"Cultivating the Weedpatch"
Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43
Once upon a time there was a farmer who owned forty acres of good bottom land, and was known for the quality and quantity of the crops he raised on that land. One spring - just like every other spring - he plowed and furrowed and sowed in a crop of wheat. Then he sat back to wait for nature to take its course. Which, of course, it did. First came the refreshing spring rains, soaking the land and swelling the seed. Then the warm summer sun, drawing the new plants up to the surface of the soil. Everything went just as it had always gone, and soon the earth was green with lush growth.
But something happened on the way to the grain bin. One day, one of the field hands came in and told the farmer: "Something’s gone wrong. Something else was sown in with the wheat. You’ve got some other kind of grass in there, spoiling the crop. It must be bad seed. We’d better get in there ad pull out the weeds." But the farmer replied, "No, don’t do that. I inspected the seed. The see is o.k. Someone sowed bad seed in with the good. If you pull out the weeds, you’ll pull out some of the wheat too. The wheat will be o.k.. Leave it go, and we’ll separate it at harvest time."
Now, a lot of folks, when they look at this parable, think it’s just a rehashing of what Jesus said about the sheep and the goats, and conclude that Jesus is talking about how, at the judgement, he is going to separate the good from the bad. But that’s really not the point. What Jesus is proposing is really radical. Most farmers, in fact, would sooner plow under a bad crop and start over, than try to separate the seed at harvest. It certainly is a lot easier! But Jesus’ concern is that NONE of the good harvest be lost. And that is where we begin to understand the story.
In my own life, I have had a lot of difficulty trying to decide who are the sheep and who are the goats - who is good seed and who is a weed. Sometimes I feel more like a goat or a weed myself than a sheep or fruitful wheat. It’s too easy to separate humanity into two groups - them and us; the good and the bad. In reality, life is not like that. Most of us are both good and bad - wheat and weeds. And, in light of the gospel, we have to reject that way of looking at people. People are like a field into which both good and bad seed have been sown, or to put it another way - we don’t know what wheat has been sown in the most weed-filled garden.
That is where we begin today. Jesus’ concern is not to separate the wheat from the weeds, but rather than none of the wheat be lost.
This parable reveals to us three things: First of all, it reveals to us God’s sovereignty. God is sovereign. There is no dualism in Christianity. God rules. Many people don’t really understand that. Many think that God has given this world over to Satan’s control. They have the mistaken notion that Satan, not God, is at the helm of history.
I had the privilege of meeting Joni Erickson Tandi during the Billy Graham Crusade in Baltimore. She shared, very candidly, some of her experiences as the result of her accident. She said that, as she lay in her hospital bed, she often pictured God and Satan waging war in her body for control. And she was unsure who was winning. She kept feeling, "I have to be strong. I can’t let Satan get the best of me. I can’t let him beat me in this and steal my salvation." She felt God was a reactor - Satan had destroyed God’s "plan A" for her life; now He had to figure out a "Plan B" for her life. It wasn’t really what he wanted for her, but since Satan goofed up what he really wanted, He’d have to make the most of it, and see what He could salvage out of the situation.
But this parable shows us something else - God is the initiator. He is the One who does the sowing. Satan may sow weeds in God’s plan, but God’s plan is fulfilled perfectly anyway. Satan is no more than a tool that God uses to complete his purposes. God was - and is - in control. Always. He has no "Plan B" for us.
Yet it is hard for us to tune into that will, isn’t it? We are like the servants in the parable, in danger of tearing out wheat with the weeds. God works in our life, but we aren’t sure what he is doing, where he is leading us, or how we should respond. Like Job, we begin to question him - as Joni was tempted to do.
The problem is not God, of course - the problem is our sinful condition. The problem is not with what God is doing - the problem is that we can’t tell tares from wheat; we do not know or follow God’s will. Our condition of brokenness, of separation from the heart of God, causes our hearts and wills to be blinded and darkened.
Only One knows the Father’s heart - and that is his own Spirit. Isaiah says, speaking for God, "My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts." Only His Spirit can understand His purposes. St. Paul tells us, "The Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought." We don’t know how to carry on a relationship with God - we can’t even carry on a conversation with Him. James says, "You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and you don’t receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions!" In the first seven chapters of Romans, Paul explains why this is so - we are caught up in a web, a whirlpool, a downward spiral of suffering, frustration and futility that revolves around our own sinful nature. All that we do is tainted. So how can we ever hope to dialogue with, to touch the heart of God, or to understand his ways? Everything appears to us to be shades of gray: That couple caught up in the prospect of divorce, not knowing whether to pray for the strength to stick it out, even when they seem so very incompatible in their very natures. The son and daughter, watching their mother slowly waste away to the point that she is almost unrecognizable to them as the person they once knew - not sure whether to pray for death or life for her. The woman, with a burden of the Gospel on her heart, not sure whether to pray for boldness in declaring her faith to her friend, or patience, so that her friend may not be offended and perhaps, instead, be eventually won by the testimony of her life.
The wheat and tares are mixed together in life, to the point that they are indecipherable, unrecognizable to us. We do not know how to pray as we ought. We don’t know what to pray for. We can’t make it through the tangle of wheat and tares.
Yet Paul goes on to say, "the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of man knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."
God takes the burden upon himself. In the parable, Jesus says the farmer himself will separate wheat from weeds at the harvest. He takes responsibility. He takes charge. While we sigh, not knowing what to say to God, not knowing how to respond - God’s own Spirit, the precious gift he gave to you in your baptism, discerns your greatest needs and desires, and envelopes them in God’s will, and presents them to the throne of God.
In Philippians 2, verses 5 through 8, Paul says that Jesus emptied himself, taking on human form and, being found in human form, humbled himself, taking on the form of a servant, dying on the cross for us. He entered into our life. He died in our place, so that we might have life. Now the Spirit continues this work on a even deeper level, entering into the midst of our hearts, into our day to day pleasures and problems and, discerning our deepest needs, incorporates us into the plan and purposes of God. Where we are silent or confused, he speaks for us. So God’s will is completed in us, even though we don’t understand it fully.
In Ephesians 3:20, Paul says, "by the power of the Spirit at work within us, He is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think." He knows what is weed and what is wheat. He doesn’t demand perfection of us. He only demands our faith, our trust, our faithfulness.
Hope in Him. Trust in Him. He has a plan for your life. You may not always know what He is doing, but be assured - He is in charge. He knows what He’s doing. He will bring in the harvest. And none shall be lost. May you bear a rich harvest for Him. Amen.
