The Righteous Will Shine Like The Sun

"This fulfilled what was spoken by the Prophet: I will speak in parables.  I will proclaim things kept secret since the beginning of the world.

Then HE sent the crowds away and went into the house.  And HIS disciples came to HIM, saying, 'Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.'  JESUS answered them, 'The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.  The field is the world; the good seed are the people of the kingdom; the weeds are those who follow the evil one.  The enemy who sows the weeds is the devil; the harvest is the end of time, and the workers are the angels.

Just as the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so will it be at the end of time.  The Son of Man will send HIS angels, and they will weed out of HIS kingdom all that is scandalous and all who do evil.  And these will be thrown into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Then the just will shine, like the sun, in the kingdom of their FATHER.  If you have ears, then hear." - Matthew 13:35-43 

(I will speak in parables.  These are the first words of Psalm 78, as adapted by the evangelist.  He means that the secrets of the kingdom of GOD revealed by JESUS answer the most important questions of humankind.

From the beginning of civilization, people were confronted with problems and challenges they could not solve on their own, and JESUS offers the key to these contradictions.  Science has discovered many elements of human destiny; we have still to discover who we are.

JESUS' answer is not given as a theory and it upsets the "little intellectuals" who are used to the language of books.  HE gives us something much richer with these images or enigmas which require some creativity and to which we have to return.  Each of us will have to ponder them as long as we live, and humankind as long as history.  Only with time shall we discover all that they mean.

The field is the world.  This parable does not refer to what happens within each of us, or only in the Church, as described in the net  [verse 47].  Rather it teaches that the kingdom of GOD exists and grows in the world, in all dimensions of the secular world.  Sacred history is more than an ancient history in the land of JESUS; it is the entire human story of which the risen CHRIST is LORD.

So will it be at the end of time.  JESUS speaks to us of a judgment.  The expectation of GOD's judgment on the world was an essential element of prophetic teaching.  Let us not only see in it a desire for vengeance on the part of honest people who suffered.  To know for certain that our life will be judged by one who knows us through and through is one of the bases of the Christian vision of existence.  This enables us to understand the tragic character of the decisions we make from day to day directing us either to the truth or a refusal of the light.

This certitude shocks many of our contemporaries just as in the past it terrified the majority of people.  It is for that reason they have often taken refuge in metempsychosis--a series of existences.  The faults of the present life could be rectified in the one that followed.  The importance of our choices is doubted, and the sense of sin is blurred just as is the sense of the presence of GOD.  Before long we could doubt the unique value of our life and of the human person.

While reaffirming the judgment, this short parable contains an extremely revolutionary element: the judgment is GOD's secret and up to the end of the world, both good and evil are in each of us, as well as in institutions.  When we read the Scriptures, we are perhaps shocked to see that not only in the Old Testament but also even in the New, the world is constantly divided between the good and the wicked.  It seems to us that it should not be: the inner being of a person is a deep mystery.  There isn't a group of the good [we, of course, and those who believe in GOD, and those who observe the same morality that we observe...] and then the others.  Why then does JESUS divide humans?

Our quick reply is that JESUS has spoken as the prophets spoke.  To speak of the good and the wicked was a simple way, suitable to the mentality of people less developed than ourselves, to show that each one of us, in each of our acts, takes a step in one of two opposed directions.  For centuries women and men have felt themselves interpreted by this way of speaking: it is still effective and pedagogic for us on many occasions.  It is very important to understand that JESUS is not duped by images.  For the majority of us, the separation is not made, even if after a conversion or two, until we have taken decisive steps.

The servants represent the believers, but especially the "supervisors" of the Church.  Their zeal for repressing those they judge as straying in order to preserve what seems good to them may well be tainted interiorly.  They would like to suppress all the errors.  Rather they rely too much on force, or on authority.  If the "masters" of the faith were not to give the faithful the possibility to think for themselves and make mistakes, the Church would be without life.

GOD prefers to let matters clarify: HE wants people to learn from experience.  Evil is part of the mystery of the cross; in doing what is good and living in the light we defeat evil [Romans 12:21].)

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