Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
“Weeds”
July 23, 2023
In the midst of what looks like failure, new hope emerges.
Maybe not getting that job that you thought you were perfect for
sends you in a different direction and toward the work you were
meant to do.
Perhaps a relationship that ended badly gave you time and space
to evaluate what was most important to you and left room for a
new relationship that changed your life forever.
It was announced in Australia this week that scientists were able
to take a molecule that was originally on the path to becoming an
antibiotic to combat tuberculosis but never made it out of the lab.
It has been restructured and is on track to become a powerful way
to kill two of the most invasive weeds facing farmers – annual
ryegrass and wild radish.
And it can do this without hurting bacterial or human cells.
This technology, especially in light of no really new herbicide
development in 40 plus years, would not just be for farmers but
has great potential for those of us plagued with weeds in our
yards and gardens.
If weeds are the enemy, what exactly is a weed?
The definition officially is “a wild plant growing where it is not
wanted and in competition with cultivated plants.”
As with all of his parables, Jesus uses the things around him that
his audience would be familiar with and this story would have
made perfect sense to first century Jews.
2
If a farmer wanted to hurt another farmer back then, he would
sneak bearded darnel into their wheat planting.
Bearded darnel is a dangerous weed that mimics wheat when
they are both young plants.
But when bearded darnel reaches maturity it is poisonous and a
big enough dose could kill a person.
The servants want to separate out the darnel but there’s worry on
the part of the farmer that they will mistakenly take out good
wheat in the process, so Jesus says wait and let those harvesting
do the separating.
Weeding – getting rid of the unwanted stuff in our gardens or
yards – or even in the cracks of our parking lot – can sometimes
feel therapeutic but often feels futile.
They are just going to grow back – unless we find a miracle
solution like the one those scientists in Australia are working on –
so why put in the effort?
Since Jesus here seems to go to the trouble of explaining this
parable or at least who is the sower and the significance of the
field being the world and weeds belonging to the devil and the
wheat is the Kingdom of God, it seems simple to understand and
you have to wonder why only the disciples get this explanation
and all the other folks – including the farmers in their midst – have
to draw their own conclusions.
Wanting to right what is wrong is a pretty natural instinct and
when it is for God and God’s kingdom, well it takes on extra
significance, doesn’t it?
But Jesus is saying let the weeds and the wheat grow up side-by-
side, in spite of the risk.
3
As a child, we are taught to distinguish between good and bad –
or at least what the adults around us would define as good and
bad.
But here’s the thing, nobody is all one thing, so we might want to
hold off writing off anyone.
And this is a parable that also embodies patience.
Our impulse is that when we see a wrong, to try immediately to
make it right.
Weeds – pull ‘em!
People who annoy us or don’t like the same things we do or vote
like us – eliminate them from our lives
We want justice if we’ve been wronged and we want it now.
Here Jesus is saying, no we don’t eliminate the evil doers right
now.
If God is the sower, God is in no hurry to rid the field of the
enemy.
It is God’s time, not ours.
And it is God’s judgment, not ours.
Could it be that we have to find a way to live near evil or injustice
and not be heavy handed, going after the noxious weed with
everything we’ve got?
Might we then hurt the good while going after the bad?
Barbara Brown Taylor put it this way, “Turn us loose with a
machete and there is no telling what we will chop down and what
we will spare.” (The Seeds of Heaven, 36)
It could be that God does not share in our weed-free or evil-free
vision of what the world should be.
Perhaps God recognizes what is hard for we humans to
understand, that perfection has a price and that perfection is not
our goal.
4
When we try to police the wheat field all the time, we invariably
will harm some of the wheat.
The parts of us that are young and growing, making discernment
between good and bad really hard to see.
We are not God and judgment is not ours.
We want the good to flourish and succeed.
We are to constantly bless the field, God’s world.
God is at work, tending our world. Sometimes we may need to
step aside and watch God at work in the world.
God has made room for good and bad to grow next to each other.
While we should never stop working for justice, it should always
be partnered with love, not heavy-handed destruction.
What seeds of love might we plant as God’s church?
Who needs more support and less judgment?
What seed can we nurture to fruition in the Kingdom of God – not
later or after we die, but right now, among the living?
Let us then be in prayer with these words from the Rev. Scott
Hovey:
God, may our lives show forth a divine patience that is rooted in
our faith in you. May we believe that we in fact have all the time in
the world because it is indeed your world, and you are a God of
both justice and love. And may we know what it means to wait in
hope – a hope that all things will, in time, be healed, be
reconciled, and will be redeemed. Amen.