What Will This Do to the Wheat?

Sunday, 19 July 2026 — Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
First Reading: Wisdom 12:13, 16-19
Second Reading: Romans 8:26-27
Gospel: Matthew 13:24-30 (short form; long form 13:24-43)
Full text on USCCB: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071926.cfm

We are calm and wise about everybody’s trouble except our own. The servants want the weeds out before sunset. The Master says no, and His reason is not the weed at all, it is the wheat.

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My dear brothers and sisters, imagine a husband and wife at home with a good friend. The friend is in trouble, and the two of them are very good with him. They are calm. They are generous. They can see his problem clearly, because they are standing outside it. Do not answer that insult tonight, they tell him. Wait. Think what this will look like a year from now. The friend listens. A weight lifts off him, and he goes home in peace. Ten minutes after the door closes, the two of them are arguing bitterly in their own kitchen, over something they will have forgotten by Friday.

Did their wisdom leave with the friend? No. It was still in their heads. They had spoken it out loud twenty minutes earlier. They simply could not reach it. When the problem was his, they could see the whole picture. When it was their own, they could see one small thing only, and it had to be settled that very second.

We see the same thing in today’s Gospel. The servants saw the weeds and wanted them out of the ground before sunset (Matthew 13:28). They were not asking what was good for the field. They were asking permission to prove they were right. That is where we stand the moment the problem is ours. Quick. Certain. Seeing one thing only.
When we are hurt, we stop looking around. The insult fills the whole room. And anger is quick. It moves the hand before the mind has said anything, so by the time we are thinking clearly, the message has gone.
Then comes the part that costs us most. The insult took ten seconds. We keep it alive for three weeks. We argue with them on the bus, in the queue at the bank, at two in the morning, and each time our answer gets sharper. We tell ourselves we are getting it out of our system. We are not. We are practising it. The one who said it, has forgotten and is sleeping well. All that energy is ours, and we are spending it on them.

The Master says no to the servants, and His no is not to protect the weed. If you pull up the weeds, He says, you might uproot the wheat along with them (Matthew 13:29). The roots have grown together under the soil. He is not thinking about the weed at all. He is thinking about the wheat.That is His question, and it is the one we forget. What will this cost the wheat? What will this fight do to my family, my years, my peace?

The Book of Wisdom says something beautiful about God today. His mastery over all things makes Him lenient to all (Wisdom 12:16). His power is not that He acts fast. It is that He sees the whole field and all the years ahead, and so He is never in a hurry. He waits for what is best for everyone, even when that means doing nothing at all for a time.

One thing must be said plainly. Let them grow together (Matthew 13:30) is not something God says over a house where someone is being harmed. He takes the sickle of judgment out of your hand. He does not take away your feet. What He forbids is the final verdict on another soul. The growing belongs to us. The separating belongs to Him.

So try this, this week. When someone makes you angry, nothing goes out the same day. Write the reply if you must. Do not send it. Put it away.
The next morning, before you read it, name the wheat out loud. My children will remember how I speak to them today. This colleague and I have twelve years behind us. My wife has to live in this house with me tomorrow. Then read what you wrote and ask the Master’s question. What will this do to the wheat?
And when the anger wakes you at midnight, say it out loud. The one who hurt me is not in this room. I am the only one paying for this. Then put it down. You will pick it up again. Put it down again. That is not failure. That is how it is done, one refusal at a time.
Most days you will not send the letter. And that is how the harvest is quietly saved.

God bless us all. Amen.