16th A

16th Sunday A

The kingdom of heaven is like....

INTRODUCTION: This Sunday we continue to hear from the Parable

Discourse of Matthew's chapter 13. The structure of this Sunday's

reading is similar to last Sunday's: 1) parables to the crowds, 2)

comment on the reasons for parables, 3) private instruction to the

disciples giving an explanation of the parable of the wheat and darnel.



HOMILY: This Sunday we hear three parables of Jesus: wheat and weeds,

mustard seed, and leaven. In the first of the three we notice that this

time the problem is not the ground on which it falls, but on the kind of

seed and on the distinction between the sowers. In the second, the size

of the seed is stressed. In the third it is not about seeds used for

planting but about seeds used for food, namely meal.



1st parable: Up until the parousia the church will always be a

mixed bag of good and evil. The advice is tolerance and patience until

God renders his definitive decision. The householder does not retaliate

against his enemy. He even uses the weeds as fuel to burn. Drawing

good out of evil. The parable concerns the proper attitude toward the

mixed reception accorded to Jesus. * Confusion will clarify.



2nd parable: contrast between the small, unpromising beginnings of

the kingdom and its full, triumphant expansion. Yet not the

triumphalness of a cedar but a mustard tree. * Littleness grows.



3rd parable: uses a well known symbol in an unusual way. Yeast or

leaven was for Jews and Christians a symbol of corruption. Perhaps

because Jesus gathers round him the unclean sinners of the land, he

prefers to use yeast as a symbol of the kingdom which comes in small,

hidden, and perhaps despised beginnings. The amount of flour is

ridiculously large, another example of hyperbole to stress the vast

success of the kingdom. * The hidden be seen.



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v. 36 The return of Jesus to the house signals his break with the

crowds and symbolically his break with Israel. It is a TURNING POINT IN

THE GOSPEL. It is not an accident that this rupture occurs halfway

through the gospel. Henceforth Israel will show greater and greater

hostility, and Jesus will turn more and more to his disciples, to devote

himself to their formation.



Explanation of the Parable: While the parable was concerned with the

coexistence of good and evil persons in the Kingdom, the explanation

focuses on the harvesting at the end of time. In vs. 40-43 the language

is highly apocalyptic, looks to the last judgement: images of end of the

world, harvesting, the fiery furnace, reaping angels and weeping and

gnashing of teeth (intense distress and rage). It looks to the latter

parable of the separation of the sheep and goats at last judgement.

This language has the effect of shifting the focus from patient

tolerance in the present to the spectacular events that will constitute

the end of the world. It is God's business to decide who belongs to the

kingdom. He will reward the just and cast evildoers into the fiery

furnace.