Gospel for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
"Beyond Our Impatience: God’s Time for Mercy"
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 13, 24-43)
24 He proposed another parable to them. “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. 26 When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. 27 The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ 28 He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ 29 He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. 30 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.”’”
31 He proposed another parable to them. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. 32 It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.’”
33 He spoke to them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.”
34 All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, 35 to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:
“I will open my mouth in parables,
I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation [of the world].”
36 Then, dismissing the crowds, he went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” 37 He said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, 38 the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. 40 Just as weeds are collected and burned [up] with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. 42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear.
Father Gabriele Dipaola's Commentary
The parable of the weeds allows us to continue our reflection on a God who loves life. This parable highlights a different kind of Wisdom and a different standard of judgment, which have nothing to do with human wisdom and human standards. Ultimately, a parable is simply a way to say something that could not be told otherwise. In fact, this parable speaks about a plan hidden within God’s wisdom, not human wisdom.
So, what is the mystery contained in the parable of the weeds?
First of all, it speaks about the scandal of evil that sprouts, alongside goodness, right where God sowed His Word. This is the first important point. We must not look away from this scandal. In the world, just like in the Church, many weeds grow right alongside the wheat. Pride, the thirst for power, arrogance, and dark thoughts are not locked away in the basement of the world. They have their home right in the center of the wheat field; they grow mysteriously anywhere humans grow.
Matthew’s parable certainly reflects the situation of the early Christian community, which only our own imagination has painted as a community of "pure" people. In reality, the Church appears as a mixed body (corpus mixtum), where wheat and weeds are mingled together, where the little ones are looked down upon and scandalized, where the race for the first places repeats the very same mistakes of the Pharisaic communities, and where actions do not always follow the profession of faith.
Throughout his Gospel, Matthew emphasizes that the Church is not a community of pure, perfect people—and the history of the following centuries has proven him right. The historical and human journeys of God's Church over the centuries have been marked by the same ambiguities found in other systems and structures. God’s promise has been constantly tested by these flaws.
And this is where the second element of the parable comes in, closely connected to the first. The God of the Gospels is not a God who deals out justice based on our impatience. If we were completely honest, we would have to start by dealing with the weeds that live inside our own hearts. But we are very patient with those. The parable shows that God does not rely on crusaders to defeat the unfaithfulness of the world and the Church. Judgment is left to the only One who can truly judge. Right now is not the time for justice, but for mercy and the call to conversion. This is a risky approach, which might seem to tolerate injustice and hypocrisy, but that is not the case. Instead, it is about betting on love and the strength found within love. It is about facing reality without lies, recognizing evil and tearing it down when we can, but with the awareness that it is not up to us to know the mystery of the human heart. We are only meant to reveal a small piece; the final result belongs to God, because the seed of the Word is good, and God alone knows when good will definitively triumph.
Good always wins because God created you for goodness. Even though the mystery of evil passes through our lives, we just need to trust Him. Of course, we do not fully understand evil, but we can say to God: "Come inside me to clean me up, to purify me from my weeds. Lord, through Your Word, Your patience, and Your forgiveness, never tire of purifying me so I can be a disciple who fulfills and does Your will."
Amen.