Reflection - God Sowed Seed in the Field of Creation

16^th Sunday Ordinary A 

God Sowed a Seed in the Field of Creation

(Mt 13:24-43)

When Jesus teaches with a parable, it contains so much more than what we first may think about. The parables today are no exception. 

Last week the Parable of the Sower told of how seeds are cast on the different types of ground.  Again today, we are hearing a story about the man who sowed seed.  But this time it is a different story. Jesus explains this parable in a concept of an apocalyptic end of time. But I would like to look at this parable from the beginning of time. 

Imagine in this story, the sower is God and the field is all of creation. The field is the heavens and the earth, the oceans and the land, the plants, animals, and birds that fly. God’s field includes our first parents Adam and Eve. God said, It was good.

In humanity God created the field of our soul. God’s planted seed in the soul that grows that found in love; peace, joy, happiness, innocence, and life. It was a good seed and beautiful; it produces a harvest that is eternal life.

The Enemy saw creation and was jealous; because, the Enemy hates God. So, the Enemy shows up as the serpent bringing temptation. His goal is to destroy God’s plan. God’s promise is happiness found in a relationship with God. The Enemy gave happiness up. The Enemy resents God and does not want creation to have what he does not have. So Adam and Eve were tempted to go where God had forbidden.

Like the master in the parable, they were asleep. Adam and Eve fell for the deception of the Enemy. The weed was planted and with that grew the weed of sin and they disobeyed God. The harvest from that seed is suffering. 

The Enemy saw bad seed planted in the earth and the souls of his victims.  The bad seed grew in the field of creation and choked the happiness that was in creation; the love that seeks God’s promise of eternal life. 

Adam and Eve realized they were naked and hid themselves. The hid from God and God’s love. For their sin, they blamed everyone except themselves. The weed choked humanity's relationship with God and plunged creation into darkness. A darkness that find humanity fighting against God. With this, the seed of suffering was joined by the evil of death.

The whole of humanity is the field where the good seed that is love has been polluted by a seed that grows into the weed of sin. Even today, the evil in the world keeps planting the seed of sin in all of us. We find it growing in our hearts. It grows in things like selfishness, jealousy, aggression, worldliness, when we place ourselves above others, and so many other things that is not love. No one is without sin. No one has conquered the passions of this world.

But in all the weeds we have, God loves us.  God looks at the field and sees wheat along with the weeds. God sees the love along with the sin. In his providence, God’s love is full of patience.  In this patience, Jesus came with love to remove the weeds to make us good once again. But the seed is still there, the weed still grows and Jesus tells that there is to be a time of final separation and a moment of judgment.

We have had this fight against goodness and sin since the beginning.  It is what brings about the good and the bad in the world.  The good seed brings love.  The good brings happiness, joy, and eternal life.  But the bad brings us suffering, injustice, hurt and all things the Enemy can bring against God.

The love of our master is great and gracious.  He is tolerant and forgiving of the weeds of sin. And in Jesus, God renews the promise of love, the promise of relief from our worldly suffering, and the promise of eternal life.