Sowing Seeds or Pulling Weeds?

 

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).

 

The parable Jesus spoke in our reading today is a lesson for many people today. It answers the question of whether we are to be militant crusaders who defend the faith by whatever means necessary, or are we to be faithful in sowing the seed of the Gospel of Grace? I have found it much better to practice the latter. Sowing the seeds of grace and mercy always seems to choke out the weeds of sin and evil. Those weeds that are left will be dealt with finally and effectively when Jesus comes. I like the quote in today’s meme from Anna Pereira: “You can’t be planting seeds if you are too busy pulling weeds.”

 

In Jesus’ day a political group called the Zealots demanded that all Roman soldiers be eliminated. Another group, the Pharisees, were extreme legalists and rejected many who were not like them. They despised lawbreakers and were convinced that the Messiah would not tolerate them. Even Jesus’ disciples once suggested that they call down fire from heaven on a group of unreceptive Samaritans (cf. Luke 9:54). To all of these notions Jesus declares a resounding “NO!”

 

The world is like a theater with two movies playing at the same time. Good and evil get all mixed up together. The righteous are tempted to purge the world of all evil and to eradicate every organization or voice that contradicts God’s truth. But Jesus warns that in the process some good plants can be destroyed. In addition, whenever we try to wipe out evil, we end up becoming self-righteous and cruel. We must leave it to God to judge and purge. Of course we should not become confused and begin calling a weed a flower. A weed is a weed. The right option is to magnify the attractive love of Jesus. If we turn on the light of Christ’s love, darkness will scatter. So let’s live by God’s mercy and proclaim his truth, letting God be the judge.