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The scriptures today are calling out to us to recognize and embrace God’s leniency in His judgment of us. How blessed we truly are to be loved unconditionally. That doesn’t mean He is okay with our bad choices, bad choices have consequences, but it does mean He wants to give us every opportunity to repent and correct ourselves.

God continuously aids us by sending us the Holy Spirit to help us with our weaknesses. His mercy triumphs over harsh judgment. He not only wants us to correct our sinful behavior but to also love unconditionally and be a beacon to others to help guide them to Him, the source of all love. How God loves us is a model for us to follow in how we love others.

How well do we measure up to living our lives in the image and likeness of God which He has created us to be? In our society we call out for justice, but that can be twisted by the evil one to deceive us as to what is truly right and just. We struggle with how we see others and how we want ourselves to be seen. We are called to see through the eyes of Christ. This is something we all fall short of. We as a people are more prone to harsh judgment of others than God is, but for ourselves we want leniency for our faults and we beg God for His mercy and forgiveness of our sins.

Let’s use the word crime or sin interchangeably. Do you feel that there is any possible human failing, which is considered a crime or a sin, that a person could commit that would not warrant a second chance? Now keep in mind a second chance does not negate just and rightful sentencing of a crime or remittance of a sin. We are responsible for our actions. But when someone has repented and done their time, do we give them a second chance?

I am sure that there are those that we feel have done gut-wrenching wrongs that we would put into the category of not warranting a second chance. We may feel that they are irredeemable. We know that not everyone chooses to live as God prescribes. Hence at the final judgment our eternity is either heaven or hell.

Remember the statement where there is life, there is hope. This is the message in the Gospel today. God does not give up on us. He does not only give us a second chance but in Matthew 18:22 regarding how many time we should forgive someone, Jesus stated: “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” He gives us every opportunity to repent our sins and make the changes in our lives that lead us away from future sins. He does not treat us as irredeemable.

You may say, God knows what choices we will make in our lives. Yes, He knows who will choose the wrong path, but that doesn’t mean He isn’t going to do all He can to give us every opportunity to make the right choices. It is our free will choices that will ultimately lead to our self imposed final judgment.

This is made clear in the Gospel when the slaves told the master that weeds were growing with the wheat and they asked the master if they should pull them out. The master replied, “Let them grow together until harvest, then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, ‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

The key here is that God allows the good and bad to coexist, giving the same chance for each and every one of us to make the changes in our lives to live according to God’s commandments. He is just and lenient to all. He loves all of us and wants no one to turn away from Him. Ultimately our salvation is up to us. Hence at the final judgment the wicked and the righteous will be separated out the same way as in the Gospel today the weeds will be separated from the wheat.

God’s justice will ultimately be served. But He will give us every opportunity to repent before the harvest as He is a loving and merciful God. Now let’s apply that to ourselves. Can we be loving and merciful like God? Can we be merciful towards those that have sinned against us? We must live among the weeds, the sinners, but will they rub off on us or we on them?

If you consider yourself wheat be careful not to fall into the mindset of the Pharisee in Luke 18:11 as he spoke to God saying: “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous.” The reality is that we ourselves are sometimes wheat and sometimes weed. Which one are we at any moment? Which are we right now? We oscillate between the two. We are not to fool ourselves that there is an “us” and a “them”. We are not to pass judgment on sinners as we would not want judgment passed onto us. As we beg for mercy for ourselves we should also asks for God’s loving mercy on those that do us wrong. As Jesus said on the cross in Luke 23:34: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”

Only God is the judge. We are called to be the light of Christ shining onto those that sin to help them make the right choices that will lead them to God. But we must be honest with ourselves as well. We must humbly acknowledge that we also sin. Once we realize that we cannot do this on our own and need to rely on Christ’s help, we can embrace 2 Corinthians 12:10 which states: “… for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Once we recognize the weeds within ourselves, through our loving mercy we can show those that have gone astray the way to Christ, to recognize their own weeds so they too can also recognize the loving mercy of God. Wheat or weed, redeemable or irredeemable, lenient or harsh, forgive or condemn, the image and likeness of God or not, where do you stand today, where do you want to stand at the final judgment? What changes are needed in your life?

Whoever has ears ought to hear.