Weeds in the Kingdom

We bought our first house from a widow whose husband had been a horticulturalist, and I knew virtually nothing about identifying plants and flowers. Unfortunately, for a few years she had not been physically able to keep the 6-foot deep beds that bordered the entire backyard, so it was a jungle of plants and weeds. I reasoned that for the first year, we should just watch and see what all the plants did. Surely we didn’t want to dig up and throw away something with lovely blooms. And, anyway, what’s another year?

Then, that first spring, there was this one kind of ground cover with really pretty little purplish flowers. I decided I really liked those and wanted the bed between the patio and yard to be filled with them. Turns out, they were violets. That bed never really filled in, but my efforts to multiply them were successful all over the yard before I realized what they were. And, once we realized that the monkey grass was the kind that spread, and that it was overtaking all of the beds, we wound up digging up most everything to be able to get rid of the mats of roots the monkey grass had woven. And THAT’S when I realized that weeds, really, are just plants that want to grow where you don’t want them to grow.

And with that definition in mind, let’s turn to Jesus’s parable about the farmer with weeds in his wheat. Again, Jesus employs stock characters in his storytelling, but he shifts the stereotypical associations and leaves the listener pondering who he means are weeds… and what we are supposed to do about weeds…and if we are weeds.

These are the stock characters – the sower is God, the enemy is the evil One, the servants are the righteous. Usually, wheat would be Israel and weeds would be Gentiles. The people by the water’s edge that day would have just heard, let the Gentiles live together with the Israelites until the Judgement Day, but when he explains the parable to his disciples, Jesus changes the associations and the parable delivers 3 important messages.

First, Jesus shifts the identification of the weeds from the Gentiles to those who are gathering in the midst of the crowd to cause disruption, who are questioning, watching with an eye to make trouble for Jesus and his followers. Jesus says of them, “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’” Jesus is telling the disciples, that the weeds that are threatening his ministry are not there because there is something wrong with the seeds God is sowing. “An enemy did this,” says Jesus; it’s the work of evil. The important message for us to hear is that God allows evil to exist in our world; and evil is not the work of God. Evil is not sown by God.

Second, Jesus makes clear that the disciples are not to pull the weeds “because,” says Jesus, “while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest.” In every group of people, and in every individual person, good and evil are intermixed. I think it’s important to know a little about the weeds that Jesus is talking about here, though, too…because he names a specific weed that is a problem in wheat fields…and the specifics of the kind of weed it is help us understand that Jesus doesn’t say “Let all evil flourish or grow unchecked.”

Zizanium is the Greek word Jesus uses for the weed. It is now called tares when they grow in a wheat field, a common type of tare is darnel. The scientific name is Lolium temulentum. All that to say, we know this weed looks a lot like wheat the whole time it is growing until it actually puts on grain. The seeds of wheat are golden-brown, and the seeds of darnel are black; and when they are ready to harvest, wheat sheaves bow down, and darnel sheaves continue to stand straight. So, it is only at the harvest that the wheat and weeds can, with confidence, be separated. Until then, they look a lot alike; and the root systems of both tend to intertwine…so Jesus tells the disciples not to gather the weeds, or they might uproot the wheat along with them. The important message for us to hear is that there are weeds and wheat in the church, and we all have times that we might look and act more like a weed than wheat. We are to continue to grow together. It’s not that God wants us to be weeds, but we are entangled. So, we do our best to nurture what is wheat, and when we see weeds in the church and in ourselves, we remember that God isn’t finished with us yet. So, we don’t give up on each other or ourselves. It is not up to us to clear out the sinners from church, to judge the righteous and the unrighteous. Judgement comes at the harvest.

Which is the hope Jesus held out to the disciples as he changed the identity of the sower from the stock association of God as sower to the Son of Man. Jesus’s disciples would have thought instantly of Daniel’s end times vision in Chapter 7:13-14, “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”

The third important message that Jesus conveys to his disciples as he interprets this parable is that he is the one that the prophets foretold. Everything that opposes his message, all evil, will, at the harvest, be judged and is destined for destruction.

Presbyterian pastor Tom Long writes that “Reading this strange language today is like walking along the peak of a sharply sloped roof; we can easily slip off one side or the other.” Let’s read the strange language again and then see if we can find a way across the ridge (make peak with hands). “The Son of Man will send his messengers, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of few, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” So, we hear the one side of the roof, the hellfire and brimstone preaching side with sinners dangling over a blazing fiery furnace. And “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” The special insiders with the prosperity gospel preaching side as self-satisfied church-goers imagine God’s great finale rounding up all those worldly sinners and imagine themselves seated in red-velvet theatre seats in the VIP section for the show.

As we balance on that rooftop, the important message for us to hear is that the harvest is not ready. We are not ready. Good is being carefully, lovingly nurtured and cultivated, and there are weed seeds in all of us. The ancient theologian, Ireneas, who lived from 130-202, said that “The glory of God is humanity fully alive.” The good news Jesus shares through this parable, with his disciples then and now, is that the seeds in this world that were not planted by God – all that corrupts our world and us and God’s relationship with us, all that threatens abundant, joyful, life lived fully to God’s glory – will be utterly and completely consumed – not even ash will remain. Thanks be to God. Amen.