July 19: 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The field is the world

Wis 12:13, 16-19; Ps 86:5-6, 9-10, 15-16; Rom 8:26-27; Mt 13:24-43

Years ago, when I was a graduate student at the University of Louvain in Belgium, my fellow students and I would occasionally travel to England to buy books that were much cheaper there than on the continent. One day, looking through a display of books on sale at Blackwell’s, the famous bookstore in Oxford, I discovered a leather bound book titled “Horae Synopticae” by Sir John Hawkins. It is a dense book dealing with the literary relationship among the Gospels that only a Bible scholar could get excited about. 

Later, returning to Louvain on the ferry, I found a handwritten Greek notation on the inside cover of my treasure: “ho de agros estin ho kosmos” (“the field is the world”). I was intrigued.

Was this an enigmatic comment of the book’s original owner? Or a quotation from an ancient Greek writer? Only much later did I realize, to my embarrassment, that these were the words of Jesus — taken from the very passage we have from Matthew’s Gospel in this Sunday’s reading.

Jesus told his disciples a parable in which an enemy sows weeds among the master’s wheat field. Rather than try to tear out the weeds, the master tells the workers to wait until the harvest, lest in pulling out the weeds they also harm the wheat. Jesus’ disciples ask him the meaning of the parable. As Jesus begins to explain, he states, “the field is the world.”

That phrase has stayed with me ever since, for it says something very central to our Christian faith. We believe that the teachings of Jesus and the example of what it means to be authentically human that his life and death portray are not sectarian truths, that is, a message meant only for Christians. No, we believe that Jesus, whom Pope Francis has so eloquently described as “the human face of the Father’s mercy,” has disclosed to us the absolute truth about God and about the world in which we live. 

The Christian message is not meant just for the church, or only for Christians, but for the world. That is the point of Jesus’ parable that we hear this Sunday. In a world of weeds and wheat, we are not to turn away from the ambiguities and complexities of our mixed world, but to be intent — as Jesus was — to serve and save this entire world that God created and continues to love.

The other readings we have this Sunday echo that broad horizon. The first reading from the Book of Wisdom emphasizes the vast reach of God’s majesty over all the world: “you have the care of all,” you have “mastery over all things” and yet you are “lenient to all.” Despite God’s awesome power, you give “your children good ground for hope.”  

The responsorial Psalm 86 also praises God’s worldwide majesty and goodness: “All the nations you have made shall come and worship you, O Lord, and glorify your name. For you are great, and you do wondrous deeds; you alone are God.”

We continue to hear segments from Paul’s letter to the Romans in recent Sundays. Here Paul speaks of God’s Spirit who supports us in our weakness and enables us to pray even in the midst of our groaning. God’s Spirit intercedes for us even when we cannot find the right words.

The boundless spirit of these Sunday readings reminds me of Pope Francis’ reflection on the demands of the Christian mission in a time of pandemic:

“We are indeed frightened, disoriented and afraid. Pain and death make us experience our human frailty, but at the same time remind us of our deep desire for life and liberation from evil. In this context, the call to mission, the invitation to step out of ourselves for love of God and neighbor presents itself as an opportunity for sharing, service and intercessory prayer. The mission that God entrusts to each one of us leads us from fear and introspection to a renewed realization that we find ourselves precisely when we give ourselves to others.”