The Kingdom of Heaven is real and is growing now
Reflections on the readings for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (July 19, 2020): WIS 12:13,16-19; PS 86:5-6,9-10,15-16; ROM 8:26-27; MT 13:24-43
MISSIO offers “Preaching Mission,” as a homily help, providing connections to mission from the readings of Sundays, Feast Days and Holy Days.
Evil certainly exists in the world and there are sinners, but it is not for us to deal with them.
Jesus continues in today’s Gospel to instruct His listeners about the kingdom of God through the parables He tells them. The first is the story of the wheat and the weeds. Once again we meet a sower who scattered good seed in his field. But he had an enemy who went out at night and sowed weeds among the seeds of wheat. As soon as the plants began to sprout, the householder’s slave told him about the weeds and wanted to pull them up right away. But the man had other ideas. “If you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest; than at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, ‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn’” (Matthew 13:29-30). Even as God’s Kingdom is starting to spread now it will not reach its ultimate destiny a time known only to Him.
In the meantime, patience and discernment are necessary for every single one of Christ’s followers as individuals and, most especially, as members of His Church. Evil certainly exists in the world and there are sinners, but it is not for us to deal with them. The judgment of the Lord’s people is for Him to mete out. We must show our trust in God’s plan day by day, just as we recall every time we say the Our Father – “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” If we really want to do all that the Father asks of us, we need to accept the mission He gives us with open hearts and open hands. This is how we communicate and contribute to the Kingdom He calls us to make our own and to share with others.
