30 July 2013 - care instructions

30 July 2013 - care instructions

One of the challenges we face in this life is that we never find goodness in it's purity.  We always find it tainted and intermixed with evil.  In ourselves and in the world the weeds always grow with the wheat.  This is tough because it means we can't use the absence of evil as a criteria for judging anything, even the Church.

We want to see the good seed flourish.  We would prefer if the weeds could be uprooted at once.  But everything is growing together, roots tangled and straining for nourishment.  We must wait for the "harvest" at the "the end of the age" to separate the weeds and the wheat.  To try to separate them sooner does violence to free will.

What are we supposed to take from this?  Patience.  We should desire to see the good seed flourish.  We should cultivate the wheat where we see it grow.  And we should be reassured that there will come a day when we will see "the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father."  Though we do not delight in the destruction of sinners we are comforted that there will come a day when evil is finally destroyed.

We have been given precious instructions from the LORD to ensure the survival and fruitfulness of this field.  This is just one more way that we realize how good the law is.  It is not oppressive or restrictive.  It is for life and growth!  They are so important that Moses spends forty days fasting to write them down.

So Moses stayed there with the LORD for forty days and forty nights,
without eating any food or drinking any water,
and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant,
the ten commandments.

With Moses we see God being consistent with the Son of Man in the Gospel reading today.  He is full of mercy and patience but his justice is also absolute.

“The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God,
slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity,
continuing his kindness for a thousand generations,
and forgiving wickedness and crime and sin;
yet not declaring the guilty guiltless,
but punishing children and grandchildren
to the third and fourth generation for their fathers’ wickedness!”

We are not to long to see anyone burned as weeds.  The LORD does not long for that!  At the end of the age they will be good for nothing else but for now we plead for them, that they may be saved, and for ourselves, that we may continue in the LORD's grace.

This is indeed a stiff-necked people; 
yet pardon our wickedness and sins,
and receive us as your own.”

All of the teachings of Jesus are trying to point us toward the merciful heart of God.  When we are told that the weeds are not to be burned immediately it isn't so that we may count the days until they are.  We are instead to rejoice in the mercy and patience of God which gives them time to repent.

As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.