When we lived in the country in Washington County we lived near a small farming community called Greenvine. You have to love that name, Greenvine. Just hearing it gives you a sense that this broad area of farmers and ranchers produces an abundant crop. Green must be the vine and everything else that grows their.
I particularly enjoyed two times in our growing season there on the farm. First was when it was time to prepare the soil and plant the seed and second was the time for the harvest.
In between there was the usual need for watering and weeding and waiting. I anticipated with great expectation as I watched for the new growth I hoped would come. But I really enjoyed the bounty, the harvest.
Actually the whole family enjoyed our little time for harvest heaven. Small though it was in comparison to some, we loved that time in our garden there at the farm. Harvest time for us was a full on family affair.
I remember we grew corn, black eyed peas, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, melons and even okra a few times. With the call for help with the picking there came a rush and scurry and a great slam from the back porch screen door. You remember those don’t you, screen doors?
Everyone had their job and we would gather pails and bags and grubbing hoes and whatever the crop of the moment required. Potatoes were probably the most fun to dig for. It was as if every turning of the fork brought up candy or something sweet. The kids thought it was the best. I can still see their bright faces as I turned up the next potato plant for them to dig under. Sometimes there were 4 or 5 potatoes, sometimes many more. We always had a contest to see who would find the biggest one. The digging was ferocious! I often could not keep up!
Corn was fun too. The trouble with corn was the surprise of a worm or two when you pulled the shuck away! We could always count on worm inspired squeals when we shucked the corn!
The parable of the weeds growing with the wheat we read this morning follows last Sundays parable of the Sower and his seeming waste at slinging seed everywhere at once. These parables are in a greater section of Matthew detailing the conflict between Jesus and his opponents among the leaders of Israel. To our first century brethren there is special meaning in these stories for at the time they felt their future was being threatened by hostile opponents. Evil lurked in their midst.
It is not difficult for us to connect to these same stories known so long ago. We find comfort in them for they are the stories of everyday life. We too have lived them.
Our first century brethren had planted good seed before and they knew about growing crops. They also knew, no matter how careful they were with their soil preparation and planting, weeds would come. Through these recognized and common experiences Jesus was adept at teaching special deeper meanings. He teaches that if we will open our eyes to the obvious, to the familiar everyday life that is around us, we will experience an amazing truth. We will have a glimpse of the kingdom of God.
Opening our eyes to this morning’s parable we learn many things.
First, we learn there are two plantings. Both the wheat and the weeds are the result of an intentional activity that brings them to stand together in the field.
Second, we learn it is only when the disciples are alone with Jesus that they ask what the parable means. And he teaches them. The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest will come at the end of the age, and the reapers, the harvesters, will be angels.
Third, we are reminded first to not judge fellow members of our community, those we presume to be weeds. Then we are commanded to leave them alone. The separation of authentic members of the covenant community from false members is God’s business. Jesus almost seems to view the world as a field for conflict with competing claims by two kingdoms, one good and of God, the other evil and of Satan.
Finally, we learn the harvest time is critical to the bounty.
In the parable the servants want to begin immediately pulling the weeds. Their master forbids it. They may do more harm than good, he tells them. Wait, he commands. Wait until the harvest and at that time another group, the reapers, the angels, will gather the grain and separate the weeds for burning.
A good lesson, taught by the garden, is to learn when the potatoes are ready to harvest. You cannot know just by looking at the surface, you have to dig deeper. It is at the deeper level we find sustaining and lasting nutrition from the harvesting.
What then might we be missing about this morning’s parable? There is, after all, an enemy in our garden. It is as if Jesus is presenting us with the haunting question, “Why does evil exist?”
Jesus tells us that the enemy has come and gone. The enemy need not hang around. But it is clear, evil exists. Why evil exists is a tricky question. When life is rocking along and things are going well we seldom give evil a passing thought. But, up close, shaken by the evil in our world, immediate and sustainable answers elude us.
Ever our patient teacher, Jesus may help us see God’s deeper meaning.
…Perhaps there is evil because it is difficult to decide what is wheat and what is weed and our response should be to allow weeds every chance to change and become wheat.
…Or perhaps evil exists because weed and evil occasionally serve a purpose? I know how impossible this seems. But it is true; many of us have learned valuable lessons when bad things have happened.
…Perhaps it is simply that the weeds remind the wheat what it is and what it is not. Can you think of a really good “bad example”, a person who has done something bad and through their evil decision you were motivated to make a good decision.
Martin Luther, the great leader of the protestant movement, said that we are “at the same time saint and sinner.” We are wheat, indeed, but sometimes we act just like weeds.”
One of the ways we do that is in our persistence to point out the weeds, the evil or bad behavior in other people. We are quick to judge when, in our view, someone is good and when someone is bad or evil.
One of my favorite stories about judgment was told by H. A. Ironside in his book “Illustrations of Bible Truth.” It is the story of a man called Bishop Potter, who was headed for Europe on a great ocean liner. When he boarded the ship he discovered that he was to share his cabin with another passenger. After meeting his new roommate, the bishop went to a crew member to ask is he could place his valuables in the ships safe. He shared, in confidence of course, that judging from the appearance of his roommate he was suspicious of the man’s trustworthiness. The crew member accepted the bishop’s valuables and said, “It’s all right Bishop, I’ll be very glad to take care of them for you. The other man has been up here too, and left his for the same reason!”
The moral of the story is that we are all weeds to someone else! Don’t you know we all have a severe reputation in the eyes of another?
Jesus’ deep rooted parable message to us this morning is that it is not the church’s task to uproot weeds and equally it is not our task to judge one another.
After all, Jesus did not bring justice upon the evil one. All he needed to do was sow the weeds – and pretty soon the wheat gets confused about what it is to be wheat and starts acting like a weed. Luther’s words ring true, we are “at the same time saint and sinner.”
If this were not enough, Jesus reminds us our duty is to do nothing when the weeds grow higher and higher in our lives. We are not to pull them. What we are to do is much harder. Perhaps it’s the most difficult thing a Christian is to do.
We are called by God to forgive, to forgive, and forgive yet again. While the deeper message of this parable tells us to do nothing in RESPONSE to evil we are clearly to do something to PREPARE ourselves for it. We must never relent in our efforts to do good things. Our good seed will keep growing if we tend them until the time of glory, the harvest.
We tend them as we receive the life giving water from our baptism. We tend them as we nourish them with the bread and the cup that feeds our souls with the presence of God during the Lord’s Supper. We take these preventative actions all with an eye to making it more difficult for the enemy to sow the seed that looks like wheat among the good wheat of our lives, our families, our congregation, and our world.
Let us not forget, it is up to God to harvest the good and burn the evil, not us.
Dear ones, we are called to reach out, to love, to be patient with, and to show tolerance toward our enemies. We are called to bring justice and right living in the face of evil as best we can. But we cannot nor will we ever absolutely overcome injustice and violence and pain and suffering. But God can. And God will, in God’s time of course.
The poet, Theodore Roethke, says this about weeds;
“Long live the weeds that overwhelm
My narrow vegetable realm!
The bitter rock, the barren soil
That force the son of man to toil;
All things unholy, marked by curse,
The ugly of the universe.
The rough, the wicked, and the wild
That keep the spirit undefiled.
With these I match my little wit
And earn the right to stand or sit.
Hope, look, create, or drink and die:
These shape the creature that is I.”
The deeply rooted message in today’s parable is a message to forgive the weeds and go about the business of being wheat and bearing fruit and listening to God. For God has complete control. God controls wheat and weed alike and God is in control even when bad things happen. The ultimate victory in this tug of wills belongs to God, and just like the victory of the resurrection following the crucifixion, the ultimate victor is God.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
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Additional resources:
“Pulpit Resource”, Volume 36, Number 3, 2008, pages 13-16.
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