My brother and I were driving through Kansas recently, talking about deep philosophical and political topics. We were on the topic of why there is evil in the world, trying to figure out who is causing all the harm to society. The list was pretty long and included socialists, technocrats, leftists, LGBTQ radicals, RINOs, ourselves, etc.
As we drove past a field of green crops, either soy or cotton, I noticed a lot of weeds had grown up in several patches and was reminded of the parable that Jesus told about the farmer who had sewn good seed, but his enemy came in and sewed tares.1 I was reminded that God allows these things to happen. We cannot defeat them. All we can really do is live with them and make sure that our part of the field is well tended.
It’s interesting that google defines a tare as “an injurious weed resembling wheat when it is young.” What makes it so difficult to distinguish good policies from bad is that so many of them seem good at the start. Socialism, for instance, always promises good but historically when grown to fruition has lead to the death of hundreds of millions of people. All of those things I mentioned in the first paragraph are tares. They look promising at the start but end up being counter to human flourishing once they grow to maturity.
This morning’s Gospel for Mass is similar to the parable about the Tares. In fact, it is just a few verses later in Matthew 13:47-53 where Jesus says the Kingdom of heaven is like a net that is cast into the sea and collects fish of every kind. Once the net is full, it is pulled up and the good are kept and the bad are discarded.
Don’t worry, then, so much about the problem of evil in the world. There will always be tares. We cannot rid the world of them. We can and must work against them and do our best to hog the nutrients from them, but we should not be discouraged when we see the tares reaching maturity. They will not stand. In fact, nothing will stand. The wheat AND the tares will be harvested together and separated later.
Knowing that our enemy will continue to sew tares, we must be detached from the results of our work. If we lose a battle, let it go. The field must still be tended. We should farm our fields, pulling tares when we can identify them, but if we’re not sure, we should do like the farmer in the parable, just let it grow. You don’t want to rip up good wheat. Be at peace and know that in the end, you will not be discarded.
- Matthew 13:24-30
24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ↩︎
RL Martin 