The Secrets of the Kingdom
One
Jesus fulfills all the prophecies concerning the coming Messiah, especially the unique quality of His teaching. Isaiah prophesied, “All of your sons shall be taught by the Lord” (cf. Is 54:13; Jn 6:45). After His Sermon on the Mount, which establishes the preeminence of His authority, He then validates His identity as the Son of God through His miracles. Upon witnessing His teachings and miracles, the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders accuse Him on multiple occasions of performing His works by the power of the devil (cf. Mt 9:34; 12:24). Notice, they don’t deny the supernatural character of His works; on the contrary, they affirm it by attributing it to the special powers of Satan. This blasphemous response to God visiting His people leads Jesus to speak now in parables. “With them is indeed fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which says, “You shall indeed hear but ever understand, and you shall indeed see but never perceive, for this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should perceive with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and run for me to heal them.” (Mt 13: 14-17). So thorough do wicked deeds invert the moral and spiritual order of reality when committed freely and without repentance that good becomes evil, evil becomes good. God becomes the devil and the devil, god in their mind. But this passage is not just a warning for the Jewish leaders back then; it is a warning and rebuke to all of us who wish to define for ourselves good and evil in the arrogant belief that our laws, our understanding, our governance deserve our allegiance, and not God. The end result is the eternal loss of God and all things good.
Two
Jesus offers seven different parables in Matthew 13 to teach us about the Kingdom of God which comes in small and sometimes invisible ways. These parables reveal the requirements of entering the Kingdom humility, repentance, and vigilance. Without these, we cannot have faith. Without faith, we cannot please God by understanding and obeying His parables. And if we cannot understand His parables, we will not enter His Kingdom. But for those who are willing to humble themselves with vigilant repentance, to these little ones He offers us His treasure, which He explain in Peter’s House, the Church. “Then the disciples came and said to him, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’ And he answered them, ‘To you has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.” (Mt 13: 10-11). Secrets are only shared between trusted friends in secure places. And we only trust those who we know love and care about us. Love is demanding. It can’t be done with only half measures and conditions. Love is always condition-less. And so we discover in the parables: we must prepare our hearts to receive His word without conditions. We must be willing to part with all things in order to receive everything! At Mass, Jesus gives us EVERYTHING in the Eucharist!
Three
Jesus offers the first three parables using imagery reflecting the life and surroundings of his audience: seeds, sowing, and growth. In the first story, the parable of the sower, Jesus shows us the relationship between God’s Word and the soul. When the soul is fixated on the things and pleasures of this world it will not be interested in anything other than this world. But His Kingdom is not of this world. Worldliness, superficiality, and the delight in riches create conditions unsuitable for God’s word to implant and grow, as indicated by the rocky, hardened, and thorn-ridden soils. “As for the seed that was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the word and understands it; he indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundred-fold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.” (Mt 13: 23). Lord, may we hear, understand, and bear your yield, whether it by a hundred, sixty, or thirty-fold, may we do so according to your grace and our capacity.
Four
“Another parable he put before them saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.” (Mt 13: 24). In agrarian parts of the world, there is a weed so despised, its very name conjures up both treachery and toxicity—the darnel weed, otherwise known as wheat’s evil twin. Once sown in a farmer’s field, it looks just like wheat while growing until the plants mature. By then, however, its ruinous nature has insinuated itself in with the good wheat, and without a lot of careful work, will destroy an entire crop. These parables are teaching us about Christ’s Church, His kingdom on earth. Jesus previously warned us about wolves in sheep’s clothing, (cf. Mt 7:15), now he warns about something more sinister: seeds that mimic the word of God but actually come from the devil. If received and allowed to grow these will bring ruin to that soul just as certain as a darnel in a wheatfield. But how do false teachings that look like religious truths get inside of us? Jesus gives two insights: when we sleep or are careless and distracted, and when the enemy comes. We know that the devil is like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Thus, we must always recognize his deceptive lures in the form of temptation and sin. Sin is precisely this darnel because whenever we choose to sin we do so under the pretext that we are seeking something good. But we do so in a way that violates the love we are supposed to have for God, neighbor, and self. Sin is the evil twin of God’s word: fancying itself as good, when it is actually toxic and bad. Lord, by your power and light, may we recognize the difference between weeds and wheat in our desires and choices.
Five
The other insight offered by Jesus revolves around sleep. When men were sleeping the enemy came and sowed the weeds. This is why again and again Jesus warns His disciples of not being drowsy, or careless or non-vigilant. In all of these cases, Our Lord points out the dangers that exist when the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. It is then that the enemy comes to put us to the test. Will we be faithful to God or not? The choice is ours. But what do these sleepy characteristics mean? To be drowsy or sleepy means that our lives are imbalanced: we too often do other activities when we should be at rest with the Lord in meditation; and we waste time when we should be learning about the secrets of the Kingdom. These secrets, the gospels reveal, are explained in the House of Peter, aka the Church. Today, let us resolve to make a good examination of conscience in preparation for confession to ascertain which darnel seeds have taken root and then go to the Sacrament, offered by Jesus in the House of Peter.