July 23, 2023
Rev. Mary Erickson
Hope Lutheran Church
Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Where Did These Weeds Come From?
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Last Sunday we heard the parable of the sower who sows seed. Some of the seed was scattered among thorns. The thorns grew up and choked out the young crop. But the farmer in this week’s parable isn’t so worried about the weeds in his field. When their presence is revealed, he’s much less anxious about them than the field hands.
It’s believed that the weed in today’s parable is likely darnel. Darnel is a plant that looks suspiciously similar to wheat, so much that it’s gained the nickname “false wheat.” When the plants are young, green shoots, they look virtually identical.
You can’t distinguish between the two until they begin to generate their seed spikes. Their seed heads look different. And also, the mature seeds of wheat are light brown while the darnel seeds are a darker color.
As soon as it becomes apparent that the wheat field is infested with darnel, the workers want to get out there right away and start pulling it out. But the owner has a different idea. The workers are focusing on the weeds. The owner is focusing on the wheat.
The wheat and the weeds are so intertwined, if the weeds are eradicated, much of the wheat will be destroyed in the process. The owner directs them to leave the weeds alone until the crop is ready for harvest. They’ll sort it out then.
Jesus’ parable addresses the problem of evil in the world. Evil is all around us. We don’t know how it got here or who sowed these foul seeds, but here it is, all around us. It’s everywhere, in everything. So the question before us is this: what are WE going to focus on?
A seminary friend told me the story of a man she knew. He had bought a new house. He liked the house, but the lawn was an absolute mess! It was mostly weeds with a little bit of grass thrown in for good measure. Where to begin? So he called in a lawn professional to assess the situation and give him a recommendation.
The lawn guy said the state of the lawn was dire. He recommended tilling up the entire yard and starting over from scratch. But that advice seemed really extreme to the owner. He thought it over for a few days. And then he came to his decision. He told my friend, “I decided that I was just going to grow grass.”
So he took steps to do just that. He aerated and thatched and fertilized. It took a couple of years, but the grass responded positively and prevailed.
The presence of evil and wickedness captures our attention. They’re like a glittery, twinkling light we just can’t take our eyes off. Wrongdoing has a way of capturing all the oxygen in a room. It’s disturbing and we keep coming back to it. It shouldn’t be there and we want it out.
What do we focus on, the weeds or the wheat? History is full of examples where our obsession with the weeds has led to tragic ends.
• The Crusades declared holy war, not only on non-Christian people in the Holy Land, but also towards other brands of Christians, such as Orthodox Christians or the Coptic church in Egypt
• In England, Oliver Cromwell justified the elimination of Roman Catholics based on Joshua’s battle at Jericho
• Strife and persecution between Catholics and Reformers during the Reformation era.
• In their zeal to eradicate heresy, the Spanish Inquisition led to torture and killing of hundreds.
• Witch trials in New England led to the execution of innocent people
• And the most chilling of all weeding expeditions is what occurred in Nazi Germany, in their quest for a pure, master race, the results of which led to the genocide of millions.
These are extreme examples, of course. This is what happens when we go all-out on eliminating evil from our midst. We become vehicles for the evil we most deplore.
But on a day to day, garden variety level, there is sufficient damage to be done.
• Harping on your spouse’s character traits that get under your skin
• Fixating on the office colleague who turns everything into a competition
• Freezing out the classmate who’s at the bottom of the pecking order
• Continually beating yourself up over an infraction you committed 30 years ago
Mother Teresa put it best: If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” That’s true of ourselves, too.
When we look at the group of individuals Jesus selected to be his disciples, we see a questionable lot. He chose his friends from the fringes of society. He has a tax collector, Matthew. He has Simon the Zealot. He has ratty fishermen. And he has the one who will ultimately betray him, Judas Iscariot.
He befriends Mary Magdalene, a woman from whom he expelled seven demons. She was a devoted supporter of his ministry. She becomes the first witness of the resurrection. She’s mentioned 12 times in the gospel texts, more than most of the apostles. And perhaps her prominence is what made her intimidating in later generations, who felt it necessary to do a little weeding of their own. Pope Gregory 1 sparked the long-held rumor that she was a prostitute, which she wasn’t. But the damage to her reputation was done.
Jesus selected his followers from the margins of society, from the weedy patches. And the fact that they’re not a cream of the crop group is a healthy counterbalance for us. It reminds us that there are weeds and wheat in all of us.
One of the main phrases of Luther’s reformation is simul iustus et peccator. We are at the same time justified AND sinner. No one, not one of us, is pure. Jesus reminded us not to focus on the speck in our neighbor’s eye before we see to the log in our own.
We are all of us a weedy mess. And not just us, but all of creation. In our reading from Romans, Paul writes that creation was subjected to futility. It’s part of an endless cycle of decay. All of creation has been groaning in travail.
If we attempt to clean up the place absolutely, if we make it our mission to get rid of all the weeds, then there will be nothing left. In our zeal, we will have created a killing zone, a region bereft of grace and mercy, where nothing and no one can dwell in the joy and peace of God’s garden.
The owner of the field tells his workers to let it be. And we are the blessed recipients of God’s patient mercies. For at the right time, while we were still at enmity with God, God sent us our savior. He came with his perfect judgement. And that judgement was made known to us on his cross. It was a judgement that claimed mercy, not condemnation. For he did not come into the world to condemn the world, but to save it.* And so he took upon himself the sin of the world. He gathered it all up into himself so that we might have his righteousness instead.
We trust that God has a plan for evil. An absolute plan that will not be revealed until all is said and done. So until that time, we wait in eager longing and hope with the rest of creation for what will be revealed.
*John 3:17
