Jesus describes the Kingdom of God through three parables in today’s Gospel reading. We will focus today on the first story: that of the good wheat and the weeds, which illustrates the problem of evil in the world and highlights God’s patience. A field is the setting for the narrative. The Master of the field represents God, and he sows good seed, while the enemy represents Satan, and he scatters weeds.
Matthew addressed his letter to Jewish converts who became Christians. The Gospel was composed fifty years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The world around them displayed signs of evil, growing and flourishing as they observed it. How come Jesus’ Kingdom has not been fully and immediately successful?
It is necessary to explain why evil exists. The evangelist explains it with a parable of Jesus. Only good seed is sown by the Master of the field. The evangelist specifies that the seed is of good quality. Every action of the Master is “good”! In Genesis 1, the refrain is repeated ten times: “And God saw that it was good.” Everything that God has done has been good.
Secondly, we have the enemy. He represents the logic of this world, an anti-evangelical mentality. At night, when everyone is sleeping, he sows the kind of weed that looks like grains. It is impossible to eradicate it without destroying the wheat because its roots are intertwined with those of the wheat.
Mathew wants to tell his community that when our vigilance drops and when we lose focus into dissipation, the devil finds a way into the field of our hearts to infest them with the logic of the world. It takes only an oversight for one to adapt to the world’s morality. Often, we do not even differentiate between the values of Kingdom and those of the world, because they look very much alike. By the time one realises the presence of the weed, it must have already become an inseparable part of one’s life.
The servants approach the Master, suggesting they should weed out the ground, but the Master knows that is suicidal. He keeps his calm and tells the servants not to panic. The Gospel is a gentle reminder that God is still in control.
When the harvest time comes, “all scandals and agents of iniquity” will be gathered and thrown into the fiery furnace. It’s not a threat of punishment but a good announcement of the fire of God — the fire of God refers to the Holy Spirit — and his fire will purify us.
Father Josekutty Mathew CMF
