3rd Last Sunday after Pentecost 7 November 2021 (readings 5th
Sunday after Epiphany)
We are influenced by what others around us do. This can work for good or evil.
Take a simple example like neatness. If everyone around us carefully puts things away we would be more inclined to do that ourselves. If everyone threw their rubbish out the window on to the street then we would probably at least relax our standards.
Morally this is seen in many ways, such as the way we talk to each other, the way we evaluate things, the things we hold to be important.
It is difficult to go against the tide of what most people do, most of the time.
Take churchgoing. Imagine if almost everyone in a city went to church, the few that did not would feel a strong pull to find out what they were missing out on.
In today’s parable we have a reference to the fact that believers and unbelievers alike must mingle together.
From another parable we know that the good are supposed to be the leaven in the whole community (Mt 13,33). This is how it is meant to work. If the evildoers are in our midst it is our job to make them good instead of evil!
How do that? By generating a climate of goodness that will be impossible to ignore. To embarrass people into giving up their crooked ways and win them over. This has happened before, and is the way that saints always influenced their surroundings.
We have to establish a new normal, and this is what the Kingdom of God is.
It is hard to be good when others around us are not, but someone has to start off. We have to get used to the idea of working with little or no support.
This is why God allows evildoers to endure. He wants to give them time to see things differently; to be influenced by a different view of the world.
To save people requires a certain amount of time, to give them a chance to learn from their own wrong directions. So they can ask questions like, Why is my life falling apart? Maybe I should turn back to God.
What does it mean for us trying to be good, the wheat in this parable? We have to take the same view as God takes.
He can love people that we cannot (not yet anyway).
We would tend to write people off too quickly, whereas God, who can see all, can judge better.
We do not try to judge how good or evil another person may be. We simply press on, seeking to be good ourselves, encouraging others likewise. We cannot judge as in we must not, and anyway we do not have enough knowledge to be able to form a judgment.
The idea is to keep going , be good do good, become better. and encourage each other ‘teaching and admonishing one another’ (epistle), as we all seek the same result.
We race to the finish and do not ease up. ‘We bear with one another and forgive one another (epistle). With charity holding it all together.
As we do this our capacity to love others will increase.
For those holding out we pray and give good example, avoiding scandals which only impede the whole operation.
Another point for letting the unholy have more time is that some of them, if they did come inside, would do a better job than we can. Cf St Augustine, St Mary Magdalene, St Francis, St Ignatius, and many others who had major conversions. In every age there must be a great pool of talent not being fully utilised.
Instead of just wishing evildoers dead we can wish them alive with the life of Christ!
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