SUNDAY 16 (A) (Mt 13, 24-43)
Like all parables, it is an innocuous and harmless story in itself, but it can lead us to a very serious reflection on the way we categorize people as good and bad. Good and evil are inextricably united within each one of us.
The turning point lies in the owner’s words: “let them grow together until the harvest.” Logically, the weeds should be pulled out as soon as they appear. Against all logic, the master orders that they be allowed to grow with the wheat. The owner has not gone mad; he wants to show us that another attitude toward evil is possible.
If speaking of the wheat we are asked to do the opposite of what should be done, it forces us to jump to another level where this is not only possible but necessary. In the spiritual order, not only must the weeds not be pulled out, but they cannot be separated.
Since always, man has sought a coherent answer to the existence of evil. Today we know that no malign one needs to come and sow bad seed. The limitations that inevitably accompany us as creatures provide sufficient reason to explain the failures of all human life.
Four billion years of evolution have always been directed toward ensuring the survival of the individual and its species. Human beings discover that there is a goal more valuable than simple survival. In trying to walk toward this new fullness, man stumbles upon that enormous inertia.
As in the case of the weeds and the wheat, only when the time comes to bear fruit does what distinguishes them become clear. Any attempt to theoretically elucidate what is good or what is bad is useless. Most often, man only discovers what is good or what is bad after suffering it or enjoying it.
In man, things are complicated because in each of us weeds and wheat coexist. We will never completely eliminate our weeds. Only by accepting them will we overcome puritanism and accept ourselves as we are.
This inextricable mixture is not a manufacturing defect, as has often been believed; on the contrary, it is our very nature. We would cease to be human if all our limitations were annulled.
It is not only absurd to consider one good and another bad, but merely thinking that a person can be considered perfect is far-fetched. Uprooting the weeds in ourselves and in others has been an immemorial temptation.
The gospel’s explanation clearly shows the difference between parable and allegory. We can appreciate how the emphasis shifts from the need to coexist with the different to the insistence that the wicked will be burned.
If the Church had heeded this parable, how much suffering would have been avoided! Those who disagree have always been persecuted, just to preserve the wheat. Thousands of Christians have been excommunicated, exiled, and burned simply because they did not agree with the truth or the official norm.
An oriental proverb says: if you insist on closing the door to all errors, you will inevitably leave out the truth. In doctrine, in worship, we have been burning the weeds. In morality it is more bloody; we have preached as God’s will what are nothing more than human precepts.