgment at the end of the world, but this also applies to the end of an individual’s life, when he receives what the Church calls his “particular judgment”.  All are known in the end and are separated: the useless and sickening darnel to be burned in hell and the wheat to be gathered into the barns of everlasting rest.