Theme: Getting Rid of the Weed for The Good Wheat to Blossom
Every farmer has an experience of the battle between the planted crop and the unwanted weed. For every planted crop, there are tens of weeds that emerge around it, struggling over the land’s space and nutrients with the crop. This weed-challenge affects the growth of the crop. But once the farmer clears off the weeds, immediately, the crops begin to blossom. However, when the weeds are not taken care of, they affect the growth of the crops and sometimes they even grow higher than the crops that the crops are barely seen from the midst of the weeds. And sometimes also they tend to suffocate the crop, making it not to yield the desired fruit. But no matter how strongly rooted the weeds grow; no matter how attractive they appear; no matter other purposes they might serve, they must be removed for what is planted and desired to blossom.
Today, in the gospel, Jesus adopts this metaphor of wheat and weed to speak about us. From the parable, the following points are derived:
- Nobody is Made to be Evil.
The parable begins by saying that a man planted good wheat in his field. The man did not plant any kind of wheat but a good one. Hence, the wheat, right from the moment of its birth in the field, is said to be good. We are this wheat of God, planted by God himself, planted as good and to be good. In the creation account, almost at all the stages, it is said “and God saw that it is good” (Gen1:4,10,12,18,21,25). Then at the conclusion of the creation account, when God has made everything, the Scripture says: “And God saw EVERYTHING HE HAS MADE, and behold, it was VERY GOOD” (Gen 1:31). The Scripture did not say “some of the things he has made” but EVERYTHING. And also, in order to intensify this goodness of all the created things, the Scripture added “VERY”. We are all VERY GOOD as God’s creatures. God looked at each and every one of us and saw that we are very good. No one is born evil. Look at a newly born baby, or a growing child, you see this innocence that manifests this ‘Very Good’ of his/her originality.
Apart from the general ‘Very Good’ of all created things, human beings’ exceptional goodness stems from the fact that they are the image and likeness of the Good God. Every human being is God’s image and likeness. We are all born as God’s goodness, to be good.
- The Enemy came and sowed Darnel (weed)
The fact that the darnel was sowed at later point after the sowing of the good wheat shows that it was not in the beginning with the wheat, rather, a later development in the life of the wheat. That is exactly how we are to see the bad attitudes in us. We are never like that at the beginning. They grow in us at later stage in our lives. All that each and everyone of us had at his/her creation and birth is divine goodness. Hence, it is totally wrong and against one’s originality to say, “I think I was born like this”, “He is naturally born to be wicked” etc. We are naturally VERY GOOD. Anything contrary is not original but introduced to suffocate the original. Just as for every maize stick, arise tens of weeds, so also the enemy introduces tens of vices for every virtue that we possess. But no matter how wild these vices grow in us, they can never exterminate the original virtue in us. Yes…they can make it grow dim or stunted, just as many strong weeds surrounding a maize stick, but they can never take it out.
- “…When Everyone was Sleeping”.
In the parable, the owner of the field told his servants that the darnel (weed) was planted by an enemy when everyone was sleeping. The imagery of sleeping here means passiveness, inattentiveness, completely unconscious. It is used as a metaphor for all the moments when one is not in control of what happens to him/her. The weeds in us happened in our passive moments. No one consciously and conscientiously learns to do evil. In one way or the other, the bad lives we live grew in us when we allowed ourselves to be taken away from who we are. They began to manifest when we are spiritually sleeping and weak. That is exactly the only moment the enemy comes to introduce the weeds in us. He cannot come when we are awake and agile in the spirit because we will notice him. He first of us prays and hopes that we get spiritually dizzy at certain moment. He provides everything that would get us to sleep, then he comes to insert the weed.
Hence, any Christian soul who is constantly and prayerfully awake in virtues, hardly grows in vices. But whenever we grow spiritually weak, we are providing great opportunity for the evil one to introduce hundreds of vices that will suffocate the virtue in us.
There is always a beginning to our bad attitudes. The question we must ask ourselves is “at what time in my life did I notice the growing of this unusual and sinful attitude that seems now to be part of me?”
- Treat the wheat and the darnel with Patience.
The patience of God does not clear us off even when we have turned ourselves into weed. God sees the goodness in us in and to which he has made us and continues to wait for us to come along and get rid of the weeds in us and blossom once more in goodness. He does not destroy the wicked but allows them to turn back to being God. Although he has everything to destroy us as bad ridge or farms, his patience attends to our repentance. In the first reading (Wis 12:13,16-19), God’s strength is his lenience to us. He does not clear us off in his anger but anticipates our repentance before the harvest time.
In the same way, we must be kind and patient with one another. We must be kind enough not to tag some people as “eternally damned” or “originally wicked”. No one is totally evil and no one is count off from God’s mercy and love. No matter how weedy a soul may be, there is still wheats in it, no matter how small and stunted they might seem. We must be patient with people when they are off the track. Instead of castigating them, we must pray for them and try to help them with their weeds. We must also allow ourselves to be helped to get rid of whatever militates against the goodness of God planted in us.
In the gospel reading, the weeds were discovered by the servants of the man because they already know the difference between the weeds and the wheats. When we are close to the Saints of God, they will always point to us the weed growing in us even when they are disguised as the wheats. When a weed is so strong and stubborn for us to get rid off, we must remember that God has given us his Spirit who comes to our help in our weakness. He raises us up when we are struck down and repositions us to our position as the children of God. We must sincerely pray “Come o Holy Spirit, heal what is dead in us, and cast away from us what is not of God’s hands”. As the enemy knows how to sow bad seeds in us during our spiritual sleep, so does the Spirit of God in us know how to weed off every weed in us without our knowing of it. We only need to keep our hearts on fire with his presence and surrender ourselves to him.
PRAYER: Merciful God, we know that in your goodness you made us to be good and you want us to be good, we humbly beseech Thee, remove whatever that has grown in us which was not planted by you, and which now militates against this marvelous work of your hands in us. Amen
Fr. Nnamah Chukwuezugo