Where Did These Weeds Come From?

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.