A Meditation for our sixteenth week of Ordinary Time in 2026

I am not what I was. I am not what I will be. What I am is all that I can see and be today. This feels so obvious, but every moment that I enter becomes all that I can know. I have an incredible memory, and yet memories are fickle. The more that I learn, the more I understand myself in new ways. I learn things that change how I see what I saw, feel about what I felt, and know what I knew. The world changes around me as I change within the world. 

It is normal for me to pause when reading scripture. I pause to try to understand better, to reflect, and to contemplate what other passages or experiences might relate. I paused after reading today’s passage in Genesis. In short, Jacob stops to rest for the night, and he has a dream while he is sleeping. In this dream he saw a ladder going from the earth up to heaven with heavenly beings, angels, going back and forth. His takeaway was that this was unique to where he was, and this land was uniquely holy. Jacob’s dream did not claim or present this as the only place heaven reached into creation. This isn’t even claimed in the way it is presented in Genesis. This was an assumption that Jacob made because of what he saw in his dream, without considering all he could not see. He could not have known what we would see.

In the gospel reading today in Matthew, we return again to a farm. In the parable that Jesus shares, the farmhands sow good seed into the fields. It is after this work is done that weeds were sown alongside the wheat. The owner of the farm tells them to wait until the harvest to separate the wheat they planted from the weeds that are mixed in. The wheat is so precious that to pull out the weeds out early risks harming any of the wheat and would reduce what makes it to harvest.

Thankfully, Jesus explains this parable to his disciples. It is not clear, and the imagery could mean so many things in my life of faith. He tells them that the Son of Man is the one with the good seed that his farmhands sow. That the field is the world, and the good seeds are children of the Kingdom of God. The weeds are the children of the evil one that were put there by the devil. All these children will grow up together, and they will be separated back into the two groups at the end of the age. A simplistic hearing of this explanation makes it sound like each person was either planted as a child of the Kingdom or of evil. That does not make sense.

The same Son of Man was sent to seek and save the lost. For every one of us has been born lost. Every one of us has sinned. Each of my deeds, steps, thoughts, and feelings that Jesus would not have, if He were in my same shoes, is sin because it is not of God. But there is hope. Our wonderful Easter hope that I embrace every day. The goodness of God has found me, adopted me as His child, and called me beloved. There are no limits on the goodness of God towards me and towards us all. It’s why the Apostle Paul wrote in today’s passage from Romans, “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Our God is powerful enough to turn weeds into wheat.

So the parable is not telling me that I was born either evil or good. It is not telling me that my neighbors are either evil or good. It is telling me that one day my life will end. There will be a harvest. That our God does not cut down evil in their youth. One look around our world and we see that this is true. I was also young once and was not yet a child of the Kingdom. I am so grateful that God gives me the time to grow and become.

In the parable, it is clear that Jesus is compassionate. He has love for the children of the Kingdom. He wants nothing to harm them or to keep them from growing. I think it is also clear that He has hope for those who are not yet children. Just as there was a time in my life I was not yet a child of the Kingdom. None of us were born into this Kingdom. We each were adopted. I was adopted. This brings the Kingdom of this new family into our lives. The Kingdom of Heaven flickers and sparks into and out of our present reality as we walk with Jesus. As I love God. As I love my neighbors. As I pray. As I fast. As I return to the Eucharist once again.

I, too, have dreams of heaven. Like Jacob, I can imagine the coming and going of angels where heaven touches earth. I can see something that Jacob could not. I know something that Jacob could not imagine. That the fullness of God in the Holy Spirit dwells within me and within countless others. The Holy Spirit will dwell in countless more people who have yet to draw their first breath. That our God is tenderly looking after his field as more and more weeds become wheat. Heaven enters and touches creation every day in millions of ways. The God that Jacob built a monument to has come to us and made a home within me and you.

May you see yourself and others through the compassionate eyes of Jesus.

Readings for the 16^th Sunday of Ordinary Time · Year A

Sunday readings according to the Revised Common Lectionary.

Photo Credit
Paul Prins on 23 December 2005 in Rome, Italy