Dear Parish Family,
In today’s parable Jesus speaks of the weeds as darnel. Now at the beginning of the growing process darnel looks just like wheat. The weed named here is a particular kind (zizania) known for its confusing resemblance to wheat in the early stages of growth. That helps us to understand why pulling up the weeds might uproot the wheat along with them. It’s only when harvest time approaches that the difference between the two becomes apparent. The wise farmer allows both to grow. The weeds become ‘fuel’ for fire and wheat will gathered into barns for food.
God steadily forgives our weeds and lets us grow without uprooting us. It is not that he wants to encourage wildflowers, and it would be better if they were not there, but he loves everything about us and wants us preserved even in the midst of weeds. This is a radical idea. You and I think we have to be sinless in order to be loved. If not we will be punished instead of forgiven. Entire ancient cultures based themselves on this principle of non-love and non-forgiveness for those who sin. If someone harms me or my family, then I have the right and duty to annihilate them since they are bad persons, no good, and punishment is never too severe.
Consciously or unconsciously we might embrace this way of thinking. Many of our movies and novels are woven around this subliminal message. The villain is given no choice but to flee and be destroyed. If we stop for a moment and imagine ourselves to be the ‘villain’ that is being chased and threatened with certain annihilation! Would we plea for leniency or a second chance? Maybe deep down you have a voice whispering, “I wish I could stop this ugliness and be a good person”?
If this is so, then you have stumbled upon the point of Sunday’s Gospel. The crimes you commit don’t really agree with your real, God-given self. They are bad things, just like the weeds growing up in the garden. But they are only a portion of who you are. Your urge to impress others falsely, to get what you want no matter what, to be dishonest or selfish etc. are never the full description of who you are. God does not rip out the weeds in other people or in ourselves. Mixed with all the crab grass, there is the handsome green that God loves so much.
How about showing kindness to the mean voices within you that urge you to do wrong? They are misguided, for sure, but maybe they will settle down if you just love them as you would a naughty child. Love them into goodness. Forgive the weeds and let virtue triumph. Finally all life is the triumph of love. This one realization that must prompt every waking moment to step into the goodness we are created for fashioned after the ‘Eternal Goodness!’
Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O