When I worked at a local lumber mill several years
ago, part of my duties included grading lumber. By that I mean separating
lumber according to its qualities as determined by both the National Lumber
Grading Authority rules and common sense. In other words, I was separating good
lumber from bad lumber. Some of this was done before the lumber was planed, and
some was done after.
The parable of the weeds and the wheat is a similar
situation. The weeds and the wheat are growing up together, and the servants
want to pull the weeds. This is understandable, because according to Leviticus
19:19, weeds made a field unclean, along with sowing more than one kind of seed
in a field. The master tells the servants to wait until both are fully grown
and ready for harvest, because until that time the weeds and the wheat are
identical in appearance. Also, because the roots of the weeds and wheat are
intertwined, pulling up weeds would also mean pulling up wheat. At harvest
time, the weeds are to be gathered separately, bundled together and used for
fuel, while the wheat is ground into flour.
The parable has some grain of truth (no pun intended!).
In Palestine, a type of weed called darnel grass grows. In its growth and form
it strongly resembles wheat, but it produces either an inferior kind of grain
or none at all. Because of its similarity, it is extremely difficult to
separate from genuine wheat. Also, its taste is very bitter and when eaten
either separately or when mixed with ordinary bread, it causes dizziness.
Jesus and the disciples sowed the good seeds of the
Christian faith in their time, and true Christians are to sow the same seeds
today. In Jesus’ time, as is the case today, the devil and his cronies sow
seeds of evil among the good seeds. In both cases, good and evil produced fruit
together in the same spot.
This parable outlines the course of history from
Jesus’ time to the Day of Judgment. It explains why evil persists all over the
world. It emphasizes the proper way to think about the world and the course of
human history. It also suggests how we as Christians should be investing our
time, talents and energy until Jesus returns. We are to continue sowing the
good seeds of the kingdom until the kingdom begins to be seen wherever we raise
Christ’s banner
We are like the farmer who carefully sows good seed in
the field of our lives. We work hard to raise a good family; make good
relationships; help a loved one battling with a disease; fight for better
schools, healthcare, peace and the environment. If the world was fair, the good
we do would always yield good results, but in many cases the good we work for
looks like it is going to have the life choked out of it by the reality of our
world.
We live in a world where good and evil coexist, and
there’s not much we can do about it. Sure, we can resist evil and temptation, and
we must resist them, but we can’t get rid of them. In fact, it isn’t even our
job to get rid of them. That will be God’s job on Judgment Day. If we try to
get rid of evil on our own, we will fail, because the standards we use to
separate good from evil are much lower than the standards God uses. Also, evil
and good are intertwined in our society. In addition, good is often disguised
as evil, and vice versa.
In the 1600s, the Puritans made a concerted effort to
purge the church of all those who weren’t of pure faith, and so, didn’t belong.
They also tried to remove pagan symbols from celebrations of Christmas and
Easter. In both cases, they failed. After all, if there’s no place in the
church for sinners needing to be accepted and loved, there’s no place for us. The
church needs constant reformation and positive action, including the quest for
holiness, but it must avoid unrealistic purism---what is needed is that elusive
thing called balance. No one is so useless that they can’t be used as a bad
example.
A man was stopped at a traffic light, 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, and by this time she was pounding on the steering wheel and
blowing her horn non-stop. Finally, just as the light turned yellow, the man
woke up and drove through the light. The woman in the second car was beside
herself. Still in 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.”
Many people claim to be followers of God, and they
often fool others into thinking they really are. They speak pretty words---or
at least words that sound pretty to others---and they mislead many. Any
follower of God with experience in the real world, however, knows that talk is
cheap. Only those who produce fruit that is consistent with their claims to be
followers of God can be trusted. Are we walking the walks or merely talking the
talk? What about those who put themselves up as leaders? Think back to the
cases of evangelists such as Jim Baker and Jimmy Swaggart. In both cases, these
so-called men of God were brought down by the evil weeds of greed and lust.
Sometimes even so-called experts and people who should
know better can’t predict how things are going to turn out. An expert
evaluating a potential football coach said of him, “He possesses minimal
football knowledge and lacks motivation”. He was talking about Vince Lombardi,
who, though he lacked motivation, was the successful football coach quoted for
saying, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Eighteen publishers
turned down a story about a seagull written by Richard Bach, but “Jonathan Livingston
Sea Gull” was finally published in 1970, and in five years it sold more than 7
million copies. After Fred Astaire’s screen test, the evaluating director
wrote, “Can’t act, slightly bald, can dance a little.”
Even parents can’t always judge their own children’s
abilities. Louisa May Alcott, known for the classic “Little Women,” was
encouraged by her parents to find work as a servant or seamstress. Parents
today are sometimes the same, even if their intentions are good. Then again,
parents are human, not gods. They don’t always know if their children will turn
out to be angels such as Mother Teresa or Desmond Tutu, or a mass murderer.
The Kingdom of God is a mixed bag in which weeds and
wheat grow together, side by side, and we can’t always tell them apart. We will
always have evil among us. It is not our job to weed evil out because we don’t
see the hearts of people we judge as being evil. Our job is to take care of
ourselves, to take heed and make sure we are true believers and not hypocrites.
Good and evil will both grow stronger until God judges the world and all evil
is destroyed. God answers to no authority, but he will deal gently with people
until Judgment Day in order to set an example for his people. On the Day of
Judgment, God will deal with the counterfeit Christians and those he judges to
be evil and unrepentant at the same time.
As Christians we are to practice forgiveness and
patience. Revenge (in this case, pulling the weeds) resolves nothing, but only
increases evil. Judgment and criticism run rampant in our world. For example,
many of you might remember the children’s TV show called “The Muppets”. Two of
the characters were the two old men who sat up in the balcony every week and
heckled and criticized the jokes and performances, but they always returned for
the next show. Unfortunately, there are Christians who act the same way. They
see many flaws, but they show up week after week. They point out the flaws in
other Christians or church programs, but they do not volunteer themselves to
help everyone see how it could be done better.
If we try to judge others and get rid of evil, we run
the risk of going against Jesus’ advice to not be concerned about the speck of
dirt in our neighbour’s eye when we have a plank in our own eye. To do so might
give us a “holier than thou” attitude. Judging others is a sin in God’s eyes. In our own lives, there might be more weeds
than we care to admit, and getting rid of them is easier said than done. For
example, those of you who, like my mother, do knitting as a hobby know what it
is like to unravel several rows of knitting to fix a mistake.
The more we think we know about who can safely be
called an evildoer beyond redemption, the more we prove ourselves to be not
only inept gardeners, but immature weeds. But those who are mature know who
they are, and they know who they’re not. The mature know that they are not the
judge of the nations because they know the judge personally. It’s Jesus. And we’re
not Jesus, as we know when we’re following him.
The devil and his helpers will try to capture our
affections, pollute our minds, corrupt our godly priorities and infest our
every practice. They will infect our work with an obsession for self-advancement,
and will replace interest in Kingdom endeavors with distractions and
diversions. They will try to persuade us that we are better to enjoy
entertainment and fun than the hard work of spreading the Good News.
The kingdom begins when Jesus sows the good seed and
draws people to him, but the devil always tries to work against him. The
harvest will take place when Christ comes again at the end of the age. The
kingdom of God and the Gospel of that Kingdom come with spiritual violence
against the world’s weapons of unbelief. In the power of the Spirit and Word of
God, every opposing force will collapse under the advancing weight and thrust
of the realm of grace and truth of Christ.
Sometimes weeds spring up that we didn’t have anything
to do with. When that happens, we must focus on God’s goodness, and not on the
problem that caused the weed to spring up in the first place. We can do this
through faith in the Son of God. It is his love that binds us to him and
protects us from the evil one.
Loving the sinner and hating the sin means being
tolerant of those who are different from us. Loving the sinner and hating the
sin means calling people into accountability for their actions, but always
being willing to forgive. It means affirming the good in people, instead of
always looking for the bad…and of all places; this ought to be true in the
church because it is so seldom true in the world.
This is a parable about mercy. While the forces of
good and evil will be sorted out some day, there is still time for change until
that day comes. It is a story about grace, patience and hope. Don’t we often
look back on our own mistakes and become thankful that we had time to change
and make amends? Aren’t we glad that God gave us the chance and the help we needed
to work things out?
1.
The
Rev. Donald Lawton, “A Call to Move On”. Speech delivered on Friday, May 27,
2011 at the 143rd Synod of the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince
Edward Island.
2.
Charles
F. Stanley Life Principles Bible, NASV
3.
Jude
Siciliano, OP, “First Impressions, 16th Sunday (A)”. Retrieved from www.preacherexchange.org
4.
T.M.
Moore, “What Kind of World?” Retrieved from www.colsoncenter.org
5.
Joel
Osteen, “When Weeds Spring Up”. Retrieved from www.joelosteen.com
6.
T.M.
Moore, “The Good Seed”. Retrieved from www.colsoncenter.org
7.
T.M.
Moore, “Your View of History Matters”. Retrieved from www.colsoncenter.org
8.
Greg
Laurie, “Wheat and tares”. Retrieved from www.crosswalkmail.com
9.
T.M.
Moore, “The Struggle for Supremacy”. Retrieved from www.colsoncenter.org
10.
Barnes’
Notes on the New Testament-Matthew 13:24-30. Part of Wordsearch Bible Software
package.
11.
The
Rev. Dr. Billy Graham, “Is the World More Hostile to Christians?” Retrieved
from www.arcamax.com
12.
Greg
Laurie, “Time Will Tell”. Retrieved from www.crosswalkmail.com
13.
Chris
Haslam, “Comments, 10th Sunday after Pentecost-July 20, 2008”.
Retrieved from http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/archive/apr16m.shhtml
14.
Girardian
Reflections, Year A. Retrieved from www.girardianlectionary.net/year_a/proper11a.htm
15.
Preaching
Peace. Retrieved from www.preachingpeace.org/lectionaries/yeara-proper11./
16.
Sarah
Dylan Breuer, “Proper 11, Year A”. Retrieved from www.sarahlaughed.net/lectionary/2005/07/proper_11_year_html
17.
Saturday
Night Theologian, 20 July 2008. Retrieved from www.progressivetheology.org/SNT/SNY-2008.07.20.html
18.
The
Rev. Dr. Joanna Adams, “Why Can’t We Pull Up the Weeds?” Retrieved from www.day1.org
19.
The
Rev. Charles Hoffacker, “Let Both of Them Grow Together”. Retrieved from www.sermonwriter.org
20.
Pastor
Steve Molin, “Mom, Where DO Weeds Come From?” Retrieved from www.sermonwriter.org
21.
Dr.
Philip W. McLarty, “The Parable of the Wheat and Tares”. Retrieved from www.sermonwriter.org
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