Sermon: Seeing the Weeds and the Wheat - April 30, 2006

Matthew 13:24-30

     Where did these weeds come from?  Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to grow weeds than to grow grass, or flowers, or wheat?  When we see the weeds in our gardens or our grass we usually pull them up or we spray to kill them.  We attack the weeds! 

     As we might expect, in today’s parable, Jesus suggests a different approach in dealing with the weeds!  Remember, parables are not allegories.  Each aspect and detail of a parable does not take on some particular meaning. Jesus’ parable stories are for the purpose of sharing a spiritual truth, for spiritual enlightenment. 

     Today’s parable begins, “The kingdom of heaven can be compared to…”  People do not agree on what Jesus means when he refers to the kingdom of heaven, to the kingdom of God.  I personally believe that the kingdom of God is wherever God is—which is in each of us.  So for me the kingdom of God is right here.  I also understand that when I die my spirit will be received more fully into God’s presence which is also the kingdom of God.  So I believe that God’s kingdom is present and future. 

     A farmer sows his field with good seed—seed that will produce wheat.  But then there is sabotage!  At night, his enemy sows bad seed that will produce weeds in the same field.  Months go by before anyone is to notice the sabotage; for you see, there is a weed in the Palestine area that resembles wheat, except that it does not produce heads of grain.  Therefore, the weeds can grow undetected for quite some time. 

      When the sabotage is detected the servants ask the owner of the field if they should pull up the weeds.  “No!” says the owner.  “If you do that you will also uproot or damage some of the wheat in the process.  So just let the weeds and the wheat grow together undisturbed.  When we harvest we will separate the two….”  This is the parable!  What is its meaning?  And how are we to apply it in our lives?             

     I do not interpret this parable as my evangelical friends do.  I do not see this as some great separation between the “saved” and the “lost” on judgment day.  I personally believe there is a much more practical spiritual life lesson contained in this parable.  But we will only see it if we accept that we are a part of the kingdom of heaven, of God, right now—that the kingdom is present as much as it is future.

     The weeds and the wheat grow together side-by-side.  And when one messes with the weeds it can disturb the wheat.  So it seems to me that both the weeds and the wheat must be handled gently.  They both must be cared for. 

     Now of course Jesus is not referring to weeds in the field but rather to weeds that grow wherever people are found—at work, at home, at church, even in each individual.  So today we are called upon to see the weeds and the wheat—and to let them grow simultaneously!

     We might think of the weeds and the wheat as good and evil, good and bad, as saint and sinner, as virtues and vices.  Friends, finding weeds in the wheat is an everyday experience.  And if we are shocked by the presence of evil in the midst of goodness then we are just too tender:[1] even naive.  Jesus was not naďve!  

     My friends, believe it or not I am pretty weedy at times!  I am a mixture of virtues and vices, of saint and sinner.  This is not a rationalization for improper behavior or attitude, or even an excuse for saying, “The devil made me do it,” but it is a realization of who I am as created by God.  I cannot deal with the weeds in my life until I first admit that I have them.  And likewise, I cannot successfully use my wheat until I acknowledge that I am not all bad, that I am not all weeds.  In order to be a spiritually healthy person I need to see the weeds and the wheat in myself.        

     Some people are blind to their own faults, they deny their own weeds.  There are others who feel they are so weedy that they are blind to their wheat, to their goodness, and they often give up on themselves in discouragement. [2]  The weeds and the wheat live together in each one of us, in each of our families, in our work places, and in our churches. 

      Unfortunately some people look to the church as a place of being weed free.  But how can this be?  The church is a gathering of people, people who are a mixture of weeds and wheat.  Yet I know of individuals who spend their life going from church to church hunting for the perfect one only to be disappointed time after time. 

     Why does this happen?  Because we do not like the weeds!  They make us nervous and anxious.  They make us itch!  And our tendency is to either kill the weeds or to run from them.  In the parable Jesus clearly teaches that the weeds and the wheat are to grow together.  Perhaps the weeds have something to teach us! 

     I am confidant that those persons who have acknowledged their addictions and are learning to live with them, will confirm that their addictions, their weeds, have taught them a lot; perhaps even a lot about their wheat, their goodness.  One does not get rid of an addiction; rather, one learns to live with it in a healthy way.      

     Often times we divide people into the categories of weed and wheat depending upon our likes and beliefs.  Those who believe as we do are wheat and those who do not are weeds.  This is particularly true when we have determined that our opinion is truth.  Therefore those who have a differing opinion are full of weeds.  This too easily leads us to claim a moral high ground; rooting out and digging up false beliefs and doctrines.[3]  And of course by false we mean what we do not believe. 

     Friends this places one in the position of judge, a position that only belongs to God.  We may have our preferences and opinions, but when we put preferences and opinions into the category of truth we are moving into the dangerous ground of doing damage to everyone—those who hold our opinions and preferences and those who do not.  Through the parable Jesus says not to pull up the weeds because doing so might damage the wheat.

     I call on us to see the weeds and the wheat in our own lives—that we are saint and sinner at the same time.  I call on us to not be naďve, thinking that we will find a weedless workplace, a weedless partner or a weedless church.  This week I read Joseph Cardinal Bernardin’s The Gift of Peace.  In it he writes, “…the good and the bad are always present in our human condition…in the hands of God, the good will prevail.”[4] I call on us to trust God with our weeds and our wheat.