Overview:

Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

A Reflection for Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

“His disciples approached him and said, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.’” (Mt 13:36)

Find today’s readings here.

Today’s Gospel begins with a question: What exactly was the point of that, Jesus? 

It’s a question I’m sure that any honest follower of Jesus has wanted to ask at some point. The disciples have just finished listening to Jesus rattle off a few parables in the 13th chapter of Matthew. He’s dismissed the crowds, gone inside, and the disciples want to revisit the one about the weeds in the field. 

A quick recap of that parable: A man spreads good seed in good soil, but an “enemy” comes in the night and plants weeds among all the good seeds. The man’s slaves ask if they should uproot the weeds, but the man says that pulling up the weeds might hurt the good plants, so just wait until harvest, when the weeds will be separated from the wheat and burned. 

In response to the disciples’ questioning, Jesus provides a one-to-one allegorical interpretation for the parable that stuns me in its directness. Aren’t the parables supposed to leave room for mystery, interpretation and adaptation? 

Here is what Jesus says he means with the parable: 

  • The man spreading the wheat = the Son of Man
  • The soil = the world
  • The good seed = the children of the Kingdom
  • The weeds = the children of the Evil One
  • The enemy who sows the weeds = the Devil 
  • The harvest = the end of the age
  • The harvesters = angels

After the harvest, the righteous will shine and the weeds will burn. Got it. 

I am sympathetic to the slaves who want to uproot the weeds. Isn’t there a way to pull weeds without damaging the plants you want? Wouldn’t it lead to better growth of the good seed? 

The impulse to try and root out bad to protect the good is inherently human. And while one lesson from the parable of the wheat and the weeds is about divine judgement, another lesson is about our own judgement. It should challenge those of us who are not God: Let the weeds grow for now.

“The ultimate separation of good from evil is reserved for the end time, and the criterion will be whether one is truly just or not,” John Donahue, S.J., explains in his excellent book, The Gospel in Parable. But, there’s another point of emphasis, he explains, for the disciples hearing the parable: “Prior to that time, the community should be more concerned with their own response to Jesus than with separating the good from the evil.” 

We all want better families, friendships, schools, churches and communities. And sometimes it feels like we have to exclude or scapegoat a member of that group to keep what makes it “good” intact. But Jesus is reminding us today that we are not God, and it’s not up to us to make that judgment. I am also reminded that there is little that designates something as a weed officially, other than that it is growing where it is undesired, and that even the ugliest weeds will flower if you let them grow enough, which my overgrown backyard has taught me.

Even with a thorough explanation of the parable from Jesus, we should be left with more questions: Whom do I consider a weed? When have I been quick to uproot? How is my own growth? And just as the disciples took time to ask Jesus, we too are invited to look at this parable, and at the events of our day-to-day lives, and ask him: “Could you tell me what this means?”

Zac Davis is an associate editor and the senior director for digital strategy for America. He also co-hosts the podcast, Jesuitical.