"WHAT ABOUT THE WEEDS?" - Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 (July 20, 2008)

Last week we talked about planting seeds. This week we’re talking about pulling weeds. The two go together. Every gardener knows that planting seeds is the easy part of having a successful garden. It is much more time consuming to weed that same garden. And it’s hard work. As someone has said: “When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it was a valuable plant.”

There is a corollary to that truth: “To distinguish flowers from weeds, simply pull up everything. What grows back is weeds.”

On its surface, there is not much to be said about this parable except make sure you’re not a weed, because one day the weeds will be thrown into the fiery furnace. And what is a weed? The weeds are all those “who do evil.” Oops. That’s a little disconcerting. All “who do evil.” I am often asked where God draws the line?

• Murderers?
• Rapists?
• Adulterers?
• Thieves?
• Does fibbing on your tax returns count?
• How about gossiping, particularly if it borders on bearing false witness?
• How about the sins of omission?
• What about those who ignore their neighbors who are in need?
• How about those who give only a pittance to God after God has been so generous to them?
• Where is the line drawn?
• Could it be that Paul was right when he said in Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God?” Of course he was. What is our hope then?

Is it not our hope that Christ came to this world to show us God’s awesome love and forgiveness and to abolish what separates us from God, our sins? I don’t know about you, but a fiery furnace doesn’t appeal to me, and if that day comes when God begins pulling weeds I certainly don’t want to depend on my own virtue to save me. Having said that, however, we need to take this lesson seriously.

As with most parables, something strange is going on that points, not only towards God’s character, but towards our nature as human beings. The mixing of good seeds and destructive weeds within the field is so complete and random that any moderately attentive hearer of the parable cannot help but notice themselves within the story, both as weed and good seed. For in our lives we all think, and do things we are proud of, but also things we are ashamed of.

Yet, deep within our selves we hope that over all we are good, and we follow God’s leading. Most of us would like to make a positive difference in our world. Call it a drive for meaning or purpose. Our faith in Christ constantly reminds us that we are born to love God and our neighbors. In terms of today’s parable, we want to be well ripened plants that bear fruitful grain. Sown with God’s loving grace, we want to grow fully into redeemed sons and daughters of the Lord.

The problem, however, is that such God-ward desires are thwarted by their opposite. Our desire for faithfulness to God, others, and self grinds against all kinds of contrary traits

• self-centeredness,
• deceit,
• shamefulness,
• various idolatries
• and addictions.

Every time we make a clearing for the wheat of God’s kingdom to grow in our lives, it quickly becomes crowded and choked by the weeds of destruction. The parable calls the weed sower "an enemy" and "the devil" (13:25,39). These weeds take root right among the good plants and, looking much like wheat, they are always a threat to human flourishing.

Such deceptive entwining of wheat and tares occurs both within individual believers and the church as a whole. Upon every pew sit both saints and sinners. Within every congregation are those who appear to serve God’s reign but, sometimes unknown even to themselves, are choking the life of the congregation.

It is enough to cause most of us to want to rip and tear away at the negative forces within ourselves and the naysayers and backstabbers within the congregation. Our first impulse when we face the enemy within and without is to grab a hoe. Chop out the offender. Root out the villainous weeds before they cause further destruction. In the end God will clean the mess and set the house in order, so we may as well help God with our own two fists of power right now, what do you think?.

But here is where Matthew’s parable draws us up short for the sower of the “Good Seed” in the parable, interpreted as the "Son of Man", surprisingly cautions restraint. Any attempt to force premature purity within church or world may result in further destruction. The same goes for the individual believer. We cannot, by brute will, suppress the destructive traits within ourselves or those around us.

Paul says this much in Romans 7:19-20 when he speaks of not doing the good that he wants but rather doing the evil that he does not want. The sower cautions for the time being, a tolerance of the weeds that grow among the wheat of the kingdom. "Let both of them grow together until the harvest" (13:30).

So what are we to make of this Godly "tolerance". How are we to handle those pesky, even destructive elements within self, church, and world? Are we to simply allow the weeds to take over? Give ourselves over to sin all the more that grace may abound? No, there is another more subtle understanding reading of this parable that points in another direction.

By focusing upon the fruitfulness of God’s kingdom while gently ignoring its detractors, we place the harvest in God’s hands. The fact is that we alone cannot drive out our inner demons anymore than we can police all of the church’s destroyers. If anything, a constant focus upon our own destructive appetites and inward distortions, leads to greater enslavement to them, just as granting attention to disruptors within the congregation only fuels their negative behavior. While treating the weeds as a temporary nuisance, we can tend to the good roots and branches within self, church, and world and wait patiently for God’s harvest.

When we first moved to Oklahoma our yard had been sodded and watered by the builder for a good impression on his home. When we agreed to purchase the home, the builder stopped watering the lawn and it was in rough shape when we moved in a month later. The yard was full of weeds. I fertilized and sprayed weed killer and caused spots all over the yard. I finally contracted for a lawn service. After 6 months of service I ended the contract and began fertilizing myself. I found that by fertilizing regularly the grass finally overcame most the weeds and choked them out.

It is true that most of what we find distasteful and destructive within ourselves, the various weeds of our lives, are corruptions of our better selves. For example,

• various addictions, though partially chemically or genetically based, are also misplaced forms of worship (idolatry). We look for God in all the wrong places.
• Anger is the backside of gentleness and affection;
• deceit, the flipside of honesty and transparence.

We cannot cast off these destructive weeds by clawing away at them on a daily basis. They only multiply under such stimulation. Better, this parable suggests, to lean forward into the fruits of the kingdom that are already present and anticipate a greater harvest to come. Making a little more room each day for the One God at the center of the self can quietly dethrone our false lords.

• Trusting in the power of gentleness will defang anger.
• Risking honesty with self and others will unmask deceit.

Such transformations will not happen all at once, to be sure. The wheat will grow along with the weeds until the harvest fully comes. That day and time is not up to us. It waits upon the Lord of the harvest.

There is something we need to see from this parable. GOD IS OUR SAVIOR. You might not think so after reading this parable. God sounds like He is eager to destroy us when we do wrong. However, if you read this parable to say that God is a vengeful judge, you miss an important truth. The last thing God wants to do is destroy us. God makes us mindful of the weeds growing in our lives that God might deliver us from them.

Missionary and best-selling author E. Stanley Jones said that God does not need to punish us for our sins. Our bodies and souls carry within them the record of our sins. “We do not break the Ten Commandments,” said Dr. Jones, “We break ourselves upon them.”

God has no desire to destroy us. God is our Savior. God offers us forgiveness and the opportunity to start over. God’s only desire is to free us from the mess we’ve made of our lives.

To many people, the cross is only about getting people into heaven. They miss the glory of God’s plan and God’s purpose.

• The reason God hates sin is that it hurts God’s children.
• All of the sins that destroy people, destroy families, destroy relationships, destroy human potential God wants to pull them out and throw them in the fire.
• That is what the cross is all about. God wants to restore us to the beautiful creation God intended from the first for us to be.
• A world where people love and are loved without being used, without having their hearts and their lives broken because of the actions of others or by their own weaknesses.
• This is the world God wants for all of us.

To be sure, we live in a broken world. And we cannot expect things to be perfect in this world ever again, but we can make a start in that direction, and it is not up to us to do the weeding. We are called to make our way to the foot of the cross where we kneel we kneel before our God, and ask Him to pull the weeds that may be growing in our hearts. These may be weeds of bitterness, weeds of envy, weeds of lust, the list goes on and on.

You know which weeds are choking your spirit. Give them to God. Let God throw them into the fire and consume them forever. God is our Savior. God is our Redeemer. God is the Master Gardener of our lives. Let God put the garden of your life in perfect order again.