In the Weeds

Grace, Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father and His only Son, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

            I don’t know much about agricultural. I don’t know much about animal husbandry. I was too young to learn much visiting my grandfather’s dairy farm. My family always lived in town or in the suburbs. Even when we lived on the east shore of Flathead Lake, we only had two cherry trees and an acre of lawn. Yet in my ignorance of farming or ranching, I did learn about weeds.

            Today I still battle the dandelions in my yard. I attack them with my weed whacker, and they still seem to come back with their prickly thorns, barbs and prickles.

            Weeds—the bane of any lawn, garden or farm owner. For the lawn owner, it means annoying battles with whatever floats in from the neighbor’s yards. For the gardener, weeds constantly interfere with the flowers or vegetables one is trying to grow. For the farmer, it is a larger scale of frustration.

            For the farmer, the infestation of weeds can mean loss of crops, which in turn, means loss of livelihood. In a scenario where the weeds are noxious, the crop could even prove poisonous and deadly. Some may even liken the outbreak of weeds in a crop to the devastation brought by insects. In some cases it takes years to eradicate an infestation.

            We easily see how the bad seed of a weed can be transported to healthy fields. Seed can stick to the fur of animals. Seed can be carried on the wind, sometimes carried to great heights only to be deposited hundreds of miles away. I don’t know how common it is in this day for a saboteur to purposely sow a weed into a farmer’s field, but it is another way for bad seed to fall on good soil.

            Sometimes the plants are brought into the agricultural system for the right reasons, but ignorance of the plant’s strength and weakness cause the loss of control and therefore the man-made catastrophe.

            For instance, in the mid 1800’s a wealthy plantation owner on the island of Hawaii, decided to cultivate a garden filled with trees and plants from all over the world. His plan was to create his own garden of Eden with lush trees and plants bearing beautiful flowers and luscious fruits.

            Little did the plantation owner know, that some trees and bushes were parasitic, and with the local flora and fauna not having developed a defense mechanism to these new plants, became the unwilling prey. To this day, the caretakers of this garden are in constant battle with these foreign plants.

            One can readily see why our Lord Jesus Christ would use the parable of weeds being sown into the field of healthy wheat to portray our world and the kingdom of heaven. We see the ‘weeds’ in our lives today.

            These ‘weeds’ are those who live to propagate their own agenda and not that of our Lord. Like true weeds, their roots are thick and deep. They grow alongside those who have the seed of the Holy Spirit and who produce the good fruit to the glory of God our Father.

These weeds are sown by the adversary, Satan. He started long ago in the first garden of creation. In this garden the great serpent sowed the seeds of evil through deceit. Since that time, the roots of evil have penetrated the soil of our humanity. The roots have grown deeper and deeper over the generations.

Hear the words of our Lord as it is written in Genesis 3:17-19

Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:

     “Cursed is the ground for your sake;

     In toil you shall eat of it

     All the days of your life.

     Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,

     And you shall eat the herb of the field.

     In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread

     Till you return to the ground,

     For out of it you were taken;

     For dust you are,

     And to dust you shall return.” [Genesis 3:17-19]

We were created from the soil of this good earth. By God in heaven, we were given the Spirit of Life. We were planted in this creation to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit, to give honor, worship and glory to God our creator. But our sin grew in us and caused us to distort his creation into that which does not bear good fruit.

And, like the common weed we see every day, we have dispersed our seed so as to multiply our distorted lives. We have produced thorns and choking vines instead of the sweet smelling flower of the Holy Spirit.

We now grow in a world of noxious, poisonous weeds. If we partake of what these weeds produce, we become sick and even die. As healthy plants struggle to reach through the canopy of choking briars so as to bask in the light of the sun, we as God’s people struggle to reach through the overgrowth of the world’s self-serving culture to bask in the light of The Son of God.

Do not be so foolish as to think you may pass yourself off as healthy spiritual wheat when you live your lives as weeds. Like the weeds in the parable, you may look like healthy wheat, but your true form will be realized by he who sowed the good seed.

The reapers of the kingdom of heaven’s harvest have already found you out. They have reported to their master that you exist. You may think that since you prosper in this life that you will gain eternal life, but that is not to be.

Christ has chosen to let us all live until the last day. On that day, he will send out the reapers to gather in his crop. All will be cut down, but those who followed their own path, and not that of our Lord, will be gathered up and thrown into the fire. Those who have grown from the seed of the Holy Spirit will be taken into the storehouse of the kingdom of heaven.

            Many Christians with good intentions seek to uproot the weeds of our world, or destroy them by means of fire or the sword. This is not what Christ is telling us in this parable. He knows about the weeds. He reserves the power and righteousness to judge. The good Dr. Martin Luther had this to say about the weeds in our lives:

“Today we, too, lament about such people. For those who give the appearance of being our true brothers cause us the greatest heartache. When we are happy and buoyed up by hope, as though everything were pure and tranquil, these same false brethren and fanatics raise themselves up against us. We do not detect that they have a depraved heart. The devil plants them in our midst before we are ever aware of it. Who can discern them?”[1]

Who can discern them? Certainly not you or I. We are not to attack our neighbor based on our judgment. In our Old testament reading Isaiah 44 verse 8, God says:

            “Is there a God besides Me?

            Indeed there is no other Rock;

            I know not one.” [Is 44:8b]

We are not God, nor can we know the hearts of our neighbors. It is true that if they openly confess and act contrary to God’s commands that we will see them as they really are; yet it is still God who rules over the good wheat and the weeds.