Evil does exist: keep overcoming it (HOMILY FOR SATURDAY OF THE 16TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR II JULY 27 2024)

HOMILY FOR SATURDAY OF THE 16TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR II (JULY 27 2024)

Jer.7:1-7; Ps.24; Matthew 13:24-30

Evil does exist: keep overcoming it

When God created us, he charged us to be fruitful. Being fruitful means to expand God’s kingdom here on earth. We constantly face interruptions from within and from outside towards fulfilling this God-given purpose. In the gospel reading of yesterday (Matthew 13:18-23) Jesus taught us that lack of openness to God’s Word constitutes distraction from within towards being fruitful. Hence, while others seeds could not grow, those that fell on good soil produced fruits in many folds. The different soils represent the different dispositions of our hearts.

In today’s gospel, Jesus gives another parable about the kingdom of God. This parable draws our attention to those distractions from outside that want to make us fruitless. In this parable, an enemy sowed weeds alongside the good seeds in a man’s field. We know that weeds daunt the growth of plants by competing with them for nutrients; and so every farmer consciously clears off weeds for their plants to grow well. It becomes surprising when this man refused his servants from doing away with the weeds even after interpreting the presence of the weeds as the work of an enemy.

Beloved, know this reality today: good and evil will always exist side by side not in a manner of cooperation but as an indication of the necessity of choice. When God finished creating the world, everything was good. This goodness did not mean the absence of the serpent. Immediately God commissioned Adam and Evil, evil presented itself before them. Also, the people of Jesus’ time found it difficult to believe that he is truly God; but at his death and resurrection, it become obvious. But this did not automatically make everyone accept him as God. The Chief priests still bribed the soldiers to negate the resurrection story saying that the disciples came to steal Jesus’ body away.

Yesterday we saw that when God calls us, He calls us into a battle field. Today’s parable teaches us not to be scandalized by the presence of evil. Do not be scandalized when people pay you evil for good, when people lie and gossip about you, when your most noblest intention is misunderstood or hijacked, when you are persecuted for standing for the truth, when you are envied on account of your gifts, when you suffer deprivation for refusing to give-in to evil, when you are always having to solve one problem or the other, when people take your gentility for granted, when people ascribe the glory of your achievements to themselves, when you lose a love one to the cold hands of death and so on. These experiences may tempt us to consider belonging to the other side of evil and sin in a bid to do away with some negative feelings.

The first mistake we will make is to repay evil with evil. My dear, by choosing to forgive, we are deciding to remain on the side of good. This does not mean that we should tolerate evil. In the parable of today, it is the plant that successfully competes with the weeds and is able to grow well and become fruitful that will be rewarded. We are to constantly overcome evil by our consistent choice of the good over it. Dear friend, what is that good that you have stopped doing because of discouragement? That is certainly an area of your life where you are no longer bearing fruit. You have what it takes to overcome evil. In Gen.1:28, God blessed us and charged us to be fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth and to subdue it. God rewards perseverance.