Some of the worst villains, when they know they're going to lose, decide they're going to make sure everyone else suffers with them. Think of the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings. Gandalf has stood tall against him, the bridge collapses beneath the his fiery foe, and just before he disappears into the abyss, the malicious being lashes out with his whip and pulls Gandalf down too. "If I'm going down, you're coming with me.” There's something deeply disturbing about that attitude, but it's also one of the best ways to understand the first parable Jesus tells today.
The servants are puzzled. "Master, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where did all these weeds come from?" And the master answers, "An enemy has done this.” Christ knows he will win the decisive battle through His Cross and Resurrection. The devil's defeat is certain. But if he can't defeat Jesus, satan do everything he can to make sure that we don't enjoy Christ's victory. He wants to sabotage what God is growing…to discourage us, divide us, distract us, and, if possible, drag us down with him.
To appreciate this parable, it helps to know a detail that Jesus' listeners already understood. There was a weed common in Palestine called bearded darnel. In its early stages, it looked identical to wheat. There was a weed called bearded darnel that looked just like wheat until it matured. By the time the difference became obvious, their roots were so intertwined that pulling one would uproot the other. So the farmer waited until harvest.
With a simple agricultural analogy, Jesus was describing the dynamics of the spiritual world. Sometimes we try to understand human nature simply from the lens of psychology, sociology, or politics. Those things can help, but Jesus reminds us that there is also a spiritual battle taking place. There is an enemy who hates God and hates everything God loves. He cannot build a kingdom of his own, so he spends his energy trying to sabotage God's.
That helps explain something I hear fairly often as a priest as people try to grow their spiritual life. They say, "Father, I thought I'd be further along by now. Why am I still struggling with the same sins after all these years?” This parable gives an answer: because you're under attack. There is an enemy sowing weeds. And in God's wisdom, He allows the wheat and the weeds to grow together for a time. That field is the Church. It's our families. It's our own hearts.
Sometimes we imagine holiness means the struggle disappears. But until heaven, there will always be tension between grace and temptation, wheat and weeds. Realizing that should also make us much more merciful toward other people. The people around us are fighting battles we cannot see. They have weeds tangled up with their wheat just like we do. We all want God to be patient with us, and we ought to extend that same patience to others instead of judging them harshly or assuming the worst in their hearts.
The same is true of the Church herself. Jesus never promised that everyone in the Church would be a saint. In fact, this parable says exactly the opposite. Wheat and weeds will stand side by side until the harvest. As painful as the priest scandals of the last twenty-five years have been, they should not surprise us. They call us to purification and justice. They confirm what Jesus warned us about. The enemy has been trying to sabotage God's field from the beginning.
We might notice what Jesus does not say in the parable. He doesn't tell the servants to despair. He doesn't tell them to abandon the field. He tells them to trust the Divine Gardener and wait until the harvest. In many ways, this parable comforts us. Jesus knew exactly what His Church would look like…hypocrisy and holiness, failures and saints living side by side with sinners. None of that frustrates His plan. The devil is powerful, but he cannot be victorious. The only way he steals the victory is if we gets us so focused on the weeds that we stop cultivating the wheat.
That's why I love the little parables that follow. Jesus says the Kingdom is like a mustard seed…the smallest of seeds that becomes a great shrub. It's like a little yeast mixed into flour until the whole batch is transformed. Grace works that way.
A little holiness accomplishes far more than a great deal of darkness. One saint changes a family. One loving marriage changes generations. One person who forgives changes an entire workplace….. Since Jesus rose from the dead, light has always been stronger than darkness.
So the question I would offer for us to think about this week is this: What am I sowing?
God's grace isn't magic. It builds on our nature and our choices. If I spend ten minutes a day in prayer but then surrender six or seven hours to angry news, social media, unholy images, or mindless entertainment, I shouldn't be surprised if the weeds seem to be multiplying. If I'm feeding resentment, self-pity, jealousy, or outrage every day, I'm creating fertile soil for the enemy. On the other hand, every act of prayer, every confession, every Mass, every moment of forgiveness, every quiet sacrifice is another seed of wheat planted by God. Every small act of holiness is another pinch of yeast helping the Kingdom rise.
So don't be discouraged by the struggle. Don't be scandalized if the weeds are still there. But stay in the field. Keep choosing the good. Keep cultivating the wheat. Keep trusting the Divine Gardener. One day, the harvest will come. And when that day arrives, we want there to be no doubt which one we are!
