For the past two Sundays we have been hearing farming stories from St. Matthew’s Gospel. Last week we heard about a man whose aim while sowing seed was not all that good. He spread seed on good ground and bad ground alike. Seems to us like this is simply a waste of good seed. Why throw it where we know it will not grow? Yet, according to Matthew, this farmer continues to cast the seed everywhere in the hopes that it will grow and produce a rich harvest.
This Sunday we hear three more farming parables. One is commonly called the parable of the wheat and the tares. Two short parables about mustard seed and leaven are included. Just as last week’s farmer was rather unconventional, so too this week’s farmer whose attitude about the weeds is rather odd. This is especially true since the Greek word used for “weeds” is really something called “darnel.” Darnel is a poisonous plant and it looks like wheat. If some of the poisonous seeds get mixed in with the wheat at harvest time, the results could be disastrous. Wouldn't it be safer to pull up the weeds now? Yet Matthew’s farmer tells the farmhands that they should let them grow side by side.
Interpreting these parables is not a difficult job. Matthew does it for us. In fact, these are the only two parables that come with an explanation. While Scripture scholars believe that the parables are genuine words of Jesus, they also generally agree that the interpretation of the parables which is included with them is probably a redaction, words that came out of the community’s reflection on the parables rather than what we call “ipsissima verba,” the very words of Jesus. Here it is important that we remember that Matthew’s Gospel was directed to the Jerusalem community of Jewish Christians, men and women who had converted from Judaism to “the Way” which would later be called “Christianity” when this way of life was adopted by the people of Antioch. St. Matthew’s community of Jewish Christians were grappling with the question of why their brother and sister fellow Jews did not follow Jesus. “If we accepted Jesus as Messiah,” they asked, “why didn’t the rest of the children of Israel accept him?” Matthew’s interpretation of these two parables answers that question. Some of the seed falls on good ground and bears fruit. Some of the seed falls on rocky or thorny ground and does not. Even on the good ground, the evil one sows bad seed among the good. It springs up and threatens to pollute the harvest with poison. Yet this farmer continues to offer the Word to all people in all walks of life.
Here we should also realize that the parables about the mustard seed and the leaven are really very similar to the parable about the weeds and the wheat. Mustard seed is a powerful tasting seed. Sowing it near other crops could, in fact, affect the taste of the other fruit. Leaven makes flour rise by introducing fermentation into the process. Fermentation is a fancy word for “corruption.” Fermentation introduces gases and bacteria into the dough to make it rise.
I daresay that we, like the Jerusalem community, would like to question the practices of the farmer. As we look at our world and see the various manifestations of evil that are present among us, we have to be asking God “Why?” Why are planes full of vacationing people shot down? Why are little boys blown to bits by rocket fire while the played on a beach? Why are our communities paralyzed by gangs who shoot guns at one another without thinking about the innocent people who come between the rival factions? Even closer to home, we ask why some clergy prey upon the innocent in our midst? The answer that Matthew offers the Jerusalem community is just as relevant today as it was then. The answer is that we have to trust that the farmer knows what he is doing and that at the time of harvest the angels will sort the good from the bad. In other words, we have to put our trust in God. That isn't easy; in fact, it is difficult to be so trusting. With the psalmists, we cry out for deliverance from the various distressing situations that afflict our world. With St. Paul, we admit that all of creation is groaning with the Holy Spirit, groaning for an answer to the difficulties that pollute our world. We turn to God and place our trust in God’s will, in God’s plan.
There is, however, another lesson to be learned from these Scriptures that moves beyond simply trusting that it will all work out in the end. We come to realize just how important it is that we persevere in our quest for righteousness in order in insure that the harvest will be bountiful. We continue to sow the seed of God’s Word in our day to day living. We continue to gather together on Sunday to listen to God’s Word and to partake of the sustenance that God offers us in the Eucharist. We continue to work for the end of hatred by loving our neighbors, by sharing our resources with the less fortunate, by reaching out to the stranger and welcoming them in our midst. It is important to realize that while we are the bountiful harvest of which the Gospel speaks, we are also the ones who continue to sow the seed. God asks us to be farmers as well. God’s Word is the seed; we are the sowers who look forward to the bountiful harvest.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator