Do you ever wonder why it’s often so hard to be a follower of Jesus? Perhaps like me, you once had some well meaning, but naïve person tell you that if you would just give your life to Jesus all your problems would go away, only to find out that is far from reality. I look around this room this morning and see a lot of you here who I know are dealing with some really difficult trials in your lives and also see some who aren’t here because of problems, mostly physical, that they are experiencing right now.
And my first reaction is that isn’t fair. How is it fair that a godly woman like Shirley Williams has stage 4 cancer and faces weekly chemotherapy treatments indefinitely? How is it fair that a man who loves Jesus like Harold Grimm has suffered through so many physical problems? How is it fair that Ron and Mary Karvinen are dealing with so many physical problems and that their family is getting worn out just trying to care for them on a daily basis? How is it fair that my mom has gone through 3 major surgeries in the last year and a half? How is it fair that some of you are dealing with children who are experiencing developmental disabilities? How is it fair that some of you who have done the very best job you could raising your children have seen them rebel against you and against God? How is it fair that some of you are experiencing financial difficulties? How is all that fair?
After all, if, as Jesus claimed, the kingdom of God is at hand, then how is it possible for those who are citizens of that kingdom to suffer like that? You probably won’t be surprised to know that Jesus’ disciples had some very similar questions. At first, following Jesus had not been all that difficult. Early in His ministry Jesus was mostly popular, at least with everyone except the Jewish religious leaders. But by the time Jesus begins to speak to His disciples in parables during the last six months of His earthly ministry, the situation had changed dramatically.
So the disciples naturally began to wonder why, if the kingdom of heaven had indeed come, that the ruler of that kingdom, Jesus, was meeting with such great opposition. You have to remember that these disciples still were looking for Jesus to initiate a physical kingdom in which He would rule here on earth. So when it became apparent that the religious leaders were planning to kill the king of that kingdom, the disciples couldn’t understand why such evil could hold such power in that kingdom. That is the issue that Jesus addresses in the parable that we’ll examine together this morning.
So go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Matthew 13 and follow along as I read that parable, which begins in verse 24:
He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”
(Matthew 13:24-30, ESV)
Just like with the Parable of the Sower that we examined last week, we don’t have to guess about the interpretation of this parable because Jesus interprets the parable for His disciples – and for us. Let’s read that explanation which begins in verse 36:
Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to 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 is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons 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 gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
(Matthew 13:36-43, ESV)
This morning, I’d like for us to look at this parable through the eyes of the servants of the master. By doing that, we’ll be able to answer three important questions that I’m sure that those servants had – questions that we no doubt have as well.
THREE QUESTIONS THAT THIS PARABLE ANSWERS
1. Why is there evil in the midst of God’s kingdom?
Notice the question that the servants asked the master once they saw the weeds appear in the field:
Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?
In order to understand the thinking behind that question, we first need to deal with several key elements in this parable.
First, Jesus tells us that the master in this parable is none other than Jesus Himself. He uses the phrase “Son of Man”, the term that Jesus uses most often to refer to Himself in the gospels. That title comes from Daniel 7, where it is clearly used to describe the Messiah, who is the king of an everlasting kingdom.
The second, and perhaps the most important element in this parable, is the identification of the field. Although Jesus clearly tells His disciples what the field is, I’m amazed at how many people miss that when dealing with this parable. According to Jesus, what does the field represent in this parable?
[Wait for answers].
That’s right – the field is the world. That is why I was so surprised to find in my studies this week, that so many sermons and commentaries used this parable to address the issue of evil in the church or sin in the life of the individual believer. For instance on one website, the top-rated sermon for this passage is titled “Hypocrites in the Church.” Other sermon titles on that site include “Wheat and Tare Believers”, “The Church is Not an English Garden”, “Weedy, Seedy Christians”, and “Weeds in the Kingdom.”
Now there is no doubt that it is important to deal with sin in the church and in our individual lives, but that is not at all the focus of this parable. This parable is about evil in the world, not evil in the church. We’re going to see in a few minutes why that is such an important distinction.
Third, we see what that the master- Jesus - sows in the field – the world. Jesus says that what He sows in the world are “the sons of the kingdom”. Those are the ones who are later described in verse 43 as “the righteous [who will] will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father”. We could spend all our time just focusing on the identity of the sons of the kingdom this morning, but let me just point out three important points:
The people become sons of the kingdom totally as a result of the work of Jesus in their lives. No one can become a citizen of the kingdom of God as a result of her or her own efforts. That citizenship is completely a result of God’ grace, not our merit.
The righteousness that these kingdom citizens possess is not the righteous of their own works, but the righteousness of Jesus that is imputed to them based on their faith in Him alone as the basis for that righteousness.
Jesus takes these sons of the kingdom and He sows them into the world. This parable is not a picture of the world in the church, but rather a picture of the church in the world.
So the picture here is that God chooses those who are to be citizens of His kingdom, He makes them righteous through faith in Jesus and then He places them into the world for the purposes we’ll see in just a moment.
Finally, before we can answer our question of why there is evil in the midst of God’s kingdom, let’s think about the servants. Although it is the master who sowed the seed, we know that in the culture of first century Palestine, it is actually the servants who would have sown that seed under the master’s direction and oversight. So when the seeds germinated and began to grow and there were weeds among the wheat crop, they were worried that perhaps they had done something wrong that had caused those weeds to pop up.
This certainly lines up with the concept of sin and evil in first century Judaism. As we clearly see in the account of the blind man in John 9, the Jews of that time believed that disease and disorder were caused by sin. So it is likely that the servants in this parable were worried that they had perhaps done something wrong that had caused the weeds, which represented evil, to enter into the field.
And I think most of us can identify with that kind of thinking. When we see affliction in the lives of others our first reaction is often similar to that of the disciples:
And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
(John 9:2, ESV)
Even in our own lives, we can question whether our trials and difficulties are God’s punishment for some sin in our lives. Now, because He loves us, God does occasionally discipline us for repeated, unrepentant sin. But most of the time, that is not why we suffer. Most times, as this parable points out, we suffer because we live in a world where evil is present.
But why is that evil present if we’re living in God’s kingdom? This parable answers that question:
• The answer: There is an enemy.
The evil in the world is neither from God nor is it a result of anything that the servants have done wrong. The evil is there because there is an enemy – the devil.
This morning in “Connections” we’re going to discuss the concept of the kingdom of God in some more detail, and one of the things we’ll learn is that the kingdom of heaven has both physical and spiritual aspects. Right now only the spiritual aspect of the kingdom is manifest here on earth. So in the physical realm, the devil, who Paul calls “the prince of the power of the air” in Ephesians 2, has been permitted by God to sow evil in this world. And it is the evil that is sown by the enemy that is the cause of many of our present difficulties.
That truth naturally asks us to ask a second question – one that is also answered by this parable…
2. Why does Jesus permit evil to remain in the world?
Many have attempted to answer this question over the years. Perhaps one of the best known efforts was a book by Rabbi Harold Kushner written in the early 1980’s in response to a serious medical condition faced by his three year old son, titled When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
Kushner’s answer to that question is summarized quite well by the title of chapter 7 of his book – “God Can’t Do Everything, But He Can Do Some Important Things.” His basic premise was that even though God was powerful enough to create the entire world, He isn’t powerful enough to prevent evil in that world.
This parable clearly refutes that idea. One day, the kingdom that is now only spiritual will become both physical and spiritual. And on that day, Jesus is going to return to this earth and gather “all causes of sin and all law-breakers” and is going to throw them into a place of everlasting punishment where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Clearly God does have the power to destroy evil. So why doesn’t He do that right now?
The master in the parable answers that question in responding to his servants’ desire to immediately uproot the weeds. God, in His infinite wisdom understands that if the evil weeds are uprooted right now, the righteous wheat is going to be harmed as well. And in that process some of the people God has chosen to be sons of the kingdom would be destroyed.
Peter gives us some great insight into the answer to our question:
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
(2 Peter 3:9, ESV)
Obviously in agriculture, it is not possible for a weed to be transformed into wheat. But in the spiritual realm, all of us were once weeds who have only been transformed into wheat by the work of God in our lives. So we ought to be grateful that God is patient with His judgment because otherwise none of us would have ever survived long enough to experience His grace.
God is patient in carrying out His judgment because it is His desire that as many as possible will be saved. As Peter goes on to write…
And count the patience of our Lord as salvation…
(2 Peter 3:15, ESV)
I know my natural response to evil in the world is just like those servants. I want God to get rid of that evil right now. But then I think about all the people I know who are still “sons of the evil one” and realize that getting rid of evil right now would also mean that none of those people will ever have an opportunity to become “sons of the kingdom”. Looking at things from that perspective helps me to understand much better why, at least for a time, Jesus allows evil to remain in this world:
• The answer: His patience means salvation
This parable answers one last question – the one that is most relevant for us…
3. What are Jesus’ followers to do about that evil?
Before we answer that question, let’s remember that the field in this parable is the world, not the church. Unfortunately this parable has been used to teach that the church is not to judge those who are part of the body of Christ. Those who use the parable in that manner will suggest that we’re just to let sin and evil remain within the church and just wait for Jesus to deal with it when He returns.
But not only is that contrary to Jesus’ clear explanation that the field is the world and not the church, it also contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture in numerous places in the New Testament, including the words of Jesus Himself. As followers of Jesus we do have a responsibility to confront continual, unrepentant sin within the body of Christ.
But what about the evil in the world, that which outside the church and which is the focus of this parable? How are we do deal with that evil? Let’s face it - we’re a lot like those servants aren’t we? We see evil in the world around us and our initial reaction is to want to uproot the evil. But the master’s response to the servants reveals that is not what we are to do:
No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest…
Before we can fully understand what Jesus is teaching here, we need some further background. The weeds in this parable are probably those commonly called “Bearded Darnel”. In the early stages, these plants look so much like wheat that they are often referred to as “false wheat”. By the time the plant develops enough to be distinguished from the wheat, the roots have become so entangled that pulling out the weeds would result in the destruction of the wheat. So Jesus tells us to leave the weeds alone and let Him take care of them at the time of the harvest.
In this parable, we can see several reasons why Jesus gives this instruction.
First of all, it is impossible for us to distinguish the wheat from the weeds. Because I am tainted by sin myself, I am hardly in a position to judge others. And besides, only God is capable of differentiating between the wheat and the weeds because only He can discern the heart. From our perspective, there are some people who deserve to be uprooted, but from God’s vantage point they are all people He loves and who He desires to reach repentance and become sons of the kingdom. And only He knows which ones will ultimately choose to do that.
Second, it is God’s plan for us to live in the world in the midst of evil. This parable confirms what we find elsewhere in Scripture. We are not here by accident. We’ve been planted here by God. I’m reminded of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:
As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
(John 17:18, ESV)
That means that God doesn’t call us to isolate ourselves from the evil in the world. He never called us to only associate with other believers or to live in a monastery separated from the evil that is in the world. Obviously we are not to engage in that evil because that would violate the third reason we are to let Jesus take care of the weeds:
God has called us to be a righteous influence in this world, not to judge it. Although this parable approaches how we are to deal with the evil in the world from a negative aspect and instructs us on what not to do, fortunately we have much other Scripture that teaches us how we are to interact with the evil in the world.
In particular, in Matthew 5 Jesus called His followers to be salt and light. That is a great picture that reveals that we are to be influences for good in the midst of evil in this world. Like salt and light, our lives and our words are to flavor, preserve and illuminate. So there will certainly be times when God will call us to use the truth of His Word to reveal and even speak out against sin in our world. There will be times when He will call us to do what we can to preserve righteousness. But there will never be a time when He will call us to judge those outside the body of Christ. There is only one judge and we dare not attempt to usurp Him.
When we take all these things into consideration, I think we can summarize the answer to our question about what Jesus’ followers are to do about evil in the world like this:
• The answer: Treat people with compassion, not condemnation
Unfortunately, the church has a reputation, often well-deserved, of being “holier than thou” and judgmental. Far too often we have been ready, even eager, to go out into the fields and label people as weeds so that we can begin to rip them out and cast them into the fire. And in many cases that has brought great harm to the cause of Christ and to those who are sons of the kingdom.
Sadly, one of the most effective tools that the critics of Jesus and His followers have at their disposal is to point out the atrocities that have taken place throughout history by those who have attempted to root out evil in the name of Jesus.
From the Crusades, to the Spanish Inquisition, to the rule of “Bloody Mary” in England in the past to the contemporary practices of the Westboro Baptist church and murderers of abortion doctors, far too many who claim to be followers of Jesus have ignored His words in this parable and tried to uproot the weeds and have damaged the wheat during the process.
Life as a follower of Jesus certainly isn’t always fair – but not in the way that we often think about it. What isn’t fair is that any of us are permitted to be “sons of the kingdom”. What isn’t fair is that we can have a relationship with a God who is completely holy. What isn’t fair is that the suffering we experience in this world today is only temporary and that the eternity that God has prepared for us will be free of pain and suffering. Believe me, none of us want what is fair because that would mean we would still all be “sons of the evil one”, subject to God’s sure judgment.
And we shouldn’t desire what is fair for those are currently “sons of the evil one” either. Like God, we should look upon them with compassion and mercy and do everything we can to love them into becoming “sons of the kingdom.”
So as we close this morning, it seems that it would be fitting to take a few minutes to just mediate on what God has done for us and thank Him for making us “sons of the kingdom”. We’ll use the words of Paul that summarize so clearly what God has done for us as we spend some time doing that.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
(Ephesians 2:1-7, ESV)
