'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?
Where have the weeds come from?'
He answered, 'An enemy has done this.'
Jesus plants good seeds in our hearts. But unfortunately he is not the only one at work in our soil. The enemy too is at work within us. Within each individual, within the Church and the world, these plants grow up together. It isn't possible for wheat to live in complete isolation, sealed off from all possible evil or temptation. Our free will used well embraces the wheat. Used poorly it embraces the weeds. But we all do both. And we can't simply exclude one while preserving free will. We sometimes feel like it would be better if our free will could be taken away so that we don't sin anymore. But this makes us less than we are meant to be. It is pulling up the wheat with the weeds.
The parable means it isn't enough to simply grow in the field of the LORD. If we are more weed than wheat that isn't going to save us.
Put not your trust in the deceitful words:
"This is the temple of the LORD!
The temple of the LORD! The temple of the LORD!"
Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds
We have all we need to grow given to us from the good seed we receive from God. Let's stop colluding with the enemy and allowing the weeds to grow. Just because we seem to get away with the weeds we currently have does not mean that the LORD doesn't see them.
"We are safe; we can commit all these abominations again"?
Has this house which bears my name
become in your eyes a den of thieves?
I too see what is being done, says the LORD.
We can be thankful to God that he looks on us in mercy, giving us time to repent and reform. This morning the LORD is asking us to wake up from complacency. He is asking us to turn more toward him that more and more of our soil may bear fruit for him.
Blessed they who dwell in your house!
continually they praise you.
Blessed the men whose strength you are!
They go from strength to strength.
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