Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 (NRSV)

²⁴ He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; ²⁵ but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. ²⁶ So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. ²⁷ And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ ²⁸ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ ²⁹ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. ³⁰ Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ” 

³⁶ Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” ³⁷ He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; ³⁸ the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, ³⁹ and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. ⁴⁰ Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, ⁴² and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³ Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

 

Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43 contains the parable of the weeds and its allegorical interpretation. One of the reasons this parable hits home to me is that I have a very strong perfectionist streak in me.  I want the world to be a better place in which to live.  I want the church to live up to all of its ideals.  However, I am hardest on myself. I can have more forgiveness for others than I am with myself. This parable moves against that perfectionist tendency. It reminds me of the importance of patience and grace. We need both qualities with self, with the church, and with the world. 

            Many people have the opposite problem. They rarely face the ways in which they have fallen short of their ideals or contribute to the imperfections of the church or the world. The title character in the comic strip Broom Hilda is an ugly yet somehow lovable witch. Her friend Irwin, the troll, has all the innocence and naiveté needed to be truly attractive. One day, we find Broom Hilda asking, "Irwin, what would be the best way to make the world better?" Irwin thinks for a moment and replies "Start with yourself! Give up your bad habits and evil pleasures. Then when you're good, when you're perfect, you'll stand as a shining example to others!" Broom Hilda swiftly responds, "What's the second best way?"

            When it comes to the community of those who follow Jesus, its purity is not something we will experience in our time. The genuine and the fake is something we wisely need to learn to distinguish. Groucho Marx famously said that the secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you have it made. We expect the label on the food to reflect accurately what is in the container.

 

           Jesus relies upon the experience of farming in this story. Maybe the closest experience many of us will have is with the garden. The gardener knows how difficult weeds can be. You fight dandelions all weekend and the beginning of the week they are back. They thrive in adversity (Hal Borland). Crabgrass can grow on bowling balls in airless rooms with no way to kill it that does not involve nuclear weapons (Dave Berry). The weeds seem to know where to grow, and thus they must have brains (Dianne Benson, Dirt, 1994, 128). Yet, for the reflective gardener, weeding the garden becomes a metaphor of life. A Flemish proverb observes that people have enough weeding to do in their own garden. Some will think of their sins. Sins will grow like weeds and are difficult to remove.[1] Gardening requires a natural mindfulness. Such mindfulness includes removing weeds. It requires sustained attention. One needs to pull them with care, or you will hurt your hand or leave the root to grow and spread. Differing weeds will require differing techniques and tools. We need awareness as to where and how we walk and bend, for we might squash the plants we want to grow.[2]

            Yet, the farmer in the story Jesus tells makes an interesting decision. He lets the weeds grow among the wheat.

With that introduction, let us discuss the parable and its allegorical interpretation.

Matthew 13:24-30 is the parable of the weeds. The source is the material unique to Matthew. The focus is on the discovery of weeds sown by the enemy, and upon the farmer’s intent to let the weeds grow until the harvest, when there will be enough time for separating wheat from weeds. The patience and grace of the farmer in the present time, the time between sowing the seed and the harvest, becomes the focus of this parable. His concern is to tend the field patiently, despite the mixed crop growing in it. In the ministry context of Jesus, it would represent a strong protest against the practice of groups like the Pharisees, the Qumran community, and the Zealots. They had as a goal a pure community defined by their obedience to the Law. Jesus will actually demonstrate how this parable works. He spends much of his time with people whom the righteous might consider weeds. He reserved his harshest words for the self-righteous and judgmental. He would have no sympathy with a moral crusade to uproot evil. Jesus is saying that the time before the harvest of the anticipated end of human history is a time for patience and grace by those who devoted to the rule of God. The reason is that even as the farmer sows good seed, the enemy, Satan, is sowing bad seed. Only God can see the heart. The slaves/servants do not have the capacity to divide the wheat and weeds. The time before the end is an ambiguous time. In other words, Jesus' presentation of the kingdom in these parables indicates that it is both "already" and "not yet."[3] The danger in trying to create a pure community is greater than being patient and graceful. The parable and the interpretation of it call into question the idea of anyone other than God separating "authentic members of the covenant community from false members."[4]

Matthew 13:36-43 is the allegorical interpretation of the parable of the weeds. The source is the material unique to Matthew. It is likely that the allegory and the interpretation are from Matthew himself. If so, he is dealing with the presence of evil within the community of people who follow Jesus. How did they get here? Thus, it becomes a warning against false security. People are not to think they are safe just because they made it into the community. Matthew directs attention to the harvest that closes the parable. The harvest becomes the Last Judgment. The farmer becomes the Son of Man. The enemy is Satan. The field is the world. These verses become a little apocalypse about the fate of the darnel (children of the evil one) and the wheat (children of the rule of God). They focus upon future judgment that will separate true and false prophets, true followers of Jesus from the false. The unrestricted flow of time as we experience it meets here the eschatological expectation of Christ as oriented to an end of this time.[5]

 

          The good seed is already present, mingled with the seed sowed by the enemy. The church must always be aware that it has enemies. Sometimes, the enemy will come within the community. Such is the nature of the “already” in its imperfection and ambiguity. The “already” requires from us far more patience and grace than it does the judgment often found in moral crusades. We wait for the “not yet” of the final sifting represented in the Last Judgment, when the genuine and true will remain. Thus, our attention must focus upon our readiness for the Last Judgment. We must not have too much concern or the wrong type of concern for the readiness of others. The Son of Man will judge. We need to be sure we are the genuine seed that has grown into wheat.

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[1] Helena Rutherfurd Ely, A Woman's Hardy Garden, (1903).

[2] Sura Lama Das, Awakening to the Sacred.

[3] (M. Eugene Boring, "The Gospel of Matthew, "New Interpreter's Bible Commentary [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995], 299; cf. C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961]; Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972]).

[4] (M. Eugene Boring, "The Gospel of Matthew," New Interpreter's Bible Commentary [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995], 311). 

[5] Systematic Theology Volume 2, 95.