Friends,
our Gospel
today is the parable of the wheat and the weeds. God sows his good seed,
his word, his love and compassion, but his project is met with
opposition. And the evil is such that it insinuates itself right into
the very fabric of the good.
In classical theology, we speak of evil as a privatio boni,
a privation of the good, meaning that evil is always and everywhere
parasitic on the good. Just as a parasite is living off of the
healthy body (and thereby weakening it), so moral evil lives off of the
good soul, the good society, the good Church (and thereby weakens them).
What
is the result? That it is exceptionally difficult to extricate the evil
from the good without damaging the good. That’s why it is extremely
difficult—and often counter-productive—to go after these evils with a
crusading spirit.
To be sure, there are certain evils that simply have to be addressed—right now, no questions, no hesitations. But
there are other evils (and they really are evil) that are best left
alone for the time being, lest more damage is done in the process of
extricating them.
Saturday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 400
The following message came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
Stand at the gate of the house of the LORD,
and there proclaim this message:
Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah
who enter these gates to worship the LORD!
Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel:
Reform your ways and your deeds,
so that I may remain with you in this place.
Put not your trust in the deceitful words:
"This is the temple of the LORD!
The temple of the LORD! The temple of the LORD!"
Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds;
if each of you deals justly with his neighbor;
if you no longer oppress the resident alien,
the orphan, and the widow;
if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place,
or follow strange gods to your own harm,
will I remain with you in this place,
in the land I gave your fathers long ago and forever.
But here you are, putting your trust in deceitful words to your own loss!
Are you to steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury,
burn incense to Baal,
go after strange gods that you know not,
and yet come to stand before me
in this house which bears my name, and say:
"We are safe; we can commit all these abominations again"?
Has this house which bears my name
become in your eyes a den of thieves?
I too see what is being done, says the LORD.
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."'"
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