Sometimes even people in the know, experts, cannot predict how things are going to turn out. An interviewer evaluating a candidate for the position of head coach of a professional football team wrote that the applicant lacked motivation and had only a basic knowledge of football. He was referring to the legendary Vince Lombardi. A young boy in school was learning nothing, and the teacher told his parents flat out he was a dunce. So he was home-schooled, and Thomas Edison turned out to be one of the greatest inventors in history.
We are talking, in a sense, about the difference between weeds and wheat here, just as the parable illustrates in Matthew 13:24-30. The weed in the Gospel is darnel, which affects crops of grain. The problem is you cannot tell the difference between them when they sprout and grow together. They are identical. In fact, the difference never becomes clear until they ripen and are ready for harvest. That is why Jesus cautions not to act too quickly by pulling up one or the other before harvest time. You might pull up the wrong one or pull up the wheat along with the weed.
A couple of summers ago, I had some pots with beautiful Shasta daisies. One plant was particularly vigorous, but it never had more than one flower. It was not until fully grown that I noticed an identical plant growing right alongside it that produced no flowers at all, just a pod of seeds. It was a weed.
The people in Jesus’ day lived in a very troubled world under the iron fist of Rome, and there were lots of intrigues and corruption. It goes without saying, we do too. So our question is the same as the servants’ question in the parable: “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? So where have all the weeds come from?” And behind the question, another question remains in our minds: “Who’s going to win, the wheat or the weeds?”
The parable does not give an easy answer for our time, but it does say the wheat and the weeds will be separated at harvest time, and the weeds will be burned. That is good reason for us to have hope. At the same time, it does not preclude the fact that we are obliged to do all we can to grow the kingdom of God in our own time and place.
The fact is good things get corrupted in our imperfect world. Marriages break up. Kids get messed up. People are affected consciously or unconsciously by prejudice and racism. Bad things happen to good people. Peaceful demonstrators for racial justice become infiltrated by violent participants whose only goals are to sow hatred and mayhem, to cancel our culture, obliterate our history and overthrow our democracy. Make no mistake about it.
The parable simply admits to the problem that good and bad coexist up real close in our lives, and they are involved in a constant struggle for victory. Consider the fact that the Apostle Judas started out well. He looked like wheat — called by Jesus to be one of the Twelve and given the responsibility to be keeper of the purse for the Lord and his chosen band. He ended up being the worst weed ever. Peter, at one point, denied and swore that he even knew Jesus, but he ended up pure wheat after his rehabilitation. Saint Thomas Aquinas said sometimes you cannot have good without evil. Without the Emperor Nero, King Henry VIII and tyrants like them, there would be no martyrs. There would have been no Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (aka Edith Stein) or Saint Maximilian Kolbe without Adolf Hitler. There would have been no Saint Teresa of Kolkata without poverty, hunger and sickness.
So then, given the coexistence of good and evil, what can we do right now? May I suggest:
— Patience. Don’t give up on one another. The weed may turn out to be wheat.
— Be stalwart in the struggle against evil while striving to understand the motivation behind those with whom you are at odds.
— Engage in dialogue with others who come from different backgrounds and have different points of view. (This has, unfortunately, become increasingly difficult in our time when people either will not or cannot engage in rational disputation, but rather resort to name calling in effort to shut their opponents up.)
— Support lawful efforts to reform sinful structures, such as poverty, ignorance and racism, in our society, and to eradicate abuses that demean persons.
— Show the utmost respect and express thanks often to police officers whose goal is to establish good solid relations with the communities they have sworn to serve and protect.
— In a nutshell, pray unceasingly for justice and peace in our nation.
In your prayer, consider invoking the intercession of African-American candidates for sainthood: the Servants of God Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, Sister Thea Bowman and Julia Greeley; the Venerables Pierre Toussaint, Sister Henriette Delille and Father Augustus Tolton. Also, do not forget to include with them Saint Katharine Drexel, the wealthy heiress who spent her fortune and her life in service to the African- and Native-American peoples.
I find the following prayer for peace, composed by Pope Pius XII, particularly apropos:
“Almighty and eternal God, arouse in the hearts of those who call you Father a hunger and thirst for social justice and for fraternal charity, in deeds and in truth. Grant, O Lord, peace in our days, peace to our souls, peace to families, peace to our country, and peace among nations. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Father Edward Kolla is parochial vicar at Christ the Good Shepherd Parish, Vineland.
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