Gospel Reflection of 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 23rd July 2017

In today’s gospel we read the parable of the weeds in the field.  Jesus gives a detailed explanation of this later in the chapter where He really speaks about what all the different things mean.  The field is the world and the Son of Man is the sower, and the enemy is the devil. We end up understanding all of these different characters in it.  But what is the main message in the gospel reading today for us?

I think that there are a number of things that we can pull out.  One of these is that we have to have this realisation that the good seed are those of us who are really trying to follow God.  These are the sons of the Kingdom.  Those who have given their lives to God and are desiring to follow Him.  But do you know what are always going to be around us?  The sons of the devil.  Evil will always be around us in some form.  There will be other people who are not following God and are maybe trying to pull us away from following God.  And maybe for a time you may not even notice these people or be able to tell the difference because you are young sprouting plants and cannot tell the weed from the real thing.  This is why the owner says not to go and pull up all of the weeds because if you pull up the weeds you may pull up the good plants with it.  So there is a certain need for patience.  It takes time for stuff to really show its fruit.

We see something similar in the parable of the mustard seed.  It becomes a bush so big that all of the birds of the air can find a nest in its branches.   The mustard seed was so small, yet grows into something so big.   What is the common thread in both of these parables?  Patience!  With both of these, you have to wait to see the results.  You have to wait for the fruit.  You cannot rush it, you cannot be impatient and want it to happen too fast.  The seemingly small, inconspicuous little things, those tend to grow and bear great fruit.

There is a great lesson in this for us in our lives.  In our efforts at evangelisation, in our efforts at sharing, what we have experienced of the love of God in our life and wanting to share that with other people, sometimes we want that to happen so fast.  We want big crowds and big responses and everyone following after what we have shared with them.  But it doesn’t always work like that, in fact most of the time it does not.  We have to be patient, we have to wait and to let that little mustard seed to take time to grow.  That seed may be growing up alongside other things that may be trying to choke it off, but over time that seed is going to endure and is going to bear great fruit, and so in our efforts we need to have that patience.  Patience and waiting on that little, little mustard seed of faith, and letting it grow.