Living among weeds
The parable of the weeds makes sense when I look at the weeds and wheat as the good and evil inside me
Ihad heard the parable of the weeds among the wheat many times before, but last Sunday at Mass, when it came up again as the theme, it seemed as if I was hearing about it for the first time: Leave the weeds alone.
I don’t remember ever doubting the parable’s godly wisdom. But in present-day context, or is it my age? Has fatigue set in so insidiously I hadn’t even noticed myself beginning to doubt something I had always believed in—that good will triumph over evil—and beginning to think I needed to take matters into my own hands to protect my own wheat?
Evil seems to have gained too much on good for too long, I may not see the prophesized end in my lifetime. Power in the hands of evil men and women allows them to reap rewards, instead of paying for their misappropriation and misuse of power? Corruption beats the safeguards of our democracy, robbing us of truth, justice and freedom, never mind money.
Harvest time
It’s becoming clear that in the last election we may have been robbed of our vote, the very linchpin of our democracy. Our territorial sovereignty is constantly, blatantly challenged by China. Education is going to the dogs. Prices of essentials are going sky high. People are going hungry. People are losing their wheat. The one person who should be free—free to continue to champion us—is in prison on trumped-up charges. Can things get any worse? I’m suffocating around weeds!
Yet, in this parable, in the Gospel according to Matthew, the Lord is clear: We are to leave the weeds alone—pulling them out poses an even bigger danger to the wheat. The time to separate them is at harvest time, and the Lord Himself will do it— with finality.
The wisdom in the parable becomes clearer when the celebrant, a Jesuit who looks like a Dominican until he delivers his homily, asks the congregation to reflect on whether we ourselves would prefer a world without weeds, a world of good without evil, all sunshine and no rain. I’m almost tempted to say yes, anything but this weedy one we live in.
Then, I see myself in Barbie Land, full of perfect men and women living in an outwardly perfect world, happy in all their outward perfection until they get a taste of the real world of warts and cellulite. To Barbie and Ken, perfection suddenly sucks! Give them imperfections and finiteness, anytime, even death; they’ll grab every chance of becoming human, with all its risks and possibilities. That’s where true happiness lies, they realize.
Looking within
Immediately, I’m one with the community, loving, embracing life, choosing to live among weeds.
After some introspection, I realize I may have been having problems with the parable because I was looking at wheat and weeds literally, looking at them as objects outside myself, looking at the world situation and my physical place in it. I was looking elsewhere except inside me.
The parable makes good sense when I look at the weeds and wheat as the good and evil inside me. The potential to be either exists within me. I can be, but must choose to be, using my God-given free will, either wheat or weed. I have until harvest time to become wheat—as if there were any other choice.
To become wheat, in my limited understanding, means not only to be good but to live as good men and women do, bravely, acting out of conviction, indeed believing in my heart that good triumphs over evil. In other words, live walking the talk, instead of living passively.
Meanwhile, we all have to coexist, yet struggle individually with what’s good and bad in us, much like the wheat and weed, until harvest time. Then and only then will God Himself, and no one else—possibly because He is the only one who can tell them apart—come to separate wheat from weed, good from evil.
It is the Lord’s Prayer, and therefore it should leave no room for doubt, that His harvest will be plentiful. Until then, there’s lots of good living to be made.