16th Sunday A

The kingdom of heaven is like….

INTRODUCTION: This Sunday we continue to hear from the Parable

Discourse of Matthew’s chapter 13. The structure of this Sunday’s

reading is similar to last Sunday’s: 1) parables to the crowds, 2)

comment on the reasons for parables, 3) private instruction to the

disciples giving an explanation of the parable of the wheat and darnel.

Jesus’ response? Be like mustard plant, he says. Be like yeast in flour.

First of all think of the puzzlement that must have struck Jesus’ listeners. Jews didn’t have much use for yeast. They preferred unleavened bread. Neither would any farmer sow mustard seeds in her field or garden. The mustard plant was like kudzu – itself a kind of weed that eventually can take over entire fields and mountainsides while choking out other plants weeds or not. The mustard plant was unstoppable.

So Jesus is saying:* The Romans are enemy weeds in your garden.
* Don’t try to uproot them by force.
* That will only lead to slaughter of the innocent.
* Rather, become weeds yourselves – like the mustard plant which is much more powerful than simple Roman (or U.S.) weeds.
* Resist the Romans by embodying the Spirit of God that is slow to anger, good, forgiving, abounding in kindness.
* Only imitation of Wisdom’s God can defeat the evil of imperialism – or any evil for that matter.

Jesus’ response? Be like mustard plant, he says. Be like yeast in flour.

Pope Francis: Jesus tells is that in this world the good and the evil are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate and extirpate all the evil. God alone can do this, and He will do so in the Last Judgment. The present situation, with its ambiguities and its composite character, is the field of the freedom, the field of the freedom of Christians, in which the difficult exercise of discernment between good and evil takes place. Manichaeism: either good or bad. The Civiltà article attacked one form of dualism explicitly: The Manichaean worldview that separates people into two camps, the one good and the other evil, and it argued that this dualism characterized the alliance between conservative Catholics and evangelicals in the United States. They cited several examples.

Therefore, in this field, it is about combining, with great trust in God and in His Providence, two seemingly contradictory attitudes: decision and patience. The decision is to want to be the good seed — we all want this, with all our strength, and, hence, distancing ourselves from the Evil One and his seductions. Patience means to prefer a Church that is leaven in the dough, who does not fear soiling her hands washing the clothes of her children, rather than a Church of “pure ones,” that pretends to judge before the time who is an who is not in the Kingdom of God.

HOMILY: This Sunday we hear three parables of Jesus: wheat and weeds,

mustard seed, and leaven. In the first of the three we notice that this

time the problem is not the ground on which it falls, but on the kind of

seed and on the distinction between the sowers. In the second, the size

of the seed is stressed. In the third it is not about seeds used for

planting but about seeds used for food, namely meal.

1st parable: Up until the parousia the church will always be a

mixed bag of good and evil. The advice is tolerance and patience until

God renders his definitive decision. The householder does not retaliate

against his enemy. He even uses the weeds as fuel to burn. Drawing

good out of evil. The parable concerns the proper attitude toward the

mixed reception accorded to Jesus. * Confusion will clarify.

2nd parable: contrast between the small, unpromising beginnings of

the kingdom and its full, triumphant expansion. Yet not the

triumphalness of a cedar but a mustard tree. * Littleness grows.

3rd parable: uses a well known symbol in an unusual way. Yeast or

leaven was for Jews and Christians a symbol of corruption. Perhaps

because Jesus gathers round him the unclean sinners of the land, he

prefers to use yeast as a symbol of the kingdom which comes in small,

hidden, and perhaps despised beginnings. The amount of flour is

ridiculously large, another example of hyperbole to stress the vast

success of the kingdom. * The hidden be seen.

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v. 36 The return of Jesus to the house signals his break with the

crowds and symbolically his break with Israel. It is a TURNING POINT IN

THE GOSPEL. It is not an accident that this rupture occurs halfway

through the gospel. Henceforth Israel will show greater and greater

hostility, and Jesus will turn more and more to his disciples, to devote

himself to their formation.

Explanation of the Parable: While the parable was concerned with the

coexistence of good and evil persons in the Kingdom, the explanation

focuses on the harvesting at the end of time. In vs. 40?43 the language

is highly apocalyptic, looks to the last judgement: images of end of the

world, harvesting, the fiery furnace, reaping angels and weeping and

gnashing of teeth (intense distress and rage). It looks to the latter

parable of the separation of the sheep and goats at last judgement.

This language has the effect of shifting the focus from patient

tolerance in the present to the spectacular events that will constitute

the end of the world. It is God’s business to decide who belongs to the

kingdom. He will reward the just and cast evildoers into the fiery

furnace.
In our time of Covid 19, what is my response? Do I see the “end
of the world coming”? Do I see God bringing about something new
out of the present chaos? Is my stance, patient tolerance, hope or
despair? Am I climate change denier or do I see that there is a
connection between Climate change and Covid 19? What am I
committed to now and in the future?