Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
24 He put before them another
parable: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good
seed in his field; 25 but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed
weeds among the wheat, and then went away. 26 So when the plants came up and
bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 27 And the slaves of the
householder came and said to him, "Master, did you not sow good seed in
your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?' 28 He answered, "An
enemy has done this.' The slaves said to him, "Then do you want us to go
and gather them?' 29 But he replied, "No; for in gathering the weeds you
would uproot the wheat along with them. 30 Let both of them grow together until
the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect 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 approached 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 are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the
evil one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end
of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40 Just as the weeds are collected and
burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man
will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of
sin and all evildoers, 42 and they will throw them into the furnace of fire,
where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will
shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!
If you take a left onto Coffee County Road 618, your tires will trade the
smooth, black, asphalt of County Road 610 for hard-packed, red clay and loose
gravel. Don’t worry though; you won’t have to go far. Just about two hundred
yards down that red dirt road you’ll come to a driveway on the right; that’s
what used to be my grandma’s house. I say used
to be because my uncle lives there now and the house has gone through a great
deal of changes. Perhaps the biggest change, though, has nothing to do with the
floor plan of the house; really it has little if anything to do with the house
itself. You see, when Grandma was alive—even in her later, less coherent
year—she kept a flower bed in the front of that house. I can remember walking
with her in the front yard (of course, she was barefoot), asking her about each
of the colorful plants that grew there. There were elegant, orange tiger lilies;
a tall, thorny rose bush; great, round, hydrangeas in hues of pale blue;
delicate red-orange spider lilies; and a massive camellia tree on the corner
that seemed to anchor the entire house (it was by far my favorite and is still
my favorite flower for that very reason; I’d like to even think it’s the state
flower of Alabama because those who name such things saw my grandma’s first). She
loved those flowers. Perhaps they served as some sort of reminder to her that
there are still things in this world that are beautiful, still things that can
be cared for and reward us with beauty. I don’t really know why she loved them,
but because she did, I did.
But as much as Grandma loved those flowers, I can’t recall her ever
really tending to the flower bed. I don’t remember her ever pulling weeds or
spraying for bugs. I know she never really pruned them because they sort of
wildly grew in every direction. In fact, I don’t recall any sort of edging
around her flower bed; the grass from the yard just sort of melded right in.
I’m sure weeds grew up right along with the flowers. I’m sure there were other
plants that got tangled up in the randomly growing stems and branches of
Grandma’s flowers. I’m even sure there were some forgotten toys and a baseball
or two hidden somewhere in that undergrowth. While I am certain those weeds and
other unwanted things were there in Grandma’s flower bed, I don’t recall any of
them with the kind of vivid joy with which I remember her flowers.
I suppose the same can be said about life. There are those times when we
can look back on the years, years we are certain contain pain and frustration,
and yet all we can truly recall is the joy we experienced. Of course, there are
those among us who would have us focus on the pain, on the heartbreak, on the
weeds in the flower bed. There are those who seek to rid their lives from those
things which might do them harm. They isolate themselves; they remove
themselves from the emotional environment of existence. There are those people who
seek the safety in the highly sterilized environments of closed-mindedness and
selfishness. There are even those who seek such safe havens in what they deem
to be the emotionally safe and diversity-free harbor of the church.
Yes, there are those people—lots of people—who see the church as a safe
place, a place where people just like them gather together to uphold their
disinfected way of thinking. These people believe that the kingdom of God is
held in a time yet to come, a time when they will finally be rid of all these
other people who contaminate the purity and safety of their constructed lives.
Perhaps that saddest thing about these people is that they are not in the
minority. No, in fact if we are all honest with each other we may come to
discover that we are all in fact (in varying ways and degrees) those people. We
claim the church to be a place where we can gather with people who look like
us, talk like us, believe like us, and we claim with great joy that surely
heaven will be just like this—a place filled with the kinds of people like us,
people of whom we approve.
With that sort of thinking, heaven has become some abstract reality in a
different location; God’s kingdom has become a place to look forward to, a
place that we must be taken to, a place that is outside of our present
understanding. Is that what the kingdom is? Is it a place in a different plain
of existence? Is the kingdom something outside of our present reality,
something hidden behind the blackness of space? Is the kingdom something that
can only exist in the sterilized plain of perfection? Or is it possible that
the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, can exist and flourish like a
flower, even among the weeds?
To read this parable from Jesus in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s
gospel is to read one of several parables in this chapter dealing with seeds,
fields, and sowers. If you were to only read Matthew 13, you might come to the
conclusion that Jesus spent more time hanging out at the farmers’ co-op than
the synagogue (and in some way, you might be right!). In the particular parable
before us today, Jesus tells the story about a householder who sows good seed
in his field—seed he knows to be of good quality and free from weeds and other
evasive plants. During the dark hours of the night, however, an enemy comes
into the field and sows weeds (or tares).
Now, it’s important to point out here that the word Jesus uses in verse 25 to describe the kind of weeds
sown by the enemy is the word ζιζάνια, a plant we refer to today as
darnel. It is extremely common in areas of the world where wheat is grown. In
fact, it looks exactly like wheat until it ripens; then the grains appear black
instead of golden. There are forms of darnel that are even poisonous.[1] This weed would have been
common in Jesus’ day and no doubt a familiar frustration to those who grew
wheat in that region. I think it is worth noting that these weeds look nearly
identical to the wheat…that is, until they mature.
In the parable, Jesus tells in verse 28 how eager the householder’s slave are to rid the field of
the weeds, but in his wisdom the householder tells them in verses 29 and 30: "…in gathering the weeds you would
uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the
harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first
and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”
To weed the field at such a time would only damage the crop; letting them grow
together would ensure that the wheat would grow undamaged and the householder
would have a decent harvest.
This parable, like the parable of the sower in the same chapter, comes
with an explanation straight from Jesus himself. In verses 37 through 43, Jesus gives his disciples an explanation of
this parable about a householder who lets the weeds grow up with the wheat: “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 is the end of
the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned
up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his
angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all
evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will
be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in
the kingdom of their Father.”
Now, before we begin to celebrate this as a story about how great and
pure the end is going to be, let’s think about what Jesus is saying here. If the
field is the world and the good seed are children of the kingdom
and the
weeds are the children of the evil one sowed by the devil, then that
means God allows the children of his kingdom to grow tangled up with the
children of the devil! That means God lets the wheat mature in amongst the
tares! God lets the flowers grow in a bed overrun with weeds!
For some folks, this is a troubling thought. After all, why doesn’t God
just do away with all the evil in the world? Why doesn’t God just rid the world
of disease, hatred, poverty, and injustice? Why doesn’t God simply send his
angels to gather up all the pain and wickedness in the world right now? Why
does God continue to allow bad things to happen, especially to good, kingdom
people? For those people, this parable doesn’t sit well. It just doesn’t make
good sense. After all, if we were in God’s place it seems like an easy
solution: just wipe out the devil, evil, and all those who seek to do the world
harm with one snap of the fingers. But that isn’t how God works.
I don’t mean to try to make any grand theological theories as to why God allows suffering to persist in
the world. Sure, I have my own thoughts, but at the end of the day one thing is
certain: God allows the kingdom, his children, to grow right along with the
weeds, right along with all the evil in the world. Perhaps it is so we will
grow stronger, more resilient to the ways of the evil one. Maybe it is so we
will come to value the true depth of Christ’s love as we witness the
catastrophic symptoms of wickedness. God may allow his kingdom, his children,
to grow up right alongside the evil in this world as a reminder of what we once
were. God may even let his kingdom grow in the midst of evil so that the good
seed might overcome the bad. I don’t really know, but I pray that as we are
here, growing in this world right alongside the evil and wickedness planted by
the devil, we will understand that there is hope in a day that is indeed
coming—a day when evil and sin will be burned in the fire. There is coming a
day when those who have sought to follow Jesus in his kingdom’s work will see
the fulfillment of that kingdom, a day when “the righteous will shine like the
sun in the kingdom of their Father.”
That day is indeed coming, but it is not here yet—not in its fullness. So
until that day, we grow. We grow among the weeds. We grow in a world where sin
and darkness grow. We grow in a world that needs the hope of the Good News. We
grow in a world racked with pain, fear, and doubt. We grow in a world where
Christ has intervened and the Holy Spirit resides. May we find hope in that coming
day when we will experience the fullness of God’s heavenly kingdom, and may we
find encouragement in the power of the Holy Spirit as the kingdom grows even in
this world, like flowers among the weeds. Amen.
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