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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 yesterday's reading, Jesus gave more parables to the crowds. (Chapter 13 of Matthew's Gospel introduces us to Jesus' use of parables, beginning with the parable of the Sower, and then the Wheat the Tares). Jesus taught, "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches." Another parable He spoke to them: "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened." 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." 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!" Just as with the parable of the Sower, Jesus explains in private to His disciples the parable of the tares of the field (also called the Wheat and the Tares, and given in Thursday's reading). Jesus explains in terms of Judgment, and the end of the age. If we look closely at the timeline of the Gospel, we see Jesus' teachings giving us a picture of how His kingdom works since the time it became clear that He will be rejected by the religious leadership. His Kingdom is one in which we are united in faith; not by nation or people or ancestry. He has taught that "whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother," giving spiritual kinship as definition of real community. Here, He teaches about the "weeds and the tares" growing together: those who belong to this community and those who do not, and are in fact 'sown by the enemy' -- those who are "sons" of the one who works against this kingdom. In our present state, all grow together. Jesus has taken pains in the parable to say that to root up one may be to root up the other, and my study bible has commented that the Church does not condemn its nominal members nor judges those outside the Church for this reason: Judgment belongs to God, and comes at the end of the age -- that is, beyond the time in which we now live. His teachings give us the picture of community and kinship, but also what constitutes "outside" status and yet resembles the "insiders" and how all live together in the present time.
Judgment becomes important at this stage of Jesus' ministry, because it is clear how He is going to be rejected. There will be those who follow in faith, and those who do not. This is the state of our world, and the time in which we currently live -- a time initiated by His ministry and Incarnation in the world. It is a picture in which distinctions remain somewhat hidden and blurry: heresy and sophistry resemble spiritual truth, just as the tares are a wild plant that resemble the wheat in the parable. His parable gives us a picture not only of the world in which we live, in which spiritual struggle is taking place behind the scenes of what we see and know, but also tells us that we bear a kind of responsibility for our part in this struggle. That responsibility becomes a focus on our own inner life of guarding the heart, searching for truth, knowing ourselves, and also a focus on growth and awareness. Clearly, responsibility for Judgment is in God's hands, and comes at the end of the age. So our focus has to be on being good stewards and disciples, bearing the good fruit that features in so much of His teaching in recent readings. In His examples in yesterday's reading -- of the mustard seed that grows into a large tree, and the leaven that works its way into the whole of the meal -- Jesus gives us pictures of what that growth and that work of faith is really like. He teaches us about the workings of the Kingdom within us and among us. He gives us a picture of the "world" He is introducing, the ways of the Kingdom, and how we must understand ourselves in the world if we are to follow in His faith. Heresy will be among us, sophistry will proliferate and filter into our lives. But our job is the job of faith, the work of faith, and it becomes up to us to learn what that is from what He teaches. This is the picture He's given us in His ministry, and we go forward to learn more from Him through the Gospel and our future readings. The parables give us truth couched in riddles, so to speak, in images from every day life, and it's up to us to desire what they hold for our understanding -- just as the disciples ask Him to explain. The world works in a way similar to the parables: hidden in our daily life is the struggle for spiritual truth, for hearts and minds. If we pay attention, we take that seriously, for that is the working of our faith within us, the struggle He invites us into. The fire that burns or illuminates is the same fire. When Jesus teaches, "Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father," He is both expressing that illumination, and also a time of revelation, when the truth that has been hidden but present all along becomes manifest and clear to all. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"
