Mysteries of the Kingdom II ~ Watching

St. Matthew 13:24-30 (7/22) Gospel for Tuesday of the
Sixth Week after Pentecost

Mysteries of the Kingdom II ~ Watching: St. Matthew 13:24-30, especially vs. 30: "Let both grow up together until the harvest...." Growth in heart and soul is the central theme of the Lord's parable of the Tares. As we learn from the first of the set of two parables - the Parable of the Sower (Mt. 13: 3-8,18-23) - "sowing" describes God's action for all men and women. Christ plants the seed of His life-giving word in hearts and souls (Mt. 13:19). The Parable of the Tares, like the Parable of the Sower, has an "explanation" (Mt. 13:36-43). The Lord is encouraging us to build on our understanding from the Sower to the Tares.

So then, note the differences between the two parables. In the Parable of the Tares, the soil in which the life-giving seed is sown is simply assumed. But, in moving from the Sower to the Tares, the Lord shifts
attention from the "soil" to the "field." We are invited to survey the
whole of the Sower's "property," to consider the entire world. As the Psalmist says, "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, the
world, and all that dwell therein" (Ps. 23:1).

The Holy Fathers recognize that the Parable of the Tares may be interpreted both personally and socially, as Blessed Theophylact shows: "The field, then, is the world, or, each one's soul. The sower is Christ. The good seed is good people, or, good thoughts. The tares are heresies, or, evil thoughts." St. John Chrysostom, however, building on
the earlier parable, interprets the parable of the Tares in a social manner: "this enemy sows again; as the heretics also do, who for no other cause than vainglory inject their proper venom."

The enemy confronts the Sower and the Owner: as "the birds" in the first devouring the seed before it germinates (Mt. 13:4), and, here, as "an enemy" (Mt. 13:28). Our enemy sows evil thoughts in human hearts - heresy into the Church's life, self-will in one's soul and heart. Satan works to displace the life-giving truth that Christ plants and to grow instead destructive theories in the Church or in our lives. This is borne out both in history and in ascetic experience.

The primary spiritual truth of the Kingdom that the Lord commends in the Tares is watchfulness. "The servants" observe (vss. 27,28). They are good servants, for they seek the Master's will. They have been watching protectively over His seed sown in the hearts of the Faithful. And they find "tares." Tares - also called "darnel" - is the name for a weedy grass "lolium temulentum," a noxious weed that, when first sprouted, looks like wheat, but in maturing is readily distinguishable from the good grain. Finding such a "weed" - serious untruth and lies in the Church or in one's own heart and soul - distresses and perplexes these servants: how can there be error and evil appearing in the life of the Church, in the soul of the Faithful? (vs. 27). Notice that their watchfulness is mobilized on behalf of the Lord. They are ready to root out the wickedness they have discovered (vs. 28). The Master, however, cautions them. They are not to gather rashly, lest they "uproot the wheat" when pulling the tares (vs. 29).
What then is the caution? As St. John Chrysostom says, "By these two reasons then He restrains them; one, that the wheat be not hurt; another, that punishment will surely overtake them, if incurably diseased." And St. John adds that the Lord does "not therefore forbid our checking heretics, and stopping their mouths, and taking away their freedom of speech, and breaking up their assemblies...but our killing and slaying them." Heretics must be identified, duly excommunicated or silenced in the Church, and left to God's judgment. Similarly, each Christian must be watchful at all times over his own heart and soul, for the Devil or his demons constantly are striving to plant false or evil suggestions in our hearts and souls to lead us into sin.

I will stand upon my watch to see what He will say to me, and what I shall answer.