{"id":10614,"date":"2005-07-07T19:49:15","date_gmt":"2005-07-07T17:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theologie.whp.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=10614"},"modified":"2025-07-10T11:08:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T09:08:23","slug":"matthew-13-24-30-36-43","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/matthew-13-24-30-36-43\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost | July 17, 2005 | Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43 | Hubert Beck |<\/h3>\n

Weeds and Wheat \u2013 A Strange Mix! <\/strong><\/p>\n

Jesus told them another parable: \u201cThe kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner\u2019s servants came to him and said, \u2018Sir, didn\u2019t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?\u2019 \u2018An enemy did this,\u2019 he replied. The servants asked him, \u2018Do you want us to go and pull them up?\u2019 \u2018No,\u2019 he answered, \u2018because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.\u2019\u201d . . . . . . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

His disciples came to him and said, \u201cExplain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.\u201d He answered, \u201cThe one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where 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.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<\/p>\n

The story is told of a man who went from church to church, hoping to find and then join a \u201cperfect church.\u201d In the midst of his search someone was bold enough to say to him, \u201cI feel sorry for that church if you ever find it, for in the moment you join it, it will not be perfect any more!\u201d<\/p>\n

The parable before us today, which is in reality more of an allegory than a parable as it is presented to us, confirms that observation in spades! Were there to be a perfect church, it would be less than perfect once a sinner joined it. I.e., there will always be weeds among the wheat.<\/p>\n

A Pure Church — A Proper Intuition, To Be Sure <\/strong><\/p>\n

This urge to uncover a \u201cperfect church\u201d is an age-old search, though. One of the earliest heresies of the church, in fact, was the heresy of insisting on maintaining the \u201cpurity\u201d of the church, which meant, of course, cleansing all \u201cimpurities\u201d from it. That insistence had to be met forcibly and forthrightly from the beginning years of the church. It is possible that this parable is, itself, an early sign from Matthew\u2019s pen (the parable is found only in his Gospel, and it is in his Gospel alone that the word \u201cchurch\u201d with several allusions to life in the unfolding church are found in direct fashion) that such a teaching had to be confronted and declared to be faulty. Yet there are those in our age as in every age before us who are anxious to \u201ccleanse\u201d the church, to \u201cpurify\u201d it, to fashion it after \u201cthe will of God\u201d as such people perceive that \u201cwill of God\u201d to be.<\/p>\n

One can readily understand why such a desire is so persistently present among the people of God. Is this desire not, in fact, in one fashion or another, latent within all of us? Should it not be there, in fact, for who would gladly settle on any church that reflects less than \u201cthe will of God\u201d and \u201cthe glory of God\u201d? We do, indeed, yearn for a church that \u201cmeasures up\u201d to everything that God asks of it. After all, has the Son of Man, the Sower, not sowed good seed in the field of this world? Is it not \u201clogical\u201d to expect that seed to bear its appropriate fruit? Jesus has spoken of this very thing in the verses just before the words of this parable in the parable of the Sower and the Seed!<\/p>\n

It is not surprising that the master\u2019s servants should ask, \u201cWhere, then, did the weeds come from?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Weeds of the Enemy <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAn enemy did this,\u201d the master replied. The enemy had come by night and, undetected, had done his dirty work.<\/p>\n

How subtly the grace and glory of God\u2019s creation is sullied by this \u201cenemy.\u201d This enemy loves the darkness, to be sure, for he would be too easily discovered were he to work in the light of day.<\/p>\n

Is his work not evident everywhere, though? There is a strange paradox about the \u201cworks of goodness\u201d in the world that seem always to have a dark side to them. Scientific and technological advances are notorious for just such dark sides to the promised benefits they offer. Seldom are they evident when they first appear. Sometimes they are as subtle as the invention of the automobile . . . an advanced form of transportation that has become a bane to modern life in ever so many ways. A blessing, to be sure, but a blessing with a very dark side. Sometimes they are not so subtle \u2013 marvelously encouraging medical advances, e.g., that show great promise upon first appearance frequently show, much later and in spite of every effort at thoroughly testing them before admitting them to the market, a very dark side. This \u201cback side\u201d of worldly advances becomes a curse almost as quickly as it appears in the form of a blessing.<\/p>\n

Nor is the church immune to this same phenomenon. The proclamation of \u201cgrace\u201d is easily and quickly turned into a permissive \u201clicense\u201d that suggests it doesn\u2019t matter what one does as a child of God, for God\u2019s grace is so overarching that it relieves the pressure of a meaningful obedience to the will of God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously called this \u201cliving by \u2018cheap grace\u2019\u201d carrying with it no responsibilities quite contrary to the constant call of our Lord to \u201close our life\u201d in his behalf. Then the ugly head of \u201clegalism\u201d rears itself as a counterpoint to \u201ccheap grace,\u201d suggesting that Jesus\u2019 call to live responsibly requires one to \u201cclean up one\u2019s act\u201d in order to become acceptable to God. From one extreme to the other — a word of grace becomes a word of license and a word of responsibility becomes a word of required obedience in order to claim God\u2019s approval! And there are many stops in-between as we take the word of the Lord and twist it to our own ends. The \u201cenemy\u201d comes in the darkness of our best efforts at being faithful and sullies them, taints the wheat of God\u2019s word with the weeds of our human handling of divine gifts.<\/p>\n

Is it strange that this should be so? After all, do we not attempt to understand this field planted with the seed of our Lord and contaminated by the weeds of the enemy, on our own terms? Do we not confuse the weeds with the wheat in this bewildering attempt to discern between the two? The weeds look so much like the wheat, do they not? Is it not to be expected that people will \u201cact rightly\u201d \u2013 which is to say, is not the church a \u201cmoral arbiter\u201d for what is right and wrong? And if people do not live up to what we expect of them, should they not at least be admonished if not pulled up and prematurely thrown into the fire? Is it not to be expected that people will \u201cbelieve rightly\u201d \u2013 which is to say, is not the church a \u201cfaith arbiter\u201d for what is right and wrong? And if wrong belief (not to speak of unbelief) is discovered, should such people not be pulled up and prematurely thrown into the fire? One expects the church to maintain \u201cstandards,\u201d does one not? Surely we not only have a right but a responsibility to maintain its purity.<\/p>\n

The Necessity \u2013 and the Risk \u2013 of Judgment<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now admittedly this can be pressed to an extremity, denying the right of the church or the world — or anybody in general, for that matter — to make judgments about right and wrong. That is not the point here, for surely there is a place and a forum within which such judgments must be made, whether that forum be in a court of law wherein those who have disturbed the civil order must be tried or whether that forum be in the circle of God\u2019s people wherein proper actions and teachings must be maintained in orderly fashion.<\/p>\n

The parable, however, warns us against extending premature judgments as \u201cnorms\u201d by which final judgments are to take place. After all, is not the first place where this parable takes its shape and form within our own lives? C. S. Lewis notes that he once had considerable difficulty in the saying that one should \u201chate the sin but love the sinner.\u201d It didn\u2019t seem to make sense to him until one day it occurred to him that it was within himself that the saying showed its most certain truth. Did he not \u201clove himself\u201d while at the same time he \u201chated the sin\u201d that so dominated his life? Is this not a reflection of the words of Paul we heard only recently when he speaks of the great distress created within himself when he did the things he did not really want to do while not doing the things he very much wanted to do? St. Theresa of Avila prayed, \u201cOh, God, I don\u2019t love you. I don\u2019t even want to love you, but I want to want to love you.\u201d Do you not recognize yourself in reflections like these? The great physicist Werner Heisenberg said, \u201cMan can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wants to will.\u201d He spoke for all humankind, did he not? Is it not fearful to recognize that the weeds in our own lives threaten to suffocate the wheat of God\u2019s grace planted within us?<\/p>\n

It is no wonder that the master tells the servants that they are to leave the weeds alone once they have been discovered growing among the wheat. While, on the one hand, they are distinguishable, on the other hand, one can easily make a mistake in judging which is which, not to speak of the danger that, in uprooting the weeds, the roots will be so intertwined with the wheat that the risk to the wheat is too great for such an undertaking. Our poor human intuition is to \u201cclean up\u201d the field, but our Lord knows that we will only do damage if we are left to ourselves and our own judgments and our own actions. If we cannot govern our own lives rightly and well, why would he turn over to us the task of governing the lives of others rightly and well?<\/p>\n

It must be reiterated that this does not mean there is no place for judgments. Jesus speaks of them elsewhere as do the holy writers in their letters to the early congregations of God\u2019s people. But the preemptory judgment, the willingness to uproot the wheat while busily engaged in sorting out the weeds from the wheat \u2013 that is best left to our Lord who will entrust that task to his holy angels who see these things better than we do. And even they are to be entrusted with doing that only \u201cat the end of the age.\u201d We are to wait patiently for them to do that final work.<\/p>\n

Life Together as Wheat and Weeds<\/strong><\/p>\n

For now we are to live together. It is, to be sure, an uneasy truce in some ways, and Jesus readily recognizes that. He has spoken of it earlier when he speaks of the word that is sown in places where the weeds suffocate the wheat. He speaks of it in various places as he warns us against the encroaching tentacles of the evil one that seek constantly and silently \u2013 \u201cin the dark of the night,\u201d so to speak — to entwine themselves within our lives, claiming us for himself.<\/p>\n

But suddenly one sees a strange note in this parable that may have easily been overlooked up to now. It is easy to assume that the wheat-bearing seed is the word of the Lord \u2013 the same seed that was sown in the parable prior to this one. But not so<\/strong>! Listen carefully as Jesus tells us, \u201cThe good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one.\u201d Is this not astonishing, to say the least? We, the ones who have been claimed by the Son of Man who sows the seed, are, ourselves<\/strong>, the good seed! That surely brings one up short, does it not?<\/p>\n

One of the most common problems Christians face is the fact, as it is put in common parlance, that \u201cwe look so much like everybody else in the world.\u201d How can they . . . how do they . . . or, for that matter, how do we . . . tell the difference? We go about our business much like everybody else. We eat and drink, work and play, marry and have families, etc., much like everyone else.<\/p>\n

Some people attempt to make \u201cthe difference\u201d apparent by means of a certain dress code or a particular vocabulary or a frequency of obvious acts of piety. None of them are wrong in themselves, but none of them fully accomplish their purpose. For the children of this world continue to recognize how much alike we are in ever so many ways . . . and they delight in pointing them out \u2013 especially when there are \u201cbreakdowns\u201d in the Christian community. The wheat looks just like the weeds! The world recognizes this, nor does it escape the notice of the children of God.<\/p>\n

Yet, strangely enough, in many subtle but very real ways there is a discernible difference. To belong to our Lord is already in itself to become a citizen of another kingdom, to become a stalk of wheat in the field of God\u2019s world. And in some quiet way, that becomes apparent even to the world.<\/p>\n

Turning the Parable Inside Out To See What Lies Within It<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is an unusual thing to do, I am aware, but can we not see this \u201cfrom the outside in\u201d if we turn this parable inside out? To the world, the weeds are precisely what they plant . . . and they are exactly what they expect to grow because they have so deliberately planted them.<\/p>\n

Therefore the wheat appears to be \u201cthe enemy\u2019s seed,\u201d the \u201cforeign substance\u201d that does not belong in this \u201cfield of the world.\u201d There is no better example of this than our Lord Jesus, himself! Did he not appear to be the \u201coutsider\u201d to those on whom the world had its hold? Was it not a perpetual point of contest between him and those who confronted him about why he did not conform to the conditions established by the world? Was it not precisely because he was so clearly an \u201calien\u201d to the ways of the world that he was crucified? His cross is the clear sign that to the world he appeared to be the wheat that threatened the very life of the weeds they had planted.<\/p>\n

But when his Spirit went forth across the face of the earth, calling people to the Word of the Lord whose suffering, death and resurrection had shifted the powers of the earth and called forth the life that is grounded in God for all who would become his in the waters of baptism, the weeds of the earth found themselves under extreme threat. For their lives were now being suffocated by the life of those whose blood was coursing with the life of the Son of Man whose angels will be those who do the final sorting out of the weeds and the wheat.<\/p>\n

It is for the Spirit of God to make plain to the weeds that the wheat are the sons of the kingdom. In our poverty-stricken lives we think that God\u2019s glory will be set forth and his righteousness will be revealed in our \u201cbetter moral acts,\u201d our \u201chigher forms of living,\u201d our \u201cdrive towards perfecting the world,\u201d our \u201cwill to clean up all the filth that surrounds us.\u201d Without suggesting that we should not live our lives in full response to the grace of God \u2013 in urging and exhorting us, in fact, to be all that God would enable us to be under his grace \u2013 we must still recognize that we will constantly live with weeds growing inside us alongside the wheat of God\u2019s grace while at the same time our lives will constantly be surrounded by the weeds of this world attempting to suffocate the life that was born of the waters of our baptism and nourished on the body and blood of our Lord as they are energized and made lively in us through his word.<\/p>\n

God calls us to be who we are \u2013 the people of God \u2013 not merely a bunch of individual stalks of wheat in the midst of the world, but a wheatfield called the church faithfully living out and speaking forth the mercy and grace of the One who has planted us in the midst of the world as the sons and daughters of the kingdom. We will never be the \u201cpure church\u201d the fellow of whom I spoke at the beginning was seeking. But we will be God\u2019s people, forgiven, living by promise. That is enough!<\/p>\n

\n

Hubert Beck, Retired Lutheran Pastor
\n hbeck@austin.rr.com <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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