Matthew 13:24-43, 36-43
24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 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.’”
36 Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
37 He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
40 “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 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. 42 They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.
Judgment is not in our hands. We are not to separate the wheat from the weeds, the sacred from the secular, the holy from the unholy. This is God’s doing - God who is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”.
Our task is to live faithfully, as those who are both wheat and weeds - we are not as pure as we would like to be. As Wm. Saloan Coffin has said, “Remember what history teaches, never do people so cheerfully do evil as when they do it from religious conviction.”
I tried to laugh off being a Pastor/Chaplain. I couldn’t do it. So I said yes, no matter how inadequate I felt and how inappropriate it seemed. God uses all of us in ways we don’t understand to spread his word of Love. We are to tell of God’s love not try judge our neighbors. Then it will be good - for them and for us.
“God has invited us to gather rather than to judge, to get together and learn to live with one another, weeds and wheat alike. There is wheat within each of us as well as those all-too-visible weeds. From this patchy crop God can fashion a miraculous bread, transforming each of us by the pure wheat of this holy offering, making us into beings shaped by hope.” Richard I Pervo, New Proclamation Year A2011 p.99
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