16th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2026

Years ago, when I was serving as the associate pastor at St. Peter's Church in Lowville, I lived with the pastor, Fr. Tim Soucy. Fr. Tim was a wonderful priest and pastor, but he was also an excellent gardener. Every summer he kept a large vegetable garden behind the rectory and took great pride in it. Much of what we ate came straight from that garden.

One afternoon I decided to make a pot of tomato soup. I went out to the garden and picked what I was absolutely convinced was arugula. I chopped it up and added it to the soup.

That evening, Fr. Tim and I sat down together for supper. After a few spoonfuls, he looked into his bowl and asked, "This is really good, but what's this green stuff?"

"Arugula," I replied confidently.

He looked at me and said, "It can't be arugula. All the arugula is gone."

Then he stared into his bowl for a moment and said, "Chris... these are weeds. We're eating weeds."

There was an awkward silence.

Then he took another spoonful, smiled, and said, "You know something? This is really good. I'm going to finish it."

And he did.

The embarrassing part wasn't that I picked weeds. The embarrassing part was how certain I was that I hadn't. I was convinced I knew exactly what I was looking at.

Every time I hear today's Gospel, I think about that bowl of soup.

The weed Jesus is talking about in this parable looked very much like wheat when it was young. It wasn't always easy to tell the difference. That's why the servants don't notice the problem right away. Only when the plants mature do the weeds become apparent.

Yet the servants are convinced they know exactly what to do.

"Do you want us to go and pull them up?"

The master replies, "No. If you pull up the weeds, you might uproot the wheat along with them."

The point is not that weeds are good. The point is that we are often far more confident in our judgments than we should be.

How often do we look at another person and think we know the whole story?

We see someone struggling and assume they'll never change. We see someone who has been away from the Church for years and assume they're lost forever. We see someone at their worst moment and think that's who they are.

But God sees what we cannot.

The Book of Wisdom tells us today that God's power is shown in mercy and patience. He governs with lenience and gives people time for repentance. God doesn't rush to judgment because He sees possibilities that we cannot see.

If someone had looked only at Peter on the night of Jesus' arrest, they would have seen a coward who denied even knowing the Lord. If someone had looked only at Saul before his conversion, they would have seen a persecutor of Christians.

God saw an apostle. God saw a saint.

The truth is that today's Gospel is not only about the people around us. It is also about us.

The field is our own heart.

Every one of us has some wheat and some weeds growing there. We have virtues and faults, strengths and weaknesses, moments of faith and moments of doubt. Yet God does not abandon the field because it is imperfect. He patiently tends it. He nurtures the wheat. He gives us time to grow.

That is why today's Psalm has us pray: "Lord, you are good and forgiving."

Thank God that He is a better gardener than we are.

If God treated us the way we sometimes treat one another—quick to judge, quick to condemn, quick to give up—none of us would stand a chance.

Instead, He is patient. He is merciful. He gives us room to change. He sees not only what we are today but what, by His grace, we can become.

Years later, I still remember that bowl of soup because it taught me something important. Sometimes the difference between the wheat and the weeds is not as obvious as we think. That is why Jesus tells us to leave the final judgment to God, the only one who sees the whole field.

And that is very good news for every one of us. Amen.