Matthew 13:24–43

²⁴ He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, ²⁵ but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. ²⁶ So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. ²⁷ And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ ²⁸ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ ²⁹ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. ³⁰ Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”

³¹ He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. ³² It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

³³ He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”

³⁴ All these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable. ³⁵ This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet:

“I will open my mouth in parables;
I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.”

³⁶ Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” ³⁷ He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. ³⁸ The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, ³⁹ and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. ⁴⁰ Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, ⁴² and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³ Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.[1]

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We continue from last week’s Gospel passage, where Jesus is preaching near Capernaum, a series of parables.

There is much wisdom in what Peter Kreeft writes here:

When it comes to the sayings of Jesus, the more words he speaks, the fewer words we have to speak. Here is a long and complex parable that we do not need to explain or expound because Jesus himself explains it very clearly and unmistakably, in each detail. The best way to interpret it is to reread it.[2]

In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus consequently explains that he is the one planting good seeds. He also explains that the devil spreads the bad seeds. Aquinas, in his commentary on Matthew, focuses on the men who were asleep allowing this to happen.

On the part of the guards, He says, But while men were asleep, etc., meaning the rulers of the human race who were appointed to guard, were asleep, namely, through the sleep of death. These rulers are holy men, namely, the Apostles, who knew that the heretics mixed themselves in with the wheat; hence, Paul says, “I know that after my departure ravening wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock” (Acts 20, 29).[3]

He further classifies how the bad seed spread:

What is sown is cockle, which is similar to wheat, and is called darnel. What is signified by the cockle? It signifies wicked children who love iniquity, especially heretics. There are three kinds of wicked men: bad Catholics, schismatics and heretics. Bad Catholics are signified by chaff, concerning whom it was said above: “The chaff he will burn with fire” (3, 12). Schismatics are signified by ears of grain that have rotted. Heretics are signified by cockle. They are sown, therefore, in a field, meaning in this world. Similarly, cockle has a resemblance to wheat, and in this way, these men feign the appearance of good men, as it is stated: “Desiring to be teachers of the law: understanding neither the things they say, nor whereof they affirm” (I Tim. 1, 7).[4]

We learn from the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture that:

This parable describes a real scenario from the first-century agricultural world: there were even Roman laws that specifically forbade the sabotaging of crops by planting darnel. … Though darnel could destroy a crop, it did have one positive use: it could be burned for fuel. The householder alludes to this when he tells the servants that the harvesters will collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning.[5]

John Bergsma has some important insights into the nature of the Church regarding this parable:

In Matthew 13, Jesus tells seven parables about the kingdom of heaven. All of them are important to ponder because they teach us about the nature of the Church. The Church is both the kingdom of David (since ruled by Jesus, the Son of David) and the kingdom of God and heaven (since ruled by God). The Parables of the Kingdom help us to understand that the kingdom is truly present in the Church, despite appearances to the contrary.

One of the reasons we may disbelieve that the Church is the manifestation of the kingdom of heaven is the presence of hypocrites and other willful sinners within the visible Church. In the Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat, Jesus addresses and explains why God permits this to be the case. God permits sinners within the Church to allow them the opportunity of repentance. Were he to execute judgment in this age, some destined for repentance would be judged prematurely. The Church Fathers typically understood this parable as counseling against too quickly and rashly condemning the imperfect believer:[6]

The best antidote to being scandalized by the current state of the Church is to be familiar with the Acts of the Apostles and further Church history.

As I said above, the Church Fathers understood this parable to speak about the presence of hypocrites in the Church. Many schismatics throughout Church history have denied this sense of the text and insisted that the visible church had to be pure.Typically, these schismatics break off with like-minded followers and establish a group aggressively regulated according to the mindset of the founding leader. A certain visible moral rectitude is maintained in such a manner for perhaps a generation or so before the schismatic group loses its momentum and begins to tolerate dissent and diversity within its own ranks. Countless “reform” groups have broken off the Church in this manner through history.[7]

We should remember that we do not divide the Church up into the wheat and the tares as a kind of permanent state. People within the Church can process through either state. I hope I am in the wheat-state now, but I was once a tare-able person. “But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” (Mt 24:13–14) “if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; ”(2 Timothy 2:12).

St. Isidore of Pelusium offers an interesting explanation of the parable of the weeds and wheat: The sinners, represented by the weeds, are not to be immediately pulled and burned in order to give them time to repent. God forbids the angels to gather up the evildoers, “lest they uproot the good wheat together with the tares, that is, so that the sinner may not be cut off while in his mind there is yet a possibility of repentance.” St. Isidore goes on to give examples of God’s patience with great sinners who eventually repent and become instruments in God’s plan of salvation: God did not “slay Matthew, who had given himself to the exacting of the tribute, so that He might not thus impede the preaching of the gospel. Neither did He destroy the harlots who served lust and immodesty, lest models of repentance might be wanting. He avenged not Peter’s denial, because already He beheld his burning tears of repentance. Nor did He strike down with death the persecuting Saul, lest the ends of the earth be deprived of salvation.”[8]

Moving on to the Parable of the Mustards Seed. We are so familiar with the Parable of the Mustard Seed that we don’t realize how odd it is. Brant Pitre points out what should surprise us:

Well this parable is a really surprising one right from the beginning. So the first twist is the very first line, “a man took a grain of mustard seed and sowed it in his field.” Now if you do a little study about mustard seeds and mustard trees, especially if you look at some of the commentaries that scholars have written on that today, what you will find out is that a mustard tree is basically a weed. It is not a desirable plant. Nobody makes a field full of mustard trees to harvest them. If you want a kind of visual equivalent, if you have ever seen a tumbleweed in the American West or in Texas, that is what a mustard tree looks like. It’s ugly. It’s invasive. If you get mustard seeds into your field or into your yard, they are going to grow and you are never going to be able to stamp them out. So the first surprise in this particular parable is why would anybody ever sow a mustard seed in his field? And why would Jesus compare that to the kingdom of God? But it keeps going because he says that the mustard seed is the “smallest of seeds”, and that is true. Proverbially in Judaism in the first century A.D., if you wanted to say something was really small you would say it is like a mustard seed. It was kind of a proverbial image for something that’s really, really tiny.

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Okay, so what’s the message of this parable? Well the meaning is really clear if you focus on the twists. The point is this, the kingdom starts out small and it ends great, but it doesn’t look like what you are going to expect it to look like. It’s kind of ugly. It’s kind of like a field with weeds and wheat in it. It doesn’t look like the kind of thing you think God would do when he brings his kingdom. So it starts small, but it ends great. It doesn’t look like you expect it to. But also notice that the mustard tree, and the mustard seed as well, it’s invasive. In other words, once it gets in, it keeps growing and it spreads and it grows and it spreads. And this would make you think of the Old Testament image in Daniel 2 of the kingdom of God. Because in Daniel 2, Daniel saw this vision of the kingdom that starts out as a little bitty stone, but then it grows into a great mountain that fills the whole earth. This is a very, very similar kind of riddle because mountains might turn into little stones over time as they break down over time, but little stones don’t become mountains. So it’s the same kind of imagery here, Jesus is using the language of the prophets to show the disciples that the kingdom is a mysterious reality. You have to go beyond the visible, which doesn’t look like what you expect it to look like, say 12 guys from Galilee, a couple fishermen and tax collectors. On the outside it might not look like much, but if you let it get rooted, it’s going to grow and it’s going to spread and it’s going to become a great tree so that the birds of the air will want to come and make their nest in its branches.[9]

There is so much in these parables from Jesus to encourage us. It should not surprise us that the Church is not yet “On Earth as it is in Heaven.” We should be joyful that our own faults have not yet condemned us and also hopeful in how God’s love will manifest in other’s lives. The Church does not look like we think it should look because we do not have God’s vision.

There is a well-known quote, “I have a mustard seed, and I’m not afraid to use it.” Attributed to Joseph Ratzinger, but it is not his, although I believe he would appreciate it. It was actually said by David P. Goldman in an essay referring to Ratzinger.

Sources

• Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Cycle A
• St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew
• The Gospel of Matthew (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture)
• The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year A – John Bergsma
• Catholic Productions, Commentaries by Brant Pitre
• English Standard Version Catholic Edition
• Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

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1. English Standard Version Catholic Edition (2019). Augustine Institute.  ↩
2. Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Cycle A, 16th Week of Ordnary Time  ↩
3. Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, Dolorosa Press  ↩
4. ibid  ↩
5. The Gospel of Matthew, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, Edward Sri and Curtis Mitch  ↩
6. The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year A, John Bergsma, 16th Week of Ordnary Time  ↩
7. ibid  ↩
8. PG 77:184–85, as translated in The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, trans. and ed. M. F. Toal (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1957), 1:339–40.  ↩
9. Catholic Productions, Brant Pitre, 16th Week of Ordnary Time  ↩