ESV Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
24 He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27 And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?' 28 He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' 29 But he said, 'No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"
36 Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field." 37 He answered, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed is the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40 Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, 42 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
Sermon
“Change Your Focus”
This parable of the wheat and the tares makes me think of a story that circulated by email. A man was stopped, waiting for the light to turn green. When the light changed, he was distracted and he didn't budge. The woman in the car behind him honked her horn. He still didn't move. She honked again. By this time, she was pounding on the steering wheel and blowing her horn non-stop. Finally, just as the light turned yellow, the fellow in the first car woke up and drove through the light. The woman in the second car was beside herself. Still mid-rant, she heard a tap on her car window. She looked up to see the face of a police officer. "Lady, you're under arrest," he said. "Get out of the car. Put your hands up." He took her to the police station, had her finger printed, photographed, and then put her in a holding cell. Hours passed. The officer returned and unlocked the cell door. He escorted her back to the booking desk. "Sorry for the mistake, Lady," he said. "But I pulled up behind you as you were blowing your horn and cursing out the fellow in front of you. I noticed the stickers on your bumper. One read "Follow me to Sunday School." The other, "What Would Jesus Do?" So, naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car. Are we wheat or are we weeds in the field disguised as wheat?
There are lots of folks who when they look at this parable, think it’s just a rehashing of what Jesus said about the sheep and the goats, and they conclude that Jesus is talking about how when he returns in glory he is going to separate the good from the bad. But I don’t believe that that’s the point he was trying to communicate. What Jesus is proposing is something more radical. Most farmers would sooner plow under a bad crop and start over, than try to separate the seed at harvest. But Jesus is concerned that none of the good harvest gets lost; and I think that is where we begin to understand the story.
In my own life, I have had a lot of difficulty trying to decide who the sheep are and who the goats are, who is a good seed and who is a weed. There are many days when I feel more like a goat or a weed. It’s too easy for us to separate humanity into two groups them and us; the good and the bad. In reality, life is not like that. Most of us are made up of both good and bad. In our own lives we have weeds growing among the wheat. Our world is a place where both good and bad seed have been sown, and we don’t always know what wheat has been sown in the most weed-filled garden. That’s where we begin today with Jesus’ concern to not lose any of the good wheat.
Pat Green told me one day, don’t worry about killing the weeds; but give enough water and fertilizer and the good grass in our yard would push out the weeds. If we have the attitude of Christ we will concentrate our energies on the positive, and this will keep us from making some bad judgment calls and removing some wheat with the weeds. There are times that what we call weeds turn out to be something else. Jesus' parable takes the responsibility for the pulling the weeds out of our hands.
The weeds that the enemy had sown were known as bearded darnel. If this plant was consumed it could cause dizziness or nausea. Darnel looks very much like wheat until it is ripe. That is why no one realized that anything was wrong until “the wheat sprouted and formed heads”. As soon as the servants realized what had happened they wanted to pull up the weeds immediately, but the owner told them that they must wait until the harvest. You see, the owner knew that his servants could not infallibly distinguish between the wheat and the weeds yet and so they were told to wait in order to insure the safety of the true wheat. So his servants had to exercise patience. Likewise, we cannot infallibly judge between a true Christian and someone who merely professes to be a Christian with their bumper stickers. Our human judgment is faulty and so we have to wait patiently for God to be the judge.
The Great Commission tells us that we are to carry the gospel of Jesus the Christ to the world. We are called to issue invitations for people to live the only life for which they were created. Christians should be known for carrying good news, the gospel itself, out into the world. Disciples of Jesus have so many positive things to say that there should be little time for braying about the bad or droning on forever about the dangers.
This is not to say that turning your life over to Christ turns your mind off to the world's injustices. In Jesus' parable of the wheat and the weeds, the patient farmer is not blind to the weeds growing in his field. He can easily tell a weed from a wheat stalk. How to deal with these intrusive weeds is the question he faces, not whether they really exist.
Along with this we need to recognize that there are gray areas. Did you know that the Bible speaks about these gray areas? Romans 14:1 says, “As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.” Christian harmony should not depend on one hundred percent agreement on all matters pertaining to the Christian life. I think that our motto should be, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity”.
The farmer in this parable wisely decides that it is better to leave the weeds growing among the wheat until harvest time, so that the tender roots of the growing wheat stalks are not hurt by trying to rip the weeds out of the growing field. We know weeds when we see them. Or do we? In nature, the distinction between what is a "weed" and what is a useful, valuable plant is less clear than you may think. A dandelion growing in your yard is a weed. But a dandelion growing in your garden is a delicate flavorful green. Ivy scaling a brick chimney can threaten the stability of the mortar. But ivy carefully trained up a trellis adds beauty. In nature, you can never quite tell what might issue from a weed. While we were in California we never had a salad that was made with iceberg lettuce, they all had greens that looked like someone picked them out of their back yard. I would have called them weeds. The same is true in the garden of humanity as well, just because it because it doesn’t look too appetizing doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not edible or healthy. Remember that in his explanation of this parable, Jesus defines the field of weeds and wheat as our world. We share our world with people just like us, a combination of good and bad. Although some of us have a relationship with the owner of the field and through his grace we have been forgiven, and our job then becomes sharing the good news with a hurting world.
In our own lives we need to nurture the good seed through prayer, reading and meditating on scripture, worship, and fellowship with other believers. If we concern ourselves with what we should be doing then we will not need to worry too much about what we shouldn’t be doing. I think that one of the traps that we fall into is focusing on negative things at the expense of what is truly important. We need to let our good grass push out the weeds.
Jesus doesn’t intend the body of Christ to be a pleasantly potted plant just hanging on a porch free from the encroachment of foreign seeds. Our Lord wants us to focus of our energies on where he calls and guides us. Yes we have to live in the world, among the weeds, and we need to be able to survive and even thrive in the presence of their negative impact and energy. We can by trusting the strength of God and by nurturing ourselves and others through abiding in his Love. Pulling the weeds is not the church's business nor is it ours as individuals. Growing wheat, being salt and light for a hurting world, growing souls is the task of each Christian and each church.
Jim
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