Matthew 13:24-43

 SIXTEENTH SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME – YEAR A

Commentary of Fr. Fernando Armellini

A good Sunday to all. 

The Gospel according to Matthew was written in Antioch of Syria, where there was a vast Christian community, mainly composed of Jews who had converted to Christ. The author of this Gospel is a rabbi who writes about fifty years after the death of Jesus. He is an old rabbi who has been converted to Christ many years before, and what does he see around him? Evil continues to be present in the world. Jesus had come to start the new world, but the old world continues to prosper. Good exists, it is true, but evil also continues to grow at its side.

Christians in their communities repeatedly ask this rabbi: ‘What kind of kingdom has Jesus established if he has not made all the evil in the world disappear immediately and forever?' Not only that, but life is not precisely exemplary in Christian communities themselves; in fact, the initial enthusiasm has diminished after fifty years, and many aspects of pagan life have also reappeared among Christians. 

Christian communities need a pastoral shake-up! The most fervent in this Antioch community certainly have in mind, being Jews, what is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapters 60 and in chapter 62 where is said that “In the kingdom of God, all the people will be made up of the righteous; they will call them holy people." So, at least within the Christian Church, there should only be righteous and holy people. These people should be us Christians. Instead, it already happens that in this place, when Mateo writes, not all the community is holy. 

Why does this happen? And also, how to behave with those who do not live a Christian life? These are the same questions that we ask ourselves today. In Matthew's time, two opposing pastoral tendencies emerged within the first communities. The intransigent "rigorists" wanted to clean immediately those not consistent with their baptismal commitments; they were to be expelled from the Church. Let us remember that Paul, writing his first letter to the Corinthians, in chapter five, also mentions a Christian who had an immoral life, so immoral that even the pagans did not behave like this; at some point, Paul says: "But how do you cope with having such a guy in your community?" It is an invitation to cast him out so that he realizes his behavior. 

There were these rigorists in the communities, but there were also those who said that one had to be 'more understanding, more patient' with sinners. These two parties continued to clash for centuries in the Church; they fought very hard, often accusing and offending each other. Interestingly, both the intolerant and the most magnanimous, the most forgiving, justified their positions by appealing to the "parable of the tares and the wheat" presented today. Who was right? What was the correct pastoral choice, that of the intransigent, intolerant, or the most forgiving? We will try to find out today: who correctly interpreted the parable? 

Let's listen: 

“Jesus proposed another parable to the crowds, saying: “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.” 

A man has sown beautiful seeds in his field, but they are not good. Beautiful seed, says the text. Who is this sower? It could be God who created a beautiful world. At the beginning of the book of Genesis, seven times, it is repeated: "and God saw that what he had done was beautiful." 

The question is then: why is there evil? Where do misfortunes, pain, and death come from? It is the question that non-believers ask us Christians: ‘If there is a God who did beautiful things, where does evil come from?’ This sower could also be Jesus. He lived in an evil world, the one he knew, a world driven by selfishness from which only wars and atrocities can be born; Jesus also came to put a seed of beauty, a seed from which finally a beautiful humanity could sprout where peace, harmony, love would reign, and where disagreements, wars, injustices would disappear. But here also the question arises: Why, even after Jesus has placed the Gospel's beautiful seed, have the expected fruits not arrived?’ 

The second character is the enemy that sows bad seeds at night while everyone sleeps. Who is this enemy? It is not the devil imagined by Christians; otherwise, one wonders why God could not block it and prevent it from ruining the beauty of his work. This is to say that God is not the author of evil; evil comes from the creature itself, a limited creature. 

The third character is the tares. Jesus chose a beautiful image to represent the negative part present in each person. Why did you choose the weeds? Because when the weeds sprout look like wheat, it is mistaken for wheat. Only when the spike appears is their nature revealed because they produce a black seed, not the golden one of the wheat. So, the weed's fruit is not edible; the grain is for life, and the weeds are for death. 

We also note that Jesus does not speak of the weeds but of weeds because there are many. There are many forms of evil that, at first glance, seem good, mixed with the good, but the fruit is poisonous. We must be on notice because we must be cautious since many weeds look good, like wheat, and can also be cultivated, but they bear terrible and poisonous fruit. 

Let's try, for example, to think that there is true love and what appears to be love, that like weeds, it looks like wheat, but it only seems. When we ask two young people, a young man and a young woman: "Do you love each other?" "Oh yes, we love each other!" "What do you mean by love?" "We like to be together." "But what are your plans?" "No, now there is no need to think about a project ... we just like to be together." " Do you want to start a family?” "Well, we'll see. Now, we like to be as we are." 

This seems like love, but in reality, it is a search for oneself, for one's pleasure, and selfishness, and the fruits will not be of life but of death. What kind of family will originate with this conception of love? What will be the fruits? There is no need to imagine them because, in today's society, they are there for all to see. 

Some say that times have changed, but times do not transform the weeds into good wheat. If there were weeds in the Middle Ages, they are still weeds today. Of course, if someone wants to cultivate the weeds in their heart, they can do it, and they must also be respected, but whoever realizes the danger that his brother or sister is running must open his or her eyes and show them that the fruits of what they call love will be bitter.

Each of us can go on to give other examples. Thus, there is genuine respect and what appears to be proper respect. True piety pushes us to put ourselves at the service of life, from its beginning to its natural extinction, even when this requires an outstanding commitment, sacrifice, and patience... There is the truth and what appears to be true, but in reality, it is what everyone says, thinks, and does; it seems true, but it is deception; it is submission, slavery to fashion, to the dominant thought... Here, we can continue doing this exercise, identify what it is and looks like, and think about what the fruits will be. We notice that evil does not appear immediately; at first, it looks good, beautiful, and desirable... 

Another aspect of the parable is that the enemy acts while you sleep! The weeds, the evil, take root when we fall asleep, when our conscience and faith are asleep. We should not sleep in the moral field because the world's proposals seem acceptable at first, but later, they are revealed to be poisonous. 

How many times do we hear people say: So, what? What is wrong with specific fashions, certain behaviors, a particular way of speaking, and vulgarities? We must be careful because, at first, you can fall asleep, but in the moral field, you cannot! Now, the question posed by the servants: "Where does evil come from? Where do the weeds come from?" 

Let's listen: 

“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.” 

At this point, the fourth character enters the scene: the servants who are likable to us because they are like us; they are interested in the field, as we are concerned that humanity will always be more beautiful. We want a Church that shines with the beauty of the Gospel, and it saddens us when we see the weeds emerge in her. These servants go to the boss and ask him a first question; they doubt that the seed is not good, and therefore, the blame falls on the boss. 

Is the Creator perhaps the culprit? Is it God who has wronged the world if there is pain, misfortunes, or death? Or if the sower is Christ and the seed is the Gospel, does it depend on this seed if there are weeds in the Church? The master answered very calmly: "God has nothing to do with it; an enemy did this!" 

It is not God who made the weeds; they are part of man: a man friend of life and a man enemy of life; weeds are the enemy; weeds are part of the human condition, which by its nature is limited, imperfect, and cannot be different. We are born like this! We wonder why God did not make us without weeds. He could do it; the problem is that it would not have been us, and, luckily, God wanted this humanity; he loved this man, this woman. 

What are the weeds that are in us and that bother us so much? We know them very well: pride, the will to prevail over others, the rebellious passions that lead us to debauchery, and, above all, to attachment to goods, to money that leads us to ignore the needs of the poor, even to exploit the poor. These are the weeds that dehumanize us; they are the enemies of human life. The servants ask a second question. Now they understand that the weeds do not come from God... What to do with these weeds? How do we behave in this moment of growth? The servants make their proposal; it is the proposal of intolerant and fanatical people who do not accept that there be weeds, "we will pluck them immediately." 

Then, the weeds identify with the people, stating that they are the shame and disgust of humanity and must be burned immediately. What does the master think? This is the central message of the parable: "No, they must grow together; you cannot pull them out now because when you pluck the weeds, you will pluck the wheat with it." 

The weeds are a constitutive part of our person, along with the good wheat. We must make peace with this condition. Otherwise, we will become aggressive towards ourselves and others. Good wheat and weeds must grow together, and this "growing together" characterizes Jesus' position. 

The Pharisees were the ones who were separated; they wanted the separation of the wheat and the weeds. They held that the messianic community had to be made up of only pure people, not sinners. The ignorant, the rude, and the country dwellers who did not know the Torah had to be excluded. They wanted a community made up only of the pure. The Baptist will be amazed when he begins to notice that this is not the community that Jesus wants; Jesus wants a community where there is the concrete person, this man, this woman who has wheat and weeds. Even the Essenes, we remember, wanted a community of pure people; in fact, they had fled Jerusalem to avoid contamination; they disdained others, and therefore, they withdrew to Qumram; they identified themselves as children of the light and hated the children of darkness. No! 

There is light and darkness in the Christian community. Here is the message for the Church today: The good and the bad belong to this church, the saints and the sinners, and, above all, those who make mistakes in life and are the people who should be loved and loved more as they suffer for their weaknesses. Sometimes, someone says, "I don't want to know about the Church; look at all those scandals!" And I always answer: "Why do you see only the brother in whom many weeds arise, and instead, you don't see the other brother in whom there is so much evangelical beauty!" 

The conclusion of the parable: the harvest. Then the master will say: "Tear out the weeds first, and in bundles throw it into the fire; then collect the wheat and store it in my barn.” These words of Jesus have sometimes been misunderstood. What do they mean? Does it perhaps mean that at the end of the world, we will finally get rid of bad people who will be thrown into hell? 

Let's be careful; they are sons and daughters of God, and in all of them, there are many weeds, of course, but there is also good wheat; in each person, there are not only weeds. What do these words of Jesus mean? The harvest is not a sad time but a moment of great joy. Jesus often uses this symbolism of the harvest. When he calls his apostles and sends them, he says: "The harvest is abundant"; there is much wheat to harvest, or at the end of the story of the Samaritan woman: “The fields are already being whitened for the harvest." It's feast time; what will happen at this feast? 

The weeds will be burned; that is, in the end, the beautiful part of each person will remain because, in the kingdom that will be delivered to the Father in heaven, there will be no more weeds; now, at this time, there are also weeds, but in the end (and this is the announcement of joy) the love of God will burn all the weeds. The beautiful grain will enter the kingdom of the Father, the beauty that is present in every son and daughter of God. 

We must keep in mind, and it will be presented in the last part of today's Gospel, the distinction between the kingdom of the son of man, in which the kingdom of God is built, is our history, the time in which we live; at this time the Church is not the kingdom of God, but she is at the service of the construction of this kingdom; then the time will come when the weeds will burn and the good grain will remain, entering the kingdom of the Father. 

And now, the evangelist Matthew inserts two other parables, let's listen to them: 

“He proposed another parable to them. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard see that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds,
yet it is the largest of plants when full-grown. It becomes a large bush, and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.’” He spoke to them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.” All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, to fulfill what had been said through the prophet: I will open my mouth in parables. I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world.”

With a little effort, the servants accepted the logic of leaving the wheat and the weeds to grow together, and they also understood that the seed was beautiful. Now, what are they waiting for? They could cultivate wrong expectations, that is, confuse the kingdom of God with external appearances, with successes, and with spectacular obeisances, as the kingdoms of this world are appreciated... Will the kingdom of God be presented in this way? 

The seed is beautiful and produces beautiful and extraordinary fruits in each person's heart without making noise or attracting attention. Then, the new man, the beautiful woman, will build a beautiful society but never show off, always hidden in silence. 

To highlight this message, Jesus presents two parables. The first is about the mustard seed, a microscopic seed from which a tree sprouts, so says the parable, but it is not a tree; it is a bush 2 to 3 meters high. However, the contrast is between the smallness of that seed, which is proverbial because of its smallness, and then the bush. 

The second parable is that of the leaven. The mustard seed is hidden in the ground, not shown. If you want to show it off and keep it out of the ground, it dries up and produces nothing; if the yeast is out of the flour to be seen, it does not rise. Here, Jesus presents us, first of all, the contrast between the greatness that people expect and the greatness of the kingdom of God that is not about appearance. 

In chapter 17, the prophet Ezekiel presented to the messianic kingdom with the image of a huge and beautiful cedar, elevated on top of a mountain and planted by God. The cedar was considered the king of the trees; here is the messianic kingdom made of external appearance that attracts everyone's attention! Jesus does not present the kingdom of God in this way but as a tiny mustard seed placed on the ground that produces something great. 

What is this seed? It is the seed of the Word of God, which may seem small. How strong is a word? It is a fragile, weak word that poor people present. In the second letter to the Corinthians, Paul says: "We carry this treasure in clay pots," with our human frailty; however, this seed has a beauty that can make anyone who receives it shine in a beautiful land. 

The other parable, that of the leaven, shows the hiddenness of this leaven, which causes it to rise "three measures of flour," an extraordinary amount of flour, 40 kg of flour; no housewife could work with so much flour. Jesus wants to highlight how this seed of the word of God is capable of transforming a person from within and then transforming society. 

Perhaps Jesus had not spoken of three measures of flour as it is a considerable amount. How does a housewife work with 40 kg of flour? Jesus had probably used a much smaller quantity of flour. Still, the apostles were already living when the word of this Gospel fermented the entire Roman empire, and then maybe they increased the amount of flour a little more than what Jesus had spoken of. 

Let's listen now to how Matthew takes up the theme of the parable of the weeds and transforms it into an allegory to give a pastoral application to his community: 

“Then, dismissing the crowds, he went into the house.
His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” He said in reply, “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom, the tares are the subjects of the Evil One; the enemy that sows it is the Devil; the harvest is the end of the world; The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear.” 

We remember that the parable taught tolerance and patience; the teacher invited us to accept serenely that evil exists in the world and the church next to good. The second part of today's evangelical passage seems to give reason to the intolerant because the Son of Man sends his angels to make all the wicked disappear. 

Then he talks about fire, about a furnace of fire... What do these impressive images mean? Let us try to understand well because misleading interpretations could be made. Whoever writes is a Jew and speaks to the Jews. To make himself understood, he uses understandable language for the people of his place: people who are familiar with and who have read at least some of the apocalyptic literature, especially the most famous of the apocalyptic books of the time, which is the first book of Enoch, well known to all. Their ears are full of these images: fire, fiery furnace, tears, gnashing of teeth, the harvest, angels, demons...

Rabbis continually used these images, and even Jesus could only speak the same way. But what does he want to tell us? If we do not consider that these are apocalyptic images, we can fall into misleading and dangerous interpretations that there is nothing evangelical about them. This is not good news at all. The disciples request an explanation of the parable with an imperative "diazáseso" = "explain us" as if they did not agree that next to the beautiful seed, there are weeds; it seems that they see themselves as belonging to the Christian community and they are proud, they feel chosen, the just, and they are upset that they are mentioning weeds among them, and that's why they say "explain to us," the tone seems to be that of those who disagree. 

Here is the message of this second part of the Gospel passage that warns that the weeds exist. The Master's response is allegorical; he interprets the seven characters appearing in the parable. We have heard about them: we have the "sower"; we have the "field," which is the history of humanity; the "beautiful seed," who are those who embody the gospel message and the new values; the "weeds" are those who represent the evil instincts; and then the "enemy," the devil we have already spoken about, the weed sower; the "harvest" and the "reapers"... 

It is important to understand this last part well. We have already said that two kingdoms must be distinguished to understand what Jesus tells us: there is the kingdom of the son of man, which is the kingdom of God that is being built now in our history, and in this kingdom, there are weeds, scandals are present, the evil people who are guided by these bad instincts, what we call weeds, who are part of us... and then there is another kingdom, the Father's kingdom. 

What happens in the kingdom of the son of man? This is what Jesus is talking about now when explaining the parable! "The son of man sends his angels to collect all the scandals and all the workers of iniquity in this kingdom." We must identify the angels who are sent, what these scandals are, and who these workers of iniquity are. We are not in the kingdom of the Father, where the weeds will no longer exist; it is in the kingdom of the Son of Man, where the weeds are still there. What should these angels do, and who are they? 

In the Bible, angels are all those who are mediators of God's salvation; the mediators of the Word of God, the prophets are called angels, the Baptist is called an angel, the apostles are also called angels when, for example, Jesus sends his disciples to prepare the way for him in Samaria, he sends his angels. Angel is anyone who mediates the Word of the Master, the Word that destroys the weeds present in the heart of each person. These are the angels sent by the Son of man to his kingdom; that is, today is the time when we are called to build together with him his kingdom, that kingdom of the Son of man that will later be delivered to the Father. The task of these angels is to make all the scandals disappear. 

What are the scandals? Jesus calls Peter a "scandal." ‘You are a scandal because you stand in my way and prevent me from taking the path that the Father has laid out for me. You do the work of the evil one because you're hindering me. You're a scandal.’ Angels are all those who work to make disappear everything that prevents people from adhering to God and Christ. 

It is a task that must be done today: to eliminate all workers of iniquity, announcing that the Word of the Lord removes workers from iniquity to build a beautiful humanity, and the Church is at the service of creating this new world of beautiful humanity. 

And now the fiery furnace: "They throw all the weeds into the burning oven." What is this fire oven? Paul also uses this image in the first letter to the Corinthians, in the third chapter, when he says that if someone’s work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only through fire. 

What is this fire? In the Gospel, the fire we are talking about is only one: the fire of the Spirit, the fire of God's love. There is no other fire. So, building our lives will be tested by the encounter with the Spirit of the Lord, who does not tolerate weeds; the weeds burn.

Specifically, the author's message to Christians in their communities is this: After the first decades of great fervor, Christians have been carried away a little and no longer take baptismal commitments seriously. What to do? Matthew wants to shake them up, and he does it in the style of the preachers of his time, saying: "Keep in mind that the construction of your life will be tested by fire." Paul says: "We will all have to go through this fire that will burn all the weeds," that is, everything that has not been done by the Spirit of the Son of God that is in you. Keeping this in mind means that at some point in your life, a large part of it may burn; the good, the good grain will remain, but perhaps there will be many works that you have done, guided and suggested by the weeds, which will be destroyed. This purgatory will be painful, but it is not the destruction of the son or daughter of God; it is the destruction of the evil present in every son and daughter of God. 

The conclusion of the parable is beautiful. Remember that there is this purification; let us consider the task that each true disciple is asked to be a working angel to purify scandals, eliminate operators of iniquity, and create a beautiful humanity. 

In the end, the son, the daughter of God, will remain, the beauty present in each person, and this kingdom of the son of man will be given to the Father, and then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of his Father. The message is of joy and hope for every man and woman; it is not that some son or daughter of God is thrown into the furnace of fire; it will be the weeds present in each person that the encounter will finally burn with the love of the Father in heaven. Salvation will be when every son and daughter of God is received in the arms of the Father. 

I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.