Todays Gospel reading at Mass was problematic for me, I have to confess. The story of the wheat versus the weeds. The analogy apparently being that the righteous will be rewarded on the last day and the unrighteous will burn in Hell. Is that a fair interpretation of the this Gospel reading?
Dualism. The way of seeing the world in black and white. The good guys and the bad guys. Whilst there is of course some truth in this, I think what is closer to the truth is that most of us are shades of grey. We are both wheat and chaff. In short we sin. No matter how often we repent.
I still have a problem with the word "righteous" too. The day I consider myself "righteous" is the day I lose all humility. We must remain humble until judgement day and not take salvation as a given.
And here's a commentary extract of the Gospel passage I found:
"Who knows . With the grace of God and the patience of the community, "the weeds" may eventually turn into wheat."
I find this commentary totally unconvincing. Weed never magically turns into wheat. Poor analogy.
I will mix metaphors (like world, natural )and real substantive words (like true believers and false believers) interchangeably....sorry for that..writing on the fly
The wheat are the true believers growing spiritually at different rates. The tares or weeds are also growing spiritually at different rate as the false believers.
The weeds are natural to the field or of the world, and planted by the spiirt of this world. The corn on the other hand is not of the field that grows wild. It is in the world. It is planted there by the spirit of God. God knows those that he planted or called and chose in the world and those that are natural to the world that do not have God's spirit.
Notice the weeds always grow around the planted corn or whatever food product that grows in the ground. They are natural and more numerous in the field. The weeds or the spirits of the world want to stump and suffocate the corn or the believer, if they could. So the corn that is shorter or more immature are more susceptible to be over taken by the weeds and the world. If it could, the weed naturally wants the corn to act and be a weed like itself.
Though some corn may grow slowly and be completely overtaken and live with and like the weeds of the field, they are still God's chosen and cannot be considered a weed or false believer.
The key word is GROW - even a bit. Now how does the corn not grow? If it does not get the correct mixture or environment to grow in - water , temperature, warmth sunlight, soil content etc. This is the corn seed that is dying from its planting day. It will die as a seed. The shortest ear of corn or pre-ear corn stalk, only one inch is still considered a called and chosen of God. They might not be as useful as a 4 foot (3.3 meter) high corn, but they still will be saved by the reaper.
The parable of the seed landing on different surfaces compliment this parable.
They both grow in the the soil of the field called the 'world' until the planter takes his own valuable product out and cleans the field of weeds and burns them up all together.
There is no grey/gray or shades of it with God's people. We will grow whether slowly or fast as we have the spirit of truth within us. We can never be weeds once we have this spirit in us no matter how little we allow it (the spirit) to guide and control our ways in life. As scripture says we will be saved as if someone at the last minute plucked us from a burning fire. We made it by the 'skin of out teeth.'
The commentary you presented is a fools one; whoever wrote it. Those that will come to Christ and thus God is already known from the planting of the corn in the field, or since Adam was created. It is wishful thinking that the community via prayer etc man's efforts can change this scriptural fact. Even if you see a weed turn to corn, it was not the community or man that did it. God already had this plan of choosing this person already, beforehand. It is 'once saved always saved' over again and it is true if we truly know we have the spirit of the truth within us. You can know that you are without relying on your heart and emotion.
So we are not both wheat and chaff as sinners. We are always wheat once we are growing as a new creature regardless of sin in our lives. Again 2 Corinth 13:5, 1 John chapters 1 and 2 and Gal 5:22-23 comes to mind to evaluate yourself.
We have righteousness because Jesus is righteous based on our faith and deep believe in Christ.
Bless you mate .. Years back I was raised on the North Island of the two across the Tasman sea from you
