Mustard, Wheat, Weed and Yeast

By  F. Luis Casasús, General Superior of the Idente Missionaries
Commentary on the Sunday Gospel of 23-7-2017, Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Book of Wisdom 12:13.16-19; Letter to the Romans 8:26-27; Saint Matthew 13:24-43)

It is important to insist that the kingdom of heaven grows mysteriously and gradually until it reaches its fulfilment at the end of time. God has always been ruler but, as we see in the Old Testament, in many instances, the people of Israel (and each of us!) created a situation opposed to His original plan. Jesus proclaimed the coming of a new era (Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!) anticipated in Him and in the Church he founded.

But the Reign of God will be established when humanity will accept his sovereignty and thus realize his plan. Yes, the kingdom of Heaven is like the mustard seed: it is very small, but grows in silence and holds endless surprises. It starts from small beginnings but the end is unimaginable.  The same message is conveyed by the parable of the dough: Grace is like the yeast.  It is a powerful agent of change.  When we surrender ourselves to the grace of God, He works wonders in our lives. Little things can do great big things. In fact, God loves to choose the things that no one would think anything of (small in our minds) to do extraordinary things for His purposes.

This is especially relevant for children and teenagers because they do not dominate the world. But even though they are young and not quite grown, they can still do great and mighty things for God right now! They do not have to wait.

Nothing can destroy the plan of God for humanity. What will happen at the end of time is the reign of justice, peace, righteousness, joy and love in the Holy Spirit. What is the justice of God? The justice of God is His compassion.  The author of Wisdom says: Your sovereignty over all makes you lenient to all.  God is always ready to forgive us.

It is well worth cooperating with God’s plan of love; it may sometimes be very difficult, but in the end, the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

We know well that faith is more than just trust, it means obedience. Hence, when God calls and commands, we are called to render the obedience of faith. Faith is an act of obedience. This is what St Paul wrote about faith in Christ, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations (Rom 1:5).  Indeed, only with obedience is our faith a saving faith. We are called to trust in His promises and His word. But we must also carry out what He tells us, otherwise faith without obedience would render ineffective the promises of God in our life.

This is the blueprint designed in today’s parables: We must cooperate with the grace of God in our lives by the fruits of love and service. We must in turn continue to offer hope to others, especially forgiveness. We must remain patient with those who do not disagree with us. The way to win our enemies over is not to destroy them but through love and compassion. Time is needed for people to change and be converted.

We believe in the above, however, we always seek to control our lives. We do not want to live in unpredictability. For this reason, we plan and seek control over our lives and even over others’. Man however is always fearful of suffering, pain and most of all death…these are the seeds we should NOT water. But they are always there!

The wheat and the weeds are always together and we need to leave the sorting out to our Lord. St Paul tells us that the Spirit comes to help us in our weakness.

Perhaps the main point Jesus is making is that we are not the judge, God is. God is the judge who will determine the good from the bad, the true from the false. It is Jesus and his angels who will sift out the chaff. We, as human beings, are not to judge the heart and actions of others. This is Jesus’ role as the final judge.

In this parable the farmer sows good seed in the soil. His enemy comes and plants some weeds. And so the workers want to pull up the weeds. This would seem reasonable. But the farmer refuses. He is afraid that, if you pull up the weeds, you will also uproot the wheat. 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’.

Did you ever think that the Holy Spirit can draw something positive from your faults? We all want to get rid of our faults, provided we recognize we have them in the first place! We get discouraged when we discover we are doing the same old things over and over again. In his parable Jesus says that the weeds can exist side by side with the wheat and God will sort it out at the end of our lives. This does not exempt anyone from our ascetical effort.

If we are sincere, our faults keep us humble. Moreover, they keep us honest so that we do not approach others with judgment. And our faults can remind us to treasure our virtues and use them to love others. There is value knowing both our capacity for evil and our capacity for good. In truth the weeds can also help us to grow to learn to be strong. In the face of evil and suffering, we can actually become perfected in truth and holiness. The sins of others can purify us in love and compassion…All this is both ascetical and mystical purification.

God gives us time to repent. He respects our need to grow in holiness and in obedience. He is patient with us. He cautions us against impatience in our growth to holiness. Uprooting the weeds too early can result in the destruction of the good plants in the process. Jesus is exhorting us to be patient in dealing with the scandal of sins in the Christian community. Sure, we should be saddened by the scandals we hear but we should not be surprised since the Church is a community of pilgrims journeying towards sainthood.

After reading this parable, we may be slower to judge what is wheat and what is a weed in this world, we observe that there will be surprises on judgement day–that some who thought they were among the wheat discover that Jesus judges differently: I never knew you. A proposition that should at least produce humility for those seeking to allow the good seed of the kingdom of God to grow in their lives.

Have you compared the weeds in today’s Parable with the thorns in the Parable of the Sower? The latter represent the worldly anxiety and the lure of riches, but now Jesus is highlighting the fact that the darnel has been sown by the devil, who sows the darnel (weeds) when the farmer is asleep; it symbolizes the “evils” of this secular world which is intent on destroying the good seeds (symbols of the “wheat” or the Truth and Love of God) that God has planted in our hearts, when He created us.

This is something so subtle that we begin to believe the half-truths that for example, insofar as we fulfill our Observance, we need not be too “God-centered” in our daily living. This is because God understands that we are busy people and that even if we have little time for our apostolate and prayer, God will not judge us harshly as He is also very forgiving God. This kind of rationalization is living in “half-truth” that keeps our faith and relationship with God superficial, routine and even superstitious. Such trends of thinking and believing create a lukewarm faith that paralyzes and soothe our consciences.

Note that when the shoots of the wheat and darnel are young, they are so very similar that made it very difficult, if not impossible to distinguish and separate them.  Good or evil seeds sown in our hearts will grow in due time and yield a harvest of good or bad fruits.

We are called and challenged to reaffirm our need to nurture the basic human love that God has planted in our hearts. In our reflection today, we see clearly that unless we develop this love which we have in our hearts, we would not have the basic foundation to build meaningful and deep relationships with our neighbor and with God.

And when we have God at the center of our lives, and daily nurture our relationship with Him through living a life of continuous prayer, then the little steps we take, even if they are expressions that are of the size of a mustard seed, we will surely and truly inherit the Kingdom of Heaven that in this life and in its fullness in the next life; a life of eternal happiness with one another and with God in heaven.

God has a plan for each and every one of us. Peter became the first Pope and Andrew a Saint and martyr. Jesus had a huge plan for them and that is why he called them. Everyone is called to a life of holiness, but the mission will differ.

When the Holy Spirit gives us an intuition to offer a new moment of the day this is a calling, when there is a chance to serve more in the community, this can be a calling. If we listen we will hear the calling. If you do not listen in attentive prayer, how can you discover what the plan is?