The Soil is Good ….. but the Weeds!
Matthew 13:24 – 30, 36 – 43
I suspect that all of us have some sort of garden around the house, a flower garden, a little vegetable garden, a big multiacre farm maybe. Julianne and Amber have a fairy garden that some of you have seen on Facebook although I haven’t seen any fairies come up and bloom yet. None the less even if it is simply landscaping, a few bushes and the occasional perennial plant we all have something.
Most of us have the best intentions for these endeavors, some of us provide a living for ourselves and our family by tending to the fields, some of us enjoy the vegetables, the fruits of our labors throughout the growing season and maybe longer.
It is a bit of a lost art now but Mom used to can all sorts of things that we grew in our little garden at home when I was young. My job was to keep the weeds out of the garden so that they didn’t get into the plants and choke them out. For example the weeds would strangle the bean plants and then there wouldn’t be green beans stored up for the winter months.
It wasn’t pleasant work especially for a young boy that would rather spend the summer riding a bike, playing baseball or at the swimming pool. To me those weeds that came back time after time were vile and evil tormentors.
All of us that have some degree of garden or farm in our lives can empathize with the problem. We do our best to prevent them from the outset, but these demon plants come anyway seeking to undo that which we had set out to accomplish from the beginning.
That brings us to our lesson today, but first a reminder about last week’s lesson. As we recall Jesus is in a boat on the Sea of Galilee teaching to a large crowd that had gathered around him. And as was his preference Jesus used parables, picture stories, to illustrate lessons for seekers. In fact in verses 34 and 35 of Chapter 13 Matthew says:
“Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world”.
Last week’s lesson was about the type of soils that the farmers in that area of Palestine had and how the seed sown by the farmers might be received by the ground and how that seed might or might not flourish and produce as it was intended by the farmer. Our lesson this week seems to be a bit of sequel of the original lesson last, call it Work the Soil 2 if you will.
In our lesson today, Jesus tells the crowd another story about that farm they can see off in the distance. The farmer, he says, has good seed, the best that is available because he wants the best harvest that he can get. We assume that the soil is good soil because there aren’t any problems with the seed eventually coming up and flourishing. So he sows the farm with the good seed.
But unbeknownst to the farmer, someone evil slips into the field at night while everyone is asleep, when they weren’t watching and spreads bad seeds, among the good seeds. They also come up and the crop that the farmer has, as the scripture tells, has undesirable plants, invasive weeds, some translations call them tares, and they will become hopelessly intertwined with his wheat.
What Matthew most likely refers to is darnel or cockle, a noxious weed that is plentiful in Israel during those times. It looked very much like wheat when it sprouted up; and it even appeared to have an ear that looked like an ear of wheat as it developed. In fact, you couldn’t even readily tell the difference between them until they had both become ripe.
But the weeds, the tares were most definitely not wheat. If the kernels from the tares became mixed up with kernels of wheat, the bread made from the would make whoever ate it dizzy and sick. The weed was an insidious doppelganger for the desired wheat plant.
When the servants of the farmer first notice the weeds they ask the farmer didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from? They offer to go into the fields and pull all the bad plants out. But the farmer tells them that because the two plants are difficult to tell apart and that because the roots have been intertwined, they would damage the good plant trying to remove the bad plant.
The farmer has a plan to deal with the actions of the evil one at the harvest which is let the reapers tell the plants apart at the harvest, separate the plant grown from the good from the plant from the bad seed and then burn the bad plant in the furnace. Thus, the evil seed would be destroyed and the purpose behind it being sown amongst the good seed would be defeated.
Clearly the man who sowed the tares in the other man’s field was doing something very malicious. He was seeking to sabotage and destroy the other man’s crop. To turn his harvest into something different that it was meant to be. This man intended to turn what was supposed to be good and to transform it into something unhealthy and compromised.
So what does all of this mean? Well after Jesus had sent the people away that day the Disciples ask him that very question and fortunately, he provides this interpretation. He says the one who sows the good seed is himself, the Son of God. The field is the people of the world, the good seed is the holy and righteous influence over the people of the world, the wheat is the children of God led to righteousness by the influence of God. The reapers, the harvesters are angels.
The bad seed is the rebellious and unholy influence of the Dark One on the children of God. The enemy who sowed them is Satan, who is committed to the seeding evil into the world. The weeds, the tares, are the evil growth that entangles and distracts the souls of mankind keeping them being part of the great harvest of Good.
In our lesson last week, we saw that the farmer had sowed seed onto what appeared to be good soil but beneath the surface lurked unseen roots and seeds of thorns and weeds. The good seed that sown the farmer, in this case Jesus himself, took root and springs to life to become what God intended them to be but the evil seed also sprang to life and chocked out the tender new plant. The plant withers and dies without ever becoming fruitful.
In our lesson today we see a similar notion that the good seed produces a good plant in good soil. The evil seed sown by the Evil One produces a plant that looks like the good plant but has evil intentions. Those influences can make even a righteous creation turn away from holiness because of the distractions and encumbrances of the world, becoming focused and preoccupied by the ways of the world rather than the ways of God.
It should come as no surprise to us that Satan looks to seed the world with evil intentions. He arrived in the first garden, the Garden of Eden and sows the first seed of ungodly intentions there by distracting, confusing and lying to Eve that God was simply holding them back, that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was ok to eat. In that case the evil seed of disobedience was an Apple seed. The Dark One has been trying to lead good souls away from their Creator from the very beginning. To make us weedy!
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn the Russian novelist, philosopher, historian, and political prisoner said this about the tendency for all of us from time to time to be influenced by darkness in the world: “The universal dividing line between good and evil runs not between countries, not between nations, not between parties, not between classes, not between good and bad (people)—It divides the heart of every (human being).” There’s ‘weediness’ inside us, not just out there.”
The evil enemy of deception, power, seduction and ‘weediness’ is present within all of us, whether we like it or not. Satan has everything at stake in seeking to frustrate and destroy the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And so, the devil seeks to sow his own wicked influences in the Lord’s field in the very places in which the good seed was sown. but:
Hear the Good News my Friends……..
Jesus lets us know that evil will be permitted by Him to grow with His kingdom until ‘the harvest’ at the end of the age. And then it will be fully removed. One day Jesus will tell His reapers to remove the good from the bad. He calls them to gather out of His field “everything that causes sin”. He speaks of removing “stumbling blocks” which cause His children to stumble in their faith or fall into temptations to sin, actions that violate God’s standards of holiness in His law.
He teaches us that it is not our job to do what Jesus will send the angels to do in the day of judgment. It is not our role to remove evil from the world. We need to remember that evil will always be present in this world all the way to the day of judgment; and it is not our task to completely remove it nor is it even in our ability to do so.
Jesus told us in the Sermon on The Mount, “You are the salt of the earth . . . You are the light of the world”. We are to let our light so shine in this world that men will see our good works and glorify our Father. It is our duty to lovingly confront sin in our midst and call one another to repentance. In the end the angels will do the rest removing Satan’s seed from entering Eternity. The Soil is Good but the Weeds, the Weeds will be removed in the end. Be the wheat not a weed. Amen