Weed or Wheat

Reading Thurgood Marshall's biography was particularly interesting for me.

After all, we’re right here by the Supreme Court.

And I worked for a couple decades in the Thurgood Marshall building over by Union Station.

And, like some of you, I saw him a number of times in his later years.

He took strong positions throughout his career as lawyer, judge and justice.

One of his strongest positions was his vigorous and absolute opposition to the death penalty.

Back in the 1920’s he worked for the NAACP and lobbied for legislation against lynchings.

And he also worked to save the condemned who were facing legal executions.

Our Church has long opposed the use of the death penalty in modern society.

And the parable that Jesus explains today tells us something about that opposition.

In the parable, a man plants good seed.

But as that seed grows into wheat, weeds crop up among the wheat.

The man’s servants want to pull up the weeds.

But the master says, let the wheat and the weeds grow together.

Pulling up the weeds might uproot some of the wheat too.

Wait until harvest time.

When all can be pulled up together.

Then, under the Master’s direction, the weeds can be destroyed and the wheat can be preserved.

As Jesus explains, the wheat are the good people, the children of the Son of Man.

The weeds are the bad people, the children of the Evil One.

And at the end of time, Jesus himself will see that the evil doers are punished.

And the righteous are rewarded.

So we servants are to be patient and await that end of the age.

We're not to pull up the weeds.

We could even be mistaken about whether a particular plant is wheat or weed.

We can't see deeply enough to distinguish between the good and the bad.

Our snapshot in time doesn't account for the good falling, or the bad repenting.

In the parable the sorting takes place at the end of the age.

Because it’s clear to the Master who is who.

And in the end, all the falls and repentances have played themselves out.

But we servants here in the midst of time can’t know all that.

So, while we do need imprisonment or other action to protect our society,

We shouldn’t act in such a harsh and irrevocable way as the death penalty.

We might mistakenly destroy a good innocent wheat shaft that we mistook for a weed.

Or, an actual weed that, given time, would have been transformed.

Even if what we destroy is indeed a weed, and would never be transformed,

Our destroying it may cause collateral damage to the surrounding wheat.

Including even damage to ourselves.

More on Weeds

Tuesday 17th Week Ordinary Time

Mt 13:36-43      Read this Scripture @usccb.org