The wheat and the weeds

(Delivered before Norway)
How should we respond to evil? The response of the servants is to uproot the weeds, but the Farmer/father says no. Let both grow together, or else you will pull up the wheat. The wheat and weeds are virtually indistinguishable: greek word for weed is name of a particular weed, zizania, which looks just like wheat. If we try and eliminate the bad, we will end up eliminating the good too.

Satan hasn’t done much – just sowed bad seeds. Satan has no power except the power of suggestion – in just the same way as the sower scatters seed of the gospel (last week's reading) so too does the Satan scatter the seed of doubt and disbelief, accusation and condemnation. And sometimes those bad seeds also find appropriate soil and bear fruit. And what is that bearing of fruit? It is the fostering of divisions and accusations, most especially within the church, within the field of wheat. Now we think we can tell the difference between the wheat and the weeds, but we can’t. When we act as if we do know the difference, then we are doing Satan’s work for him. He is relying on that for his work to be accomplished.

It needs to be said that Jesus talks more about hell than anyone else in Scripture. He uses very clear language of the last judgement. The point of this language of heaven and hell is to restrict the realm of punishment to God, and to separate it from our human realms. Vengeance belongs only to God. The most important thing about hell is that it places justice and judgement in the hands of God – in other words, it takes it out of our own hands. That is the only way to stop the cycle of violence and condemnation.

It is the desire to eliminate evil which causes the harm – and this is a zeal to be pure, to make sure that we are not contaminated by the unclean. At its spiritual root this is a desire to earn our own salvation, to be in control of our own destiny – and therefore it is a denial of God. Remember the sin in the garden – the desire to know good and evil. When we wrap ourselves in the mantle of righteous vengeance in order to root out wickedness from our midst, that is when we start wearing Satan’s clothes, and doing his work.

Our way is the way of the cross – it is the way of suffering forgiveness: not to walk in that way of peace is to perpetuate the crucifixion. Our human realms, after all, were the ones who punished Christ believing ourselves to be righteous. It is a common human dynamic to fight most strongly in other people what we most dislike in ourselves. The line between wheat and weeds runs within people, not between them.

Now I am not a gardener, but I understand that it is good advice not to spend too long on the weeds. Plant good seeds, and make sure that the good things grow. They will cut out the sunlight that the weeds need, and the weeds will then die out of their own accord.

In other words, concentrate on forgiveness. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father.

Ps 37 1-9