Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today, Jesus offers us three parables about the Kingdom of Heaven, three means by which we might begin to grasp something the human mind is not capable of comprehending. In the first parable, the Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a field sown with good seed, but an enemy comes and scatters weeds: some of what grows in the Kingdom is not what the Master intended. Yet because God merciful, saint and sinner alike will live and grow side-by-side until the end when the harvest comes. Then the wheat will be gathered and the weeds burned. Next, the Kingdom is likened to a tree that grows from the smallest of seeds into a tree large enough for all birds to dwell within it: so shall the Kingdom be. Likewise shall the Kingdom be like a little yeast that, in spite of its smallness, causes the whole batch to rise.
When we consider the origins of the Church, we notice how its members are a mixture of wheat and weeds, how it began small and has grown large, how it has “leavened” the whole world. How does this relate to the Kingdom of Heaven?
These parables teach us more about the King than the Kingdom itself, for they show us how He builds His Kingdom among us. He is merciful, because He allows weed and wheat to grow together until harvest; He is generous, because His Kingdom has room for all who wish to dwell in it; He is powerful, because He can build a Kingdom within this fallen world and transform that same world.
And He invites us all to help Him build it.