Reflection by The Ven. Dr. Deborah Broome

Weeds among the wheat

[Jesus] put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field, but while everybody was asleep an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 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?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No, for 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.’ ”

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.” He answered, “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. Let anyone with ears listen!                                               Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

The story of seed sown in a field, the plants coming up, and the weeds appearing as well is a great story for those of us who are gardeners.  We know only too well about weeds coming up where we don’t expect them.  And I’ve found you can’t always tell which are the weeds and which the plants.  Sometimes in my eagerness for a weed-free garden I’ve pulled up the wrong things.  Or occasionally let the wrong things grow – like the time I moved across Wellington from a house 200m from the sea to one in the hills, with a very different type of soil.  In my new garden I found some pretty little blue flowers which I nurtured carefully – until someone broke the news to me that they were weeds.

That’s where this story Jesus told comes in.  It’s one of the most realistic of parables: realistic about the world we live in – the world where nothing is perfect – and very realistic about how we want to react to that.  And you don’t even have to come up with an enemy to blame for the weeds: weeds just are, and are everywhere.  Nothing is perfect.

When the plants came up in the field and bore grain, the weeds appeared as well.  And so the slaves went to the householder and wanted to pull all the weeds up, only the householder wouldn’t let them.  In gathering the weeds, the good wheat would get torn up as well, so “let both of them grow together until the harvest.”  Gardens are like that.  Life is like that.  There is good and evil together and we can’t always separate them, without destroying some of the good along with the evil.  The “Let Them” theory isn’t just a 21st century phenomenon.

The story speaks to our temptation to sort people into categories: good/bad, insider/outsider, worthy/unworthy.  Sometimes we can do that to ourselves as well.  But Jesus counsels patience and humility: God’s reign grows in messy fields and we’re not competent to judge.  The story says to us that God knows we are mixed, that God can tolerate the weeds inside each of us, that God understands and somehow still loves the chronic ambiguity of human beings.  That God can cope with us as we are, willing to let both grow together until the harvest.  Because God sees a harvest hidden within a confused and imperfect field, and within confused and imperfect people.

This is a story the early church would tell about itself.  A story that tried to explain why there wasn’t universal acceptance of Jesus’ message, why the early church seemed to be full of “real disciples” and “false disciples.”  A church made up of both wheat and weeds.  It’s a point St Augustine made: the church is a mixed body.  So we’re invited to be patient with one another, and we’re not to judge each other.  That’s for God to do.  Sorting out people into good and bad, wheat and weeds, is God’s business, not ours.  And God will do it later – not now.  God’s telling us we’re not always able to tell the good plants from the weeds, and too likely to rush things and pull the good plants out by accident.

Maybe it’s helpful to see ourselves as novice gardeners, and our communities as a mixed garden.  And if we’re patient we may find ourselves with some delightful surprises as God, who is even more patient than us, transforms us all into plants that grow well and bear a plentiful harvest.

Image credit: Ries Bosch, Unsplash