Saturday 23 July 2022
St Bridget of Sweden
Jeremiah 7:1-11. How lovely is your dwelling-place, Lord, mighty God! – Psalm 83(84):3-6, 8, 11. Matthew 13:24-30.
Let them both grow until the harvest
Today’s readings remind us that we are in a covenantal relationship with God and that he will dwell with us forever. We are chosen people if we choose to live in right relationship. The Hebrew Scriptures prefigure the parable of the wheat and weeds in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus used parables as a way of explaining his preaching – they were pedagogical tools using the language of the field and season and vine, a language accessible to hearers who were the salt of the earth in an agrarian economy. In this parable we see planning and patience in the master’s response that the weeds and the wheat remain together until harvest. This is an unusual reversal as weeds are normally rooted out as soon as possible so as not to damage the crop. At the end of the season, or the end of time, the wheat will be gathered together, and the weeds destroyed. Good and evil are present in our lives, and we choose whether we live as wheat or weeds. This is a metaphor for the lives we lead and how we will be separated and then judged by God at the end of days. Before this, perhaps we need to do some spiritual weeding to grow that good grain again.
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