The Rev. Margaret Watson
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School
Wisdom 12:13, 16-19 | Psalm 86 | Romans 8:18-25 | Matthew 13:24-30
“Let them both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, collect the weeds first and bundle them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”
These are strong words. There are two parts to this Gospel: a parable, and an
allegory. The parable is most likely the words of Jesus; the allegory, which is
at the end, is the explanation of what was said in the parable. Probably the
Biblical scholars say it is the early church trying to explain why there were
those among them not doing what they were doing. Jesus’ ultimate response, “let
them both 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.”
So! Which do you think you are? Weed or wheat? Good seed or bad seed? But before
you answer that, tell me this, how can you tell? I once heard a reasonable
sermon on this parable — in essence it went, there’s a little bit of wheat and a
little bit of weed in all of us. We are all both, and the fire will merely
remove that bad part of us so that we can shine. Well, that’s one way to hear
the story, but I don’t think that’s the Gospel lesson here. Firstly, because
that means we are all kind of like Swiss cheese and our holes are filled with
sin and darkness and weeds. And as much as that seem to be true, it’s not! It’s
not because it absolutely denies the truth that we have already been washed
clean in baptism, and the Gospel truth that Christ died for our sins. All of us,
every part of us, the good, the bad and the ugly and the whole field of wheat
and weeds has been purchased. We are already clean and saved and redeemed and we
in particular are members of Christ’s’ body. So what is the Gospel here? Is this
parable about all those bad people out there those other people who are
obviously living in sin? Perhaps even that person sitting next to you. Perhaps
even this person standing before you?
Let me just get to the punch line. The Gospel truth in this parable is that
judgment belongs to God. Judgment belongs to God and God alone. The seed of this
Gospel is that we are not the judge. An example: One spring afternoon a while
ago, my husband and I were driving the coast highway into northern California.
It was one of those incredible spring days where the blue sky and the blue ocean
were melding; there was not a horizon. And the colors along the side of the road
were translucent, brilliant with wild flowers. They were like gem-stones!
Poppies, other flowers I don’t know the name for, and they were jammed packed
along the road. So we’re driving along and all a sudden my husband yells, “Oh,
my gosh stop the car, I don’t believe it.” And I pulled over thinking some kind
of disaster had happened and he piles out of the car running toward a thick bank
of flowers – “Queen Anne’s lace, Queen Anne’s lace, look, its growing wild. Oh
mamma use to plant this in her garden, it was her favorite.” I’m looking, I’m
looking for this exquisite and rare flower that his mamma had nurtured, and he
says, “Look, it’s right there, it’s 7 feet tall!” And, there it was. Right
there. I couldn’t believe what he was pointing to - it was the deadly plant that
I had learned to despise my whole life, the deadly plant I would rip up every
chance I got — Sheep’s Bain! So, was it Queen Anne’s lace or Sheep’s Bain? Was
it wheat or was it weed? Can we tell the difference? Might it be that “In the
Kingdom of Heaven — there is what appears to us to be both good and bad,”* that
we cannot tell the difference. Certainly we think we can tell the difference,
and maybe even if we can, in trying to clean things up, we would mess the whole
thing up — pulling wheat up along with the weeds. Certainly, the intention in
this Gospel parable is not to assure the wheat of its pre-destined salvation, or
the joy the wheat might feel at watching those weeds burn, but to lead us all to
the recognition of God’s reign, of God’s culture and we are called to persevere
in doing what Jesus teaches us to do - to love one another as He loves us.
As we heard in the reading from the Book of Wisdom, that job of judgment
thankfully belongs to God “whose care is for all people.” And what is God’s
judgment like? God judges with mildness and the righteous are kind. God cares
for the very people that Jesus came to heal and make whole and call into his
community, wheat and weed alike; not according to our standards, but to His –
women, lepers, children, tax collector, those outsiders, the infidels who
worship the wrong god, all people. The world Christ purchased through the cross
and loves is the world we are called to love in Christ’s name. And what does
that love look like? It is not ethereal, it is not spiritual, it is food, it is
shelter, and it even looks like our hands engaged in our every day work. It is
not our job to try to separate wheat and weed. Instead we should be groaning
with the love of God, in labor pains with the first fruits of the Spirit, ready
to hope for that which we cannot yet see. What might that hope be? Play with me
for a minute, play with this parable. O.K. So the weeds are bundled up and
thrown into the fire and there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. But wait a
minute. What do you think happens to the wheat which is put in the barn? It is
thrashed, beaten, stomped, anything to separate its head from its stalk; and
then it is crushed between stones, ground up, anything to break its hard outer
shell. It is mixed up with other ingredients to give it a new body, a new form,
a new life, and then it is thrown into the oven and baked. Cooked by that fire
of God’s love, probably fed by the weeds. And that’s not all; its whole purpose
is to be eaten! Consumed! Bread for the world.
If we are weeds, well, its God’s fire; and if we are wheat, we are bread for the
hungry world. Wheat and weeds together, fire and bread, there is a hope here
which we cannot yet see.
And the time given us now, love the field, the whole field in Christ’s name as
Christ’s loves it and died for it. In all things give Glory to God.
Amen