It's Not Our Place To Do Jesus' Weeding

Jesus put before the crowd another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them 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.’”

Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!”

--Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43

I’ve never been very good at weeding.  I can't tell a weed from a good plant!  I tend to either chop up the good ones when I go through a garden with a hoe, or I use a weed-eater and just trim the surface area.  Basically, I try to get it done as fast as possible and am not very careful or intentional.  You know who’s good though?  My fiancee Kristen!  Her secret is that she does it by hand, and she takes her time, getting deep down, pulling up the weed by its root.  It’s much harder work than the ways I’ve approached it, but it gets rid of the weeds, and it saves the good plants. 

Kristen and Casey after a tough day of weeding the yard.

The folks in Jesus’ time did a whole lot of planting, picking, and weeding, which is why, immediately after telling a large crowd that the kingdom of heaven could be compared to a sower who sowed some seeds in various kinds of soil, he gives them the parable of the weeds.  Here he says that the kingdom is like a sower who plants some wheat, and in the middle of the night an enemy comes and sows weeds among the wheat.  The sower’s servants notice the weeds, and they want to pluck them; get rid of those nasty weeds and save that good wheat.  But the sower tells them no.  Instead let the weeds grow and wait until harvest time, and then the reapers will pick everything and sort it all out.  The wheat will then be gathered into the barn, and the weeds will be burned.

An artist's rendering of The Enemy, who sows the weeds in the field of wheat.

Like with the parable of the sower, which we talked about last week, Jesus actually offers an explanation to his disciples about what the parable of the weeds means—these, by the way are the only two parables in Matthew to which Jesus gives an explanation!  The explanation is pretty straightforward:  the sower is Jesus, the Son of Man, the field is the world, and the wheat and weeds represent folks in the world, both good and not-so-good.  Harvest time, therefore, represents the end of the age--a common theme in Matthew's gospel-- and when the sower comes for harvest--that is, when Jesus comes at the end of the age--he will send the reapers--that is, the angels--to gather all the folks, and then he'll sort out all the causes of sin and throw those away like weeds in a fire, while everything and everyone that’s left will be gathered into the Kingdom.

Now, we could focus on the whole imagery about the harvest and the end of the age, which is what a lot of folks have done through the years, of but I’d like to propose a different focus for us:  the servants who want to uproot the sower’s weeds.  Did you notice how Jesus does not explain who the servants are in the parable??I have a theory, but I'll save it for a bit. Think about who these servants are.  They are deeply devoted to the sower; after all, they call him 'Master.'  They want to help, but they’re hasty.  And we can imagine that in their haste, in their desire to help, they would likely end up accidentally uprooting the wheat, along with the weeds.  They might not be thinking clearly, and therefore pluck up good plants, thinking that they were weeds just by their appearance.  And because they’re in a hurry to satisfy the sower, they probably won’t take their time, won’t dig deep into the dirt and put forth the effort to pull out the weeds by their roots.  In other words, I suspect they would be more like me when it comes to weeding than like Kristen, just wanting to get the job done as fast as possible, but their eagerness would destroy some of the good plants and likely leave a number of the weeds.

So who are the servants in the parable?  I propose that the servants are meant to be folks like the Pharisees in Jesus' time, those who were so devoted to God that they wanted to do God's work on behalf of God; thus, they took it upon themselves to decide who belonged and who didn't, who was a sinner and who was a saint.  Or, to put it into the context of the parable, they decided who was a weed and who was not.  

Fast forward all these years later, and Christianity is still full of people who are like the servants in the parable, who are more than eager to weed out Jesus’ field for him.  In the same way that the servants simply want to do the will of their master and save his field, these kinds of folks just want to help, and so they attack the "weeds" with extreme prejudice.  Sadly, I suspect we have all, to some extent, acted in such a way.  In an attempt to help someone that is a sinner--or whom we perceive to be a sinner--we kindly ask them to remove themselves from our section of Jesus' field.  If they can go and get right with God then they can come back and flourish, just like the wheat.  We say things to them like, "We love you, but we hate your sin!"  Our lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender brothers and sisters know what this is like.  They are labeled as weeds amongst wheat, plucked out and shunned by folks who think they are doing what the master wants them to do.  At other times we have located other "weeds" in our field--weeds that don't fit in because they are not dressed properly, or they smell bad, or they aren't acting properly.  These weeds distract the wheat, we say, and so we have to uproot them.  Our brothers and sisters who cannot afford to dress like everyone else, or who are homeless and can't shower, or who are visiting and aren't sure what to do, they all know what it is like to be given the label of "weed" and to be asked to leave.  All of this is done on behalf of Jesus, of course;  after all, if we can get rid of the weeds, we can purify Jesus’ fields, and all that will be left is the wheat, the good Christian folk.  But this is so dangerous on so many levels. 

When we personally take on the position of righteous weeder within Jesus’ great big garden of humanity, we end up hurting really good folks, and we push away folks who otherwise might be interested in joining our section of Jesus' field.  What's more, we overstep our bounds and forget our role; for the task of judging who is or is not “good” Christian folk—who is wheat and who is a weed—is not for us.  That is why the sower in the parable does not allow the servants to do the weeding.  Oh they want to do it, but he says no.  He even tells them that they will end up plucking up the good wheat if they take it upon themselves to get rid of the weeds. He knows they’ll make mistakes.  Instead, they are to wait, just do the tasks that are set before them, and any decision that is to be made is for the sower and the sower alone.  The same is true of us.  We must focus on the tasks set before us—to love God, to love our neighbor—and any judgement that is to be made is for Jesus and Jesus alone.  Not us. It is not our place to decide who is a weed in Jesus' field! This is Good News that Christians today of all denominations need to hear.  What may look like a weed to you might be a beautiful plant that Jesus loves, so don’t pluck her.  What you may think is ugly and unwanted in the garden, Jesus may see as capable of yielding great fruit, so leave him be.  Focus on loving,  and leave the rest to Jesus. Like the sower, this is all that our master asks of us.

Perhaps I have invited you to see this parable in a new light.  Perhaps it is a tough light.  That's ok.  The truth is that it is a lot harder to just perform the two-fold task of loving God and neighbor than it is to point fingers and judge others and label certain folks as weeds and others as good and decent wheat.  Yet I hope that we might learn a valuable lesson from the servants in the parable.  Rather than being eager to pick out all those nasty weeds, which Jesus the sower makes clear is not our task, may we focus on what is in front of us and leave the judging and the sorting to him.  If we can do this, then maybe in the end, what that harvest time comes, Jesus may find a more bountiful and rich harvest that we can imagine.