Stories that Stick: Weeds and Wheat

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Jesus told them another parable: “The 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’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot 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.’”

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.”

He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 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, 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 blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

I bet you’re thinking what Sandie and I have been thinking about this text. Oh good! Just what 2020 needed, more weeping and gnashing of teeth, and we’re calling it good news! 

This summer, we’re hearing parables from Jesus, the stories he told disciples and crowds to help to flex their imaginations, to help them get proximate to and curious about one another through a sacred lens. These stories stick because they are sturdy and layered.

Sometimes the disciples ask Jesus to explain the parable, to give them one way to understand the characters and the meaning in that particular moment. When he does, Jesus delivers an explanation that serves their context and experience without closing it off to other possibilities. Today’s parable is about a field with wheat and weeds; a land in which hearty promises that nourish are tangled up with sneaky irritants and flimsy intentions, the urge to either micromanage or give up on the mess completely.

Maybe you have heard this story before, on a day you’d been feeling rather righteous and overdue for the untangling and recognition that comes with harvest. Maybe you heard it on a day you’d been feeling self-conscious or scared, wondering if you’d be thrown out, if YOUR teeth will be the ones gnashing. Maybe you have felt like the workers, befuddled by the weeds, desperate for clear instruction and a swift solution. Maybe you have been the farmer, reminding others that part of growing something new is the season of expectation and careful attention to what’s still possible — the dreaming and waiting and seeing. Maybe you have been the field itself, a hungry neighbor gleaning from the roadside, or a fire who welcomes the weeds, fuel for your tenacious flame.

Remember, parables are shapeshifting stories; worms in the ears of those who listen, able to spin a new meaning with every hearing. If it reveals a glimpse of God’s kingdom, if it calls you beyond what you thought possible, to a new location or character or vista, if the parable tells you something true you wouldn’t be able to hear another way, and if it rattles your nerves and delights your spirit, then I’d say it’s a faithful hearing.

Listen again for a glimpse of the Kingdom right here. And let it move you in this context, in the experience of today:

A farmer sowed good seed in their field. Everyone was sleeping while an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat. When both weeds and wheat appeared, the workers asked their boss where the weeds came from. Did you plant these weeds? They asked.

It was not me. There is an enemy of these flourishing fields, the farmer replied.

Do you want us to get in there and tear them apart from one another? The workers offered. 

No, please don’t. Answered the farmer. It’s not your talent or your task. Just tend the fields. Let it all grow together until harvest time. Then I will call the reapers to collect and separate, gather and bind, to make use of the wheat for a feast and weeds as fuel for the fires.

I can relate to the farmer, reminding folks to stay in their lanes, to be helpful where they can actually be helpful. For instance, no matter how eager my 6-year-old daughter is to take the lasagna out of the oven, I would encourage her to set the table with silverware and napkins instead.

I resonate with these workers. When I see a weed, I pull a weed. (That is, when it’s growing in MY garden and when I’m sure it’s not an unfamiliar perennial.) I’m more than happy to decide what needs weeding out here: junk mail and expired food, an unhealthy relationship and a Troll in the comments section.

But when it comes to the metaphorical weeds, the internal irritants like sin and shame, the deep digging it takes to face my identity as saint and sinner  — let’s just say I’ll do some spiritual gymnastics to avoid that look in the mirror.

Let me give you an example. Earlier this week, I was lying in my hammock. It sits in the shade of a cherry blossom tree in my backyard where I have a good view of bunnies, birds, and my husband grilling dinner. It was early evening and I was listening to “Me and White Supremacy” on audiobook. If you aren’t familiar with this resource, it’s a 28-day workbook that encourages the reader (or in my case, listener) to read just a few pages each day and then spend quality time journaling about five reflection questions before moving on.

My journal was underneath the hammock. I’d forgotten to bring a pen outside, so I was listening to the questions instead of pausing the audiobook to write. I let the author continue reading the chapter for the next day instead of pausing to do the work.

This book is great, I remember thinking. I know so many other people who would benefit from this book. I can’t wait to finish it and talk about it with my book club next month.

I turned my attention back to chapter six, in which the author, Layla Saad, describes the danger of White Exceptionalism:

“White Exceptionalism is the belief that you, as a person holding white privilege, are exempt from the effects, benefits and conditioning of white supremacy and therefore, that the work of anti-racism does not really apply to you. You don’t REALLY need to do the work. You are doing it because it is a commendable thing to do, but you don’t have to dig as deep as you are being asked to go.

“White Exceptionalism is a little voice that convinces you that: You don’t have to dig any deeper. Because you have an intellectual understanding of the concepts being presented to you, and because you perceive yourself to be a spiritual and caring person, because you have some black friends and have shown up for justice in a few ways over the years, you do not need to diligently write out your responses to the workbook questions that accompany this audiobook. 

“You can just think about it in your mind and that is enough. Because you have read books, watched documentaries, listened to podcasts about racism. You are somehow special, exempt, past this, beyond this thing called White Supremacy. But you are not special or exceptional or exempt. You have benefited from privileges and been convinced that you are not part of the problem, and so you only have to wade so far into the solution.

 “You see, if you continue to think of yourself as exceptional, you will not do the work. And if you do not do the work, you will continue to cause harm. Even if that is not your intention.”

I sat up so fast in my hammock that I almost flipped out of it like a cartoon character. She’s talking about me, I thought. She’s talking about my weeds I try to pick before the harvest. She’s talking about the way I treat the work and tag out of labor in the field on my own terms.

I rewound the audiobook, paused it, and went to find this parable.

I share this example to invite you into a deeper and different consideration for the work you are called to tend, the fields in which you are meant to labor, and the corners of this parable you might be avoiding.

Sometimes I forget that I am crawling weeds. I decide that I am so well-intentioned or exceptional or harmless that these things do not need to be fuel for the fire.

Sometimes I forget that the harvest is not only one time at the end of times, but often — God has shown us seasons for planting and waiting and growing together. God has declared what is good for feeding the world and what is fuel for burning, what is meant to nourish our bodies and what is meant for flames and ash.

Sometimes I forget that God already knows everything there is to know about my wheat and my weeds, the tangled mess of being human, thanks to Jesus. God is no stranger to the fullness of my mortality, which includes my selfishness, my waste, my racism, my shame, my pride, my fear of being found out. All I want to do is pull them out!

Because we are wheat and weeds and I don’t want to be both. Paradox is hard. COVID means staying apart for the sake of love. Becoming anti-racist means coming face to face with racism in all its sinister and intimate forms we were taught to ignore. This week we said goodbye to civil rights heroes, one who coined a famous paradox: Good Trouble.

This field’s clean rows are a mess. And yet, the farmer commands every player in this story to stay. Stay in the tension. Pay deep, deliberate attention. It will feel instinctually disadvantageous, but we cannot pluck what we have not yet seen — the things we have not truly faced and confessed, their growth and destruction acknowledged completely.

The farmer says to stay and look carefully at how these things grow complicated and uncertain together. Notice the ways these weeds are rooted in the same soil, drinking the same water — daring you to call it wheat. See that, the longer they are tangled, the harder it becomes to tear apart what is goodness and life from the rest.

But the farmer doesn’t say it’s impossible. The work can be done. There is a season for everything: pulling apart — the repentance; the repair; and the restoration — the binding and burning and the baking of bread. The harvest is coming, surely at the end of time, but also whenever the land shows its hand, whenever the ovens are hot with the fires of justice and hungry for bread rising.

I returned to my journal and prayed that I would continue to be flipped out of my literal and metaphorical hammock when I set myself above the work or leave the field on my own terms.

*See Journal Prompts below.

Friends in Christ, this is harvest time. Let the layers of this parable fester in your heart and mind, let it move you from a sense of exceptionalism to the work of the fields, from your hammock back into the deep discernment of your journal, from your desire for a pass from the work you have been given.

This is harvest time. Stay in the fields, beloved. Pay attention and labor with love. Because the Farmer already knows. The Angels are reaping what we are willing to see. And the possibilities are still endless!

JOURNAL PROMPTS:

• What character did you identify within this parable while Sandie told the story or where do you traditionally put yourself?

• Did this parable move you to a different location in the work and the field today? How so? What does that relocation feel like?

• Look around the field of 2020 and consider: What is the Farmer telling you to face so that you are moved from fear to love, from intellectual thoughts to embodied belief?