This past Fourth of July weekend I had the opportunity to go home and spend the holiday with my family. On the fourth, the kids had a picnic together without the parents! All my siblings, my sister in law, my one brother’s girlfriend and my niece and nephew all had a great time. We enjoyed the time together, had fun and lightheartedly made fun of one another. After we had picnicked, we decided to go see fireworks, so we all went across town and had fun while we were out there.
If you would have asked me fifteen years ago if I ever thought the Kleckner kids could get along and have a picnic without parental supervision – I would have said no way! We were really hurtful towards one another and we enjoyed it! It was a constant battle of three against two or four against one and allegiances changed hourly. My brothers and I also like to wrestle, so one day my mom acquired for us these huge floor mats that we laid out in a spare room, which undoubtedly became the wrestling ring! For some reason, we found it necessary and acceptable to be downright rotten and malicious – but we came through it. With the passage of time, growing up, the landscape of life ever changing and with new responsibilities of our own – we have become quite close and now do and say anything unkind in jest and with a laugh to follow. I consider us friends now – but when we were youg, I don’t think we would have had a consensus!
I bet many of you can relate to that. Either you had many siblings or you had many children, there is a dynamic that goes on among siblings / children where there can exist that crazy behavior and at times argumentative moments and as time refines us, in most cases, the bond cures and there, on the other side is a strongly bound group that no other human relationship can emulate or replace. Even if you don’t get along with your sibling, you know that there is that unique bond.
Jesus has given us three more parables in this week’s gospel. The reading is bookended by the parable of Weeds among Wheat. Jesus is still preaching on, just like last week, the mystery of the Kingdom. Jesus is telling us that good coexists with evil, and God allows this. The parable shows us that the servants ask the master “shall we pull the weeds?” The master says “No, let them grow together and at the time of harvest, we will separate the weeds from the wheat”. A natural response for us and question is ‘Why doesn’t God just get rid of all the ‘weeds’ and let the wheat live in peace’? Jesus doesn’t offer us the answer. Jesus, like we heard last week, wants the answer to unfold within us. Let me offer some guidance on that though.
The parable illustrates the dynamic relationship between God and the Evil One, between good and evil, and between sin and virtue. Sin and evil are real forces and entities in this world, truth. We can all sit here and think of our most difficult sin that we have to contend with; the most powerful temptations in our lives; the imperfection that perhaps blinds us; we can all do it. Now think of how you fight it, how you try to amend your life for it, think of how you pray for help, think about how you may ask others for help; think about how little, weak and humble it makes you and how you can only come to the recognition that you need a Savior, that you need God because alone, you can do nothing! As you overcome your sins, temptations and bad habits you are building virtue and fortitude and strength. As you work through the bad times an things of life, you are becoming a healthy stock of wheat. What you learn and become through your battles with sin and evil is what makes you a healthy grain of wheat. This reality of ourselves is wisdom into the great question of why allow evil? If God took away all the evil, then there really would not be free will anymore and no way for us to grow in spiritual and virtuous strength. There is no virtue of the martyr without the tyranny of the tyrant. This is not the textbook one-liner for why evil exists, but it is wisdom and a seed of the mystery to dwell within ourselves so we can see the truth.
If my parents forbid every act of aggression, every argument, every wrestling match from our childhood, we would not have grown through these experiences and become close and friends like we are today. We may have avoided some tears and blood, but, we would have been weak and had an artificial, of sorts, relationship. I am not here to give parenting advice! This is just a sliver of the big picture I’m carving out here to illustrate the gospel! What I am saying though is that the difficulties our humanity presents to us is what strengthens us, makes us humble and dependent on God, and gets us to be the wheat that God will pick on the last day and have us shine like the sun.
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