Weeds Among The Wheat



Gospel Mt 13:24-43

Jesus proposed another parable to the crowds, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man

who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.  When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’  He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’  His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.”



I think everyone can still remember a popular book written a few years ago entitled, Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?  The book tried to explain why life wasn’t fair, and how to accept the reality of dealing with life on life’s terms.  In today’s gospel, we hear Jesus speaking in parables about a similar problem….why do evil people exist in the world?

Notice the reference Matthew makes to Jesus being the head of the household.  This is the forming of the early church.  Jesus is the one in charge, and the servants are scandalized by the presence of the weeds.  They want to know why, after so much hard work, some bad elements found their way into God's world.  How did this happen?

At one time, we believed as a church we were the safe saved ones, and the people in the world were the evil ones which needed conversion.  Remember when we used to pray for the conversion of Russia?  This turned out to be a very naive mentality.  The children of the devil are among us Matthew's gospel tells us, whether we like it or not, believe it or not.

However, this business of figuring-out, exactly, who is of the devil is risky business.  Usually, the people we can’t stand become immediate candidates.  The Middle Ages is littered with victims who the church killed thinking they were getting rid of the children of the Devil, when in fact, most turned out to be Saints.

However, we don’t have to study the Middle Ages to see how this gets played out in all sorts of bizarre ways today.  I remember when my friend Jeff was planning on marring a girl named, Kim.  All my friends pleaded with him to reconsider.  They insisted they knew more about her than he did, tried to convince him that she was bad news, and blinded by his love for her, was not able to see her evil ways. 

One day, Jeff asked me, since I had said nothing about his situation, and didn’t join in on the bashing of Kim, if I thought he was making a big mistake.  It was one of those subtle questions which made me feel the happiness or misery of my friends life was going to be determined by my thumbs up or my thumps down remark.  I thought for a moment, wondering if this girl could be the first born of Satin, and then I looked at Jeff and said without any emotions…"I don’t know.”

They got married and had three beautiful children.  One day, I visited and as I watched him holding his youngest daughter in his arms, and as I saw his wife gently pushing her oldest son on a swing, I thought with great relief, 'Thank God, I didn’t get in the way of this one!'

Maybe this is the point of the parable; let God be God and allow him to sort these things out, or better yet, let’s avoid playing God altogether, after all, who are we to think we know the difference between good and evil, when the reality is, there is a little bit of good in the worst of us, and a little bit of bad, in the best of us.