Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 'A'

Saturday July 16, 2005

Saint, Sinner or Both?

If you went to Catholic school in the forties and fifties, fundraisers were part of the normal curriculum: magazine subscriptions in autumn, candy in the winter and seed sales for Victory Gardens in the spring. Being a horticulturist at heart but hating to go house to house or relative-to-relative selling seeds, I pressed my mom to purchase the whole batch. Mom planted the morning glories. My grandfather selected the peppers lettuce and radishes. I took the beets, carrots and string beans. My dad did the digging and my sister smelled the flowers. No one ate the beets!

How exciting it was to wait for the first sprout to pop of the soil. However, the weeds were never far behind and weeds are great imposters and can easily assume the identity of a vegetable, at least in its early stages. I learned to be careful not to pull the weeds too hastily lest in doing so, I might destroy a seedling destined for a delicious meal or salad.

I was not as adept as my grandfather who could distinguish between weeds and the wheat, as it were. I can still remember giving potted weeds to my mother to be placed among her treasured plants, which she accepted graciously despite her hay fever. A sacrificial gesture on her part for sure.

Some weeds even ended up on Mary’s May shrine who was as gracious as my mom in accepting them.

”’Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’”

Matthew’s rendering of Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds is a simple but meaningful metaphor for the family of God. The parable has two lessons:

First, there is room in God’s garden for everyone, saint and sinner and it is frequently difficult to tell the difference. In fact there is a saint and sinner in all of us. Ultimately, judgment must be left to God.

Secondly, there is evil in the world. People are not inherently evil but people – at times even good people—do evil things for a variety of reasons. Some in retaliation for the evil they have suffered at the hands of others. Some people do evil because of envy or jealousy. Perhaps they were never affirmed in their inherent goodness—”God does not make junk!” Still others may have been deceived by evil, which warped their view of the world and even of God.

Some people, even religious people, do evil under the guise of good, but their religion is distorted. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They have failed to understand the full measure of God’s indiscriminate love and unparalleled forbearance for the sinner. They worship strange gods of human making – gods of money, gods of power, gods of hate.

But sometimes the enemy is within and goes unrecognized, thus Jesus’ response to the servant’s request, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ … ‘No, for in gathering the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned but gather the wheat into my barn.”

In other words, time will tell where virtue lives and truth flourishes and God will be the final judge.

There is yet another lesson in the second parable about the mustard seed. Although it is not really the smallest of all seeds that grows into the largest tree—the Cypress seed is smaller and the Cypress tree is larger—nevertheless, Jesus’ intent was to stretch the simile to challenge the Pharisees who considered the strength of the Jews equal to the Cypress trees of Lebanon.

The mustard tree is really a large bush and not all that attractive but it attracts all kinds of birds who come and nest in its branches to feast on its seeds. This is what the reign of God is like. Get the point?

Catholics are a diverse group of every race and nation, saint and sinner; messy at times and attract all kinds of birds who nest within its branches to feed on the seed of God’s word. Despite the sins of the Church, people are still coming to the baptismal font and asking to be welcomed at our Communion table. Why? Perhaps it is because that somehow, they see God’s hand working in the mess. “I have come to call sinners, not the self righteous. “ Perhaps it is because they will feel they will be among fellow travelers who welcome the sinner.

Those who persevere in faithfulness are those who commit themselves not to be great but to be faithful.

This little verse written in Spanish is both a poem and a prayer that may console the believer in the pursuit of God’s way:

Nada te turbe, __ Let nothing disturb you,
Nada te espante, __ Let nothing dismay you,
Todo se pasa, __ All things pass,
Dios no se muda, __ God never changes,
La paciencia, __ Patience attains,
Todo lo alcanz, __ All that it strives for.
Quien a Dios tiene, __ The one who has God,
Nada le falta, __ Wants for nothing,
Sol Dios basta, __ God alone is sufficient.

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