Tuesday of 17th Week, Year II: reflection

Theme: Whose work are you doing: God’s or the Devil’s?

Reading: 13:36–43

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus explained the parable of the wheat and weed. This parable narrated that God sowed wheats in His field, and at night the devil went to the same field and planted weeds among the wheats. Weeds, as we know, do a lot of harm to plants: they deprive them of vital nutrients, serve as hosts to some plant pathogens that infect and degrade the quality of the desired plants, reduce their yields, and so on.

Jesus explained that the wheats sown by God are good people on earth, while the weeds are evil people. But, at the end of time, God’s angels will gather the wheats (good people) and keep them in the house prepared for them. They will also gather the weeds (evil people) and send them to their deserved end, where they will be burnt by fire.

The explanation offered by Jesus invites us to sit down and examine our actions in our families, in the lives of our friends, in our various social and ecclesial groups, and in the larger society to determine whether we are playing the role of the wheats or the weeds. Perhaps, this assessment or reexamination will help us to change our line of actions so far.

Do you belong to the group of people who oppose good things when they don’t come from them?

Are you among those who mount obstacles to good projects for the society just because such projects guarantee them no personal gains?

Are you among the politicians who oppose good policies of the government in power just to promote their party? For instance, many years after the All Progressives Congress (APC) staged numerous protests against Jonathan’s administration, one of the leaders of the protests told Nigerians that those protests were merely political games, meaning they were never organized for the benefits of the society but, rather, for their selfish interests of its organizers.

Are you among those who tarnish the images of good people and pull them down?

If you belong to any of these groups, it is obvious that you are a weed in the society, and that you are preventing the society and her people from being at their best. You already know where your action will lead to, but a stitch in time saves nine.

May God’s grace help us to be promoters of the good in the society. And may your Tuesday be blessed. Amen

Fr Isaac C. Chima