Sunday, July 19, 2026
“Those Who Are Just Must Be Kind”
Wisdom 12:13, 16–19 · Psalm 86 · Romans 8:26–27 · Matthew 13:24–43
There is a weed that grows in the wheat fields of the Middle East so cunning the ancients called it a counterfeit wheat. We call it darnel. In its early weeks it is nearly indistinguishable from the good grain, and only when the heads appear does the imposter reveal itself — by which time its roots have wound so tightly around the roots of the wheat that to pull up the one is to pull up the other. Every farmer who first heard our Lord’s parable knew the dilemma, and knew the householder’s counsel was hard-won wisdom: “Let them grow together until harvest.” Patience is not weakness; sometimes it is the only wisdom there is.
Consider the book from which our first reading is drawn. The Book of Wisdom was written in Greek, in Alexandria, perhaps a century before Christ, by a Jewish sage addressing his own people — a minority living in the shadow of a hostile culture, tempted to conclude that power belonged to the empire and that their faith was a relic of a smaller world. To them the sage offers his meditation on the power of God, and here is its paradox: “For your might is the source of justice; your mastery over all things makes you lenient to all.”
That line overturns nearly everything the ancient world — and much of ours — believes about power. In the logic of empires, might is the source not of justice but of domination; the insecure ruler lashes out because he is never certain of his throne. But the God of Israel is so completely sovereign that he has no need to prove himself by cruelty. Precisely because he is almighty, he can afford to be merciful: “though you are master of might, you judge with clemency, and with much lenience you govern us.” Mercy is not the opposite of power. Mercy is what power looks like when it has nothing left to prove.
And then the sage draws the moral that stopped me this week: “You taught your people, by these deeds, that those who are just must be kind.” God’s own way of exercising justice is meant to be our schooling. We learn to be just by watching how God is just — with room left for repentance, the door held open, what an older theology called interpretatio benigna, the kindly reading extended even to those who have not earned it. Justice without kindness is only vengeance wearing a robe.
Which brings us to the parable, and to a word I hear even good Christians use as though it were Christian: karma. It is not. Karma is an impersonal law — a cosmic ledger by which every deed returns to its doer, coldly, without mercy and without appeal. I understand its appeal, especially when we have been wronged; we want the universe to balance the books. But the parable of the wheat and the weeds is something far greater, and far more searching, than karma.
Yes, there is a reckoning. Let no one preach a Gospel so soft that it forgets the harvest. At the end, our Lord says, “the Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers.” There is such a thing as divine justice, and those who spend a lifetime deaf to the wisdom of God’s word will not discover, at the harvest, that it never mattered.
But here is the difference from karma, and it is everything: the judgment is not a mechanism. It is held in the hands of a Person — and a merciful one. The harvest is deferred. Why does the householder not act at once, as the servants beg him to? For the same reason the God of Wisdom governs with lenience: to leave room for repentance. Every day the harvest is delayed is a day of grace, in which a weed might yet, by grace, become wheat. Karma cannot forgive; karma cannot convert. Only a living and merciful God can look upon the counterfeit grain and say: Not yet — give it time — it may yet be saved.
Notice, too, whom the Lord does not trust with the sorting — us. “Do you want us to go and pull them up?” There is real zeal in the question, but the answer is no. We cannot tell, in this life, the wheat from the weeds with certainty; the roots are intertwined, and every attempt to purify the field tears up as much good as bad. And — let us be honest — the line between wheat and weed does not run tidily between us and them. It runs through the middle of each of us. On my best days I am a mixed field; so are you. If God pulled the weeds this morning, which of us would be certain of standing at noon?
So what does God do with a field like that — like your soul and mine? He waits. He tends. He sends, as Saint Paul tells us this morning, his own Spirit to intercede within us “with inexpressible groanings” when we do not know how to pray as we ought. The patience that stays the master’s hand is giving you and me the one thing we most need: time — to repent, to let the good grain grow strong. The door is still open. But it will not stand open forever, and the wisdom of the saints is simply this: to become wheat now, while it is still today.
We see the sage’s paradox take flesh in Jesus Christ, who possessed all power in heaven and on earth and revealed it not from a throne but from a cross — the just one who was kind, powerful enough to forgive the men who drove the nails. That is greatness in the kingdom of God: not domination, not the satisfying sorting of the world into friends and enemies, but justice wedded to kindness, strength that stoops to save, patience that waits and hopes until the harvest.
And if that is how God is powerful, it is how we are called to be powerful too — in our families, our arguments, our common life, wherever we are tempted to yank up the weeds and be done with it. The Lord asks the harder, holier thing: to be just, and therefore kind; to leave the harvest to him; and to spend the time we are given becoming the good grain he can gather, at the last, into his barn.
May the God whose might is the source of all justice make us, his people, both just and kind. Amen.
The Pope is a Shepherd, Not Just Head of State
The Vatican has clarified the role of the Pope in the wake of a controversial statement by US Ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch. The Holy Father’s “one true mission” is to be a spiritual shepherd who proclaims the Gospel. Any other roles he plays, including his position as a head of state, are in service to this mission and must not be interpreted as superseding it.
The clarification – which did not mention the ambassador directly – came after interviews during which Burch suggested that Pope Leo XIV was speaking as a head of state rather than as a spiritual leader, when he said that the war with Iran is unjust. The implication of this statement was that Pope Leo’s teaching on this issue is only as authoritative as the opinions of other world leaders and Catholics do not need to view them as having spiritual significance.
In contrast, the Vatican News editorial – which, America Magazine confirmed, was approved “at the higher levels in the Vatican” – clearly states that the Pope is head of the Vatican state in order to prevent him being swayed by the influence of a ruling power, but his sole mission is sharing of the Gospel:
When he calls for human life to be respected and protected at every stage of its existence, when he speaks of peace with the good of all peoples in mind and calls for an end to the mad arms race—even going beyond the concept of a ‘just war’—when he calls for dialogue and negotiation by invoking the Magisterium of Social Doctrine, when he calls for migrants to be regarded as people to be welcomed, without ever forgetting their human dignity; when he reminds us that the poor are at the heart of the Gospel and that we must build more just and equitable societies; when he defends the right to religious freedom; when he emphasizes the importance of caring for Creation so that we may pass it on to our children and grandchildren—the Successor of Peter is not speaking as a head of state. He is simply proclaiming the Gospel.
Consequently, Catholics should view the Holy Father’s words as the teachings of the Vicar of Christ and should consider that they bear the weight of such teachings. To do otherwise is, as Msgr. Arthur Holquin wrote, “A grave thing.”
While most of the coverage of the Vatican’s response has focused on its emphasis on the Pope as a spiritual shepherd, the response raised an additional issue that is especially pertinent in today’s world. At a time when Christian nationalism is increasingly embraced, the Vatican reiterated that freedom from state influence is necessary to share the Gospel most effectively. Quoting Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, the Vatican’s response reminded a world that is quick to embrace political power at the expense of Church teaching, that it was only with the collapse of the Papal States in 1870 “that the papacy ‘resumed with unusual vigor its functions as teacher of life and witness to the Gospel.’”
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San Diego Japanese Christian Church 07.19.2026
We call this SoNoGo - South Park-North Park-Golden Hill & Our Mission: to see the baptized who live in SoNoGo worship in SoNoGo
San Diego Japanese Christian Church
OMS Holiness Church of North America
San Diego Japanese Christian Church (SDJCC) is here to share the good news that a dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord is the key to abundant living in today’s world. Our church was founded as an outreach to Japanese speaking farmers in San Diego County over 80 years ago. SDJCC now has English and Japanese speaking ministries. It’s easy to miss, tucked away at the elbow of 19th and E streets just above Interstate 5: the Japanese American Christian Church in Golden Hill. You’d most likely drive past this humble place of worship on the way up Broadway without noticing it, but if you happened to be on a stroll down E Street looking at the nice old houses, you’d stumble upon it after the bigger homes give way to a series of California bungalows. It’s there before E turns right into 19th. Across the street from the church, a chain-link fence lines the sidewalk above the 5 where the homeless set up camp on a regular basis before they are swept out and relocated only to return again when the police shift their attention elsewhere. Historically, the church itself is a product of a relocation of a different sort. As my City College colleague, historian Susan Hasegawa informed me, it was originally founded as the Japanese Holiness Church by Christian Nikkei (immigrants and their descendents) in 1930 and located on Newton Avenue. Sponsored by the Oriental Mission Society, the church focused its efforts on outreach to Issei (first generation immigrant) farmers.
Trinity North Park
We call this SoNoGo - South Park-North Park-Golden Hill & Our Mission: to see the baptized who live in SoNoGo worship in SoNoGo
Trinity United Methodist Church
Trinity United Methodist Church has been part of the North Park community since 1915, bringing warmth and connection to our neighbors for over 100 years. We seek to KNOW, LOVE, and SERVE God and our neighbors through study, worship, community events, outreach and service projects, and having fun together! We'd love to have you join us as we grow in faith and love here in North Park.
Christ United Presbyterian San Diego 07.19.2026
We call this SoNoGo - South Park-North Park-Golden Hill & Our Mission: to see the baptized who live in SoNoGo worship in SoNoGo
Christ United Presbyterian Church of San Diego
What Is The Presbyterian Church (USA)
Christ United Presbyterian Church is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Rev. Dr. Kerry Allison is the pastor of this parish church in South Park. We were established in 1981 when an invitation was extended to two churches—Brooklyn Heights Presbyterian, established in 1921 and the Golden Hill Presbyterian, established in 1956—to merge and each church accepted. The late Reverend Doctor George Walker Smith founded Golden Hill Presbyterian Church in 1956 with support from the Presbyterian Women organization. The church, located at 22nd and Market in South Park, became a human rights leader in San Diego as the congregation grew. Reverend Smith was the first black school board member in San Diego. May he rest in peace and rise in glory. Christ United continues its ministry in power and presence to the present day. All are welcome to join us in worship and togetherness.
Makers Church 07.19.2026
We call this SoNoGo - South Park-North Park-Golden Hill & Our Mission: to see the baptized who live in SoNoGo worship in SoNoGo
Southern Baptists Explained in 2 Minutes
Makers church was founded in 2010 as MOSAIC San Diego. In 2017 we became Makers Church. Two years later, in another act of faith, Makers Church and North Park Baptist, a dynamic community with almost 100 years of legacy and ministry, chose to merge into something beautiful and new.
Renew San Diego 07.19.2026
We call this SoNoGo - South Park-North Park-Golden Hill & Our Mission: to see the baptized who live in SoNoGo worship in SoNoGo
What is the Reformed Church in America?
Since Easter of 2018 we’ve met weekly on Sundays and developed our capacity to serve our neighbors, especially those in great need spiritually, physically or emotionally. At Renew, you’ll find a community that reflects the diversity of center-city San Diego. We welcome and include people of every ethnicity and culture, believing and unbelieving (most of us a mixture of these), wealthy and poor, inclusive of sexual orientation and marital status.
North Park Presbyterian Church 07.19.2026
We call this SoNoGo - South Park-North Park-Golden Hill & Our Mission: to see the baptized who live in SoNoGo worship in SoNoGo
North Park Presbyterian Church
Presbyterian Church in America (PCA)
North Park Presbyterian is a church committed to Christ and His mission for the glory of God and the good of the world. NPP started as a church plant in 2014 with the vision to see people come to know and love Jesus throughout San Diego. We believe Jesus accomplishes his mission in the world through preaching the gospel, planting churches, and loving our neighbors. Pastor Adriel was ordained in 2013 after graduating from Westminster Seminary in California. He served as an assistant pastor prior to planting NPP. Alongside pastoring NPP, Pastor Adriel is the host of a daily call-in Bible answer program called Core Christianity. You can listen to it at www.corechristianity.com/radio. North Park Presbyterian Church is a part of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). The PCA is a Reformed Christian denomination that places a high emphasis on the teachings of the Bible.
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