THE FIELD OF THE WORLD

July 27, Tuesday

SEVENTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

 

      Exodus gives us here a beautiful example of God’s tender covenant love for his sometimes-wayward people. He keeps protecting them and being present to them (hence, the cloud). His presence is very intimate especially for Moses. Hence, the radiance of Moses’ face.

      Jesus explains the parable of the wheat and the weeds. Good and evil will always coexist in the Church and in the world, until God’s good time comes. The word of the Lord should perhaps help us to be patient and understanding with the all too human aspects of the Church of the past and of our day. The good will ultimately triumph; we have this assurance, while we already work in the present to purify the Church and ourselves.

 

First Reading: Exodus 33:7-11; 34:5b-9,28

Moses used to take the Tent and set it up outside the camp, some distance away. He called it the Tent of Meeting. Anyone who sought God would go to the Tent of Meeting outside the camp. It went like this: When Moses would go to the Tent, all the people would stand at attention; each man would take his position at the entrance to his tent with his eyes on Moses until he entered the Tent; whenever Moses entered the Tent, the Pillar of Cloud descended to the entrance to the Tent and God spoke with Moses. All the people would see the Pillar of Cloud at the entrance to the Tent, stand at attention, and then bow down in worship, each man at the entrance to his tent.

And God spoke with Moses face-to-face, as neighbors speak to one another. When he would return to the camp, his attendant, the young man Joshua, stayed—he didn’t leave the Tent.

God passed in front of him and called out, “God, God, a God of mercy and grace, endlessly patient—so much love, so deeply true—loyal in love for a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. Still, he doesn’t ignore sin. He holds sons and grandsons responsible for a father’s sins to the third and even fourth generation.”

At once, Moses fell to the ground and worshiped, saying, “Please, O Master, if you see anything good in me, please Master, travel with us, hard-headed as these people are. Forgive our iniquity and sin. Own us, possess us.”

Moses was there with God forty days and forty nights. He didn’t eat any food; he didn’t drink any water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words.

 

Gospel: Matthew 13:36-43

Jesus dismissed the congregation and went into the house. His disciples came in and said, “Explain to us that story of the thistles in the field.”

So he explained. “The farmer who sows the pure seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the pure seeds are subjects of the kingdom, the thistles are subjects of the Devil, and the enemy who sows them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, the curtain of history. The harvest hands are angels.

“The picture of thistles pulled up and burned is a scene from the final act. The Son of Man will send his angels, weed out the thistles from his kingdom, pitch them in the trash, and be done with them. They are going to complain to high heaven, but nobody is going to listen. At the same time, ripe, holy lives will mature and adorn the kingdom of their Father.

“Are you listening to this? Really listening?

 

Prayer

Lord our God,
sower and lover of all that is good,
we are the times impatient
about the human weaknesses
of your Church and its leaders and members.
Help us not to condemn too easily
but to look at our own defects,
and to work with all our might
to reveal in us and in your Church
the genuine face of Jesus,
by the strength of your own Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection:

The Fire of God – His Holy Spirit

The evangelist is introducing an application to the parables of Jesus. Jesus is back home with his disciples. The explanation is not given to the crowd but to his small group of disciples.
When the scene moves from the original parable of the seeds and weeds to its explanation, there is a difference on the focus. When Jesus said the parable, the seed was understood as the values of the Kingdom and the weeds were the values of the world – of the evil one. But in the explanation, the seeds and the weeds are presented as good and bad people. At the judgement day – the end of the ages, says Matthew – the bad people will be thrown into the fiery furnace. Matthew goes on to explain the horrors that await the evildoers – there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

This explanation was the understanding of the early Christians – a catechesis addressed to the community of Matthew at the end of the first century. Probably, after the first few decades of following the teachings of Jesus with great fervour, the Christians were a bit more relaxed and did not take their faith seriously. The evangelist attempts to shake them up, using the language of the preachers of his time.
To make himself understood by his Jewish listeners, he uses the style of other Jewish rabbis and use images which were well understood by his people, such as fire, the fiery furnaces, weeping, gnashing of teeth, the harvest, the angels, the devils.
One thing is certain: whoever does evil, ruins his life. But that judgement and punishment in the fiery furnace is not the work of God. St. Paul teaches us that God is the Father “who wants all to be saved” (1Tim 2:4). Gospel according to John makes an absolute statement: “He did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but through him, the world is to be saved” (Jn 3:17).

And what about the fire? The only fire that God has, is his Spirit. descended on the disciples during the Pentecost (Acts 2:3). The Risen Lord has handed over the fire of his Spirit as a destructive force of sin (Jn 20:22-23). Remember the words of Jesus: “I have come to bring fire upon the earth and how I wish it were already kindled” (Lk 12:49). It is the unstoppable flame that will burn all traces of weeds in the heart of every person, leaving only the good grain in each person. The fire of God, The Holy Spirit will one day wipe out all forms of evil.

Video available on Youtube: The Fire of God – His Holy Spirit