Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father

Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field." He answered and said to them: "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"

- Matthew 13:36-43

In recent readings, we have been exploring Jesus' ministry of teaching the crowds in parables. If we were to take this week's readings in context, we must first start with two readings of awhile back: The Parable of the Sower, and Therefore hear the parable of the sower. This week, we read the readings that follow, beginning with Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares? In the parable of the Wheat and the Tares, Jesus told a story of the sower who planted good seed of wheat, so that it began to sprout and grow a crop. But while all men were asleep, an enemy came and sowed tares or weeds, so that they were all growing together. The man told his servants not to gather the tares, lest they disturb the good crop. But at the harvest time, he will say to the reapers: "First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn." In yesterday's reading, Jesus told two more parables about the kingdom: the parable of the mustard seed that grows into a large tree, so that even the birds of the air build their nests in it, and the parable of the leaven -- hidden in three measures of meal until all was leavened. The Gospel tells us: All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables, and without a parable He did not speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: "I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world."

Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field." As with the parable of the Sower, Jesus' disciples come to Him later, in private, away from the multitudes to whom He preached, and they ask Him to explain it to them. This teaches us that although the parables invite us in to hear and to understand, it is not certain that we all simply have all the answers. Instead, they engage us. It is important that we understand that Mystery invites us in; the mysteries of the Kingdom are those that welcome us, start us on a road, His Way -- and into engagement with Him, the Teacher.

He answered and said to them: "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one." Once again, as we discussed in the previous reading in which Jesus gave this parable to the crowds, we are confronted with a world in which good and evil live side by side. Those who choose for the kingdom, and those who do not - who may be, in fact "sons of the wicked one"- live side by side. This is the state of the world; sometimes the differences are subtle. The tares resemble the wheat.

"The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age." This gives us a sense of time and the evolution of the world. As we live side by side with good and evil with subtle and perhaps hard to detect differences, we are in a time when all grows together. And we have time. Judgment is at the end of the age, the end of the age inaugurated by the Incarnation, in which we still live. All still grows together, and we are called upon at all times to make choices, to accept the good seed, or perhaps that which chokes it or mimics it. We are called to discern, to make good choices to treasure what is good in ourselves and in our hearts. But Judgment is clearly in the hands of God and God's angels, and that is at the end of the age.

"Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!" We really don't know when this will be or what it will be like. The Judgment itself is a mystery in the hands of God, of Christ. All we know is that we live in the present age, in which all grow side by side, and in which we are called to be discerning, to "have ears to hear!" We make choices, and hopefully learn, grow, produce the fruits of spiritual choice. But there are two promises here -- that the tares, the counterfeit that resembles the good crop, will somehow perish. There are many ways of thinking of fire. The Holy Spirit also appears as fire in Scripture. Fire is fully oxidizing (see the parable of the leaven in yesterday's reading), it is purifying -- it will burn that which cannot withstands its energies. In a fire test, it is the pure gold that remains and "shines forth as the sun." Let us consider, then, what we truly treasure, the things with which we identify and from which we take our identity, that remain within us as a part of us -- and think of life as lived in a kind of fire, a kind of testing in this age, and the fire of the Spirit that calls to us for response.

We don't really know what "hell" is necessarily. Some profound Christian writers have taught that hell is a state of mind. We can't practice this Judgment ourselves; that is reserved for Christ and comes at the end of this age. When asked by His disciples, even He said He did not know when that time would come; this is a part of the great mystery of the Kingdom, in the hands of the Father. But if we think about fire as an energy of the Spirit (as in the burning bush that was not consumed), then we can think of the time in which we now live and make choices as a time of testing by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Are we going to be like the Spirit? Will we become like that which can withstand this fire, the pure gold that is tested in a furnace of fire? Is it this that we will treasure in our hearts? Or is it the counterfeit, the fool's gold, the lead we carry with us in life? Let us not be like the tares that will be consumed in the fire, let us take our choices seriously. Let us have ears to hear! Let us make a commitment, and find His Way.