the e-Testament
Matthew 13:24-30
He told another story. “God’s kingdom is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. That night, while his hired men were asleep, his enemy sowed thistles all through the wheat and slipped away before dawn. When the first green shoots appeared and the grain began to form, the thistles showed up, too.
“The farmhands came to the farmer and said, ‘Master, that was clean seed you planted, wasn’t it? Where did these thistles come from?’
“He answered, ‘Some enemy did this.’
The farmhands asked, ‘Should we weed out the thistles?’
“He said, ‘No, if you weed the thistles, you’ll pull up the wheat, too. Let them grow together until harvest time. Then I’ll instruct the harvesters to pull up the thistles and tie them in bundles for the fire, then gather the wheat and put it in the barn.’”
Reflection
This parable tells us a story of a farmer that sows good seed in the soil. His enemy comes and plants some weeds. Then, his workers wanted to pull up the weeds. This would seem reasonable. Don’t you do this in your yard all the time? But the farmer refuses. He is afraid that, if you pull up the weeds, you will also uproot the wheat. “Let them grow together until harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters: ‘‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.’’
This passage is trying to tell us that every human being on earth will have to face a judgment day when they die. There they will be judged on things such as how they’ve lived, how they used the talents God gave them and how they impacted on the lives around them and so on.
At the end of the judgement they could be seem as a weed or a wheat and they will be accepted into heaven or thrown down into hell depending on which one they are. Furthermore, with the farmer allowing the weeds to grow with the wheat until harvest, the judgement day, is like how we are given the opportunity whilst on earth to love and treat everyone equally, to confess and repent and to ask for forgiveness and be able to forgive those who hurt us as well so that we can be the wheat that was sowed and not the weeds that was planted at night.
On the other hand, the passage also signifies a person (the farmer) who had good intentions/ideas at the beginning but it ended up getting mixed up and twisted along the way by the enemy, with things like, distractions, jealousy, fear, misguidance etc and as a result, this had a negative impact on the outcome. Along the way it just may be that our faults have some benefit. First, they keep us humble. Second, they keep us honest so that we don’t approach others with judgment. And our faults can remind us to treasure our virtues and use them to love others. There is value knowing both our capacity for evil and our capacity for good.
Br Gregory Echegwo SDB
Salesian Brother
Prayer
Let us pray that our Lord, Jesus Christ,
will be with us on our journey through life.
May He help us overcome the challenges that lay before us
and may the Almighty God help us to
be more of wheat than weeds
so that on the day of harvest
we can be selected to enter His kingdom.
In Jesus' mighty name we pray,
Amen.