O boy! Here is the way of the gospel - again! This is a bit of a poke in the eye to those who want to sing 'Onward Christian Soldiers' and similar songs that suspect we are always at battle. If we were then this parable isn't true.
A farmer sows seeds (in Jesus day it was possibly wheat) and someone else comes in and sows 'weeds'. This was probably the plant darnel that, when fully grown - and really only then - is very like wheat but without as many ears and is rife in Israel and known as a weed, apparently (if anyone can confirm or correct please let me know).
Now we could suppose we are at battle and have to get rid of the weeds, pulling them up as soon as we see them. Thosw who edited the Bible have taken that to mean people in the church ought to be pulled out if they don't measure up to our churchiness as if there is a 'them' and 'us' and as if churchiness is an appropriate standard (I wonder if each of us is both wheat and weed?).
But I've never seen God do something like that. I've never seen God intervene and pull out the baddies and hang them out to dry. I've never seen God strike someone despite what we sing in our 'Soldiers of Christ Arise' type hymns. I've never seen God 'take out' the enemy like some Hollywood film.
What I have seen is love redeem hatred. It strikes me the parable says pulling out the weed ruins everything. Our power is in redeeming those 'weeds' around us (again what if we were both wheat and weed?). Our work is reconciliation by growing among the weeds. There is no God who will come in with fiery swift sword. But there is a God who will love unconditionally. That's the only power we've got, and the more we want to pull out 'weeds' the less we are able to love those we are called to redeem.
And why do we imagine we are the ones who do the redeeming? Are we not often the ones who need redeemed? We would have been pulled years ago.
Recent Comments