Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today is the second of three Sundays in a row where Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God in Parables. In this form of teaching, the imagery uses simile, as the Lord repeats, “The Kingdom of heaven is like…” This offers an inexact description, but one which engages the imagination so that a common, recognizable reality serves as an introduction to mystery and makes the mystery more approachable and understandable, thereby invoking a response from the listener.

There is a mystical meaning behind and beyond the literal meaning of the Lord’s words. People with a deep faith can get a grasp of His meaning, but those with an empty religiosity often miss the point. The Lord is fully aware of this, and explains with true paradox that He doesn’t intend for all His audience to penetrate the full meaning of what He’s teaching… the Pharisees among them.

The problem for the Pharisees is that their pre-determined notions of the Kingdom of God would prevent their understanding of the Lord’s parables, just as the pre-dispositions of our own opinions might disallow a true understanding of Church Teaching, especially as is seen in our day in the area of moral truth.

It is precisely because people had the wrong idea about the Kingdom that the Lord teaches carefully with parables, not just pleasant stories with a surprise moral at the end, such as in Aesop’s Fables. In His teaching, the Lord is offering an entirely new way of thinking about God and how we are to be His People, His Church.

In telling His stories, His parables, the Lord is correcting the Jewish habit of thought about the Kingdom being ushered into being by a great political, military Messiah.

Here are some examples of former thought corrected in the Lord’s Parables:

1)The Kingdom of God in Jewish thought, will come suddenly, with the visible triumph of God’s people.
* No, says the Parable of the Mustard Seed, it will grow from small beginnings and spread gradually.

2) It was thought that in the Kingdom there will be nothing evil or unclean.
* No, says the Parable of The Wheat and the Weeds, good and evil will co-exist.

3) Solomon’s Temple and the levitical priesthood will form the center of the 
    re-generated world.
* No, says the Story of the Good Samaritan, the priest and Levite blow their chance by passing by the robbed and beaten victim on the other side of the road. So, a Layperson from outside of Jerusalem now symbolizes the Kingdom.

4) Well, at least the Kingdom will exist exclusively for the Jews!
* No, says the Parable of the King’s Supper and the Reluctant Guests, the invited guests are complacent about their faith (ultimately) and the banquet is filled with strangers from the highways and the hedgerows.

5) But, even if the Gentiles are admitted, continues Jewish thought, surely it will be Chosen People who will maintain pride of place.
*No, says the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, those who come at the eleventh hour will receive the same reward.

6) But anyhow, when once the Kingdom is established, the Jews will flock into it.
* No, says the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, those who have blown off Moses and the Prophets will not be given a second chance for repentance.

What this all means is that in the parables, the death warrant of the Old Covenant is being issued. It’s no wonder, then, that the Pharisees rejected the parables and despised Jesus: their whole world was being turned upside-down.

Looking specifically at today’s Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds, the story complements last Sunday’s “Sower and the Seed” by addressing the presence of evil in the world.

Just as it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate between wheat and weeds in the field or in the garden, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between good and evil in our personal lives, especially in our own
+ attitudes
+ motivations and
+ intentions.

Good people must live among evil people, saints among sinners, but to interiorize the message, we will see the presence of both good and evil, of both the saint and the sinner within ourselves.

The central lesson within the story of the Wheat and the Weeds is that overcoming our evil, sinful inclinations, and affecting real spiritual growth takes time… and God will help us, even lead us in this life-long process, and remove our evil weeds Himself, at the proper time.

Ultimately, Jesus will set aside His parables, and make the astonishing statement: “The Kingdom of God is within you.” This is not a statement that should be misunderstood and lead one to think that the Kingdom will be of one’s own making, but that the events, situations and relationships of our lives are all fraught with meaning and insight into the God of whom Saint Augustine once said, “is closer to us than we are to ourselves.”