16th Sunday in Ordinary Time
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071926.cfm
In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus tell a parable about slaves working the fields of a slave master. We may be surprised to find him casually using slavery in a teaching story, but it would not have been shocking to a first-century audience. In today’s homily, I will explain what the Bible says about slavery, what it meant to Catholics in the United States in the antebellum period, and apply that example to social injustices that are with us in the world today.
Slavery was ubiquitous in the ancient Mediterranean, including among the Jews who lived in Israel. The Jews had been enslaved in Egypt, and their liberation by God and exodus from bondage is the high point of their national and religious story. Despite this, when they settled in Israel, they began to enslave foreigners themselves.
I wonder, as we reflect on Jesus’ parable, whether we might think of slavery as one of the weeds growing amid the wheat in the field. According to the story, the planter spread only good seed in his field, and an enemy came and spread weeds while everyone was sleeping. The planter instructs the slaves to let the wheat and weeds grow up together until the time of harvest, when they will be separated.
Catholic teaching states that slavery is an objective evil that is wrong in all times and places.
To be a slave meant being owned as a thing and not recognized or treated as a person with human rights and dignity. It meant being legally subject to violence by an enslaver or even a stranger at any time.
Last month, Pope Leo XIV, in his first encyclical letter Magnifica Humanitas, called slavery “a wound in Christian memory.” He apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in slavery and noted that in our history, “many [Catholic] individuals and even ecclesiastical institutions had slaves,” which was true here in Kentucky. He said that popes helped “to regulate and legitimize forms of subjugation,” including “the enslavement of [so-called] ‘infidels.’” This was driven during a time of European colonization when “economic needs overcame the demands of the Gospel.” It was not until 1888 that an “absolute and universal condemnation of slavery was clearly articulated” in the Catholic Church by Pope Leo XIII (176-177).
It took almost nineteen centuries for the Church to recognize slavery as a weed that needed to be uprooted from the garden, thrown on the fire, and burned. Why did it take so long? I think that there are three different kinds of weeds or injustices growing in the world. Each of these three requires a different approach.
The first is a mimic weed. In the parable, Jesus describes a weed called darnel that looks identical to wheat as both grow in the field. This mimic weed only becomes evident when the seedheads of both plants begin to form. Jesus’ instruction is to study the plants, to wait, and to only act at the harvest to avoid uprooting the good crops. For injustices in the world that we don’t understand, it is best to step back, mark them with paint, and be watchful. For example, in his new encyclical, Pope Leo says that artificial intelligence has the potential to create new forms of slavery in the world, but we have not seen its fruits yet. Uprooting it prematurely could have worse consequences than trying to cultivate or control it.
The second type is an invasive weed like honeysuckle or bamboo. It is intractable and aggressive, and needs to be cut back regularly, but its roots are tenacious and deep. An example of this might be xenophobia, or the fear of foreigners. In modern history, we have seen frequent refugee crises like the Irish Potato Famine. These crises are sometimes met with hostility and violence towards refugees, as we saw in Louisville with the Bloody Monday riots in 1855. Our Church teaches that welcoming refugees is a fundamental moral duty, and the weed of xenophobia needs to be continually uprooted unless it completely takes over.
The third type is a weed that looks indestructible but actually isn’t. In my backyard, I am battling a weed called the Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima). Uprooting it makes the infestation worse. The root system is incredibly deep and extensive; if you pull or chop it, the tree panics, sending out dozens of aggressive root suckers. It takes imagination and a new strategy to defeat it. Slavery fits into this category. I am sure that many people couldn't imagine a world without slavery before it was ended. Such a world was impossible. Now it is difficult to imagine it existing in our world or finding a person who would justify it.
We should ask ourselves today, what forms of injustice look impossible to uproot, but like slavery, are actually in our power to eradicate? Out of many possibilities, I am going to suggest just one weed: poverty. There are enough resources on this planet for every human being to live a fulfilled, happy life free from want. It should shock our consciences that there is desperate poverty even in our own country, the richest in world history, while the wealthy accumulate billions and even trillions of dollars.
We are called to be workers in the garden of the Lord, cultivating the crops so that they might bear good fruit, and judiciously eliminating weeds. Let us continue to work and pray that the Lord will find us doing our part to usher in his Kingdom.
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