Sorting it out
This week is on Matthew 13:24-30:
I had a chance recently to harvest some barley. In with the barley were some other grasses, so I had to separate them as I was gathering it into sheaves. It was a good hands-on illustration of how impossible it is to separate the weeds from the grass until harvest time.
Traditionally, the weeds referred to in the parable were said to be tares. They are known as false wheat, because right up until harvest, they look just like wheat, except that they're poisonous. When it's time to harvest the wheat, the tares turn a different color and stand tall, while the wheat droops a bit.
The thing that struck me is how long I had to tolerate the weeds. I had to spend the whole growing season watching them flourish and eat up the nourishment meant for my barley. I couldn't just wade in and pull the weeds, because then I'd trample the barley and uproot it. It's not like lawn grass; when it gets knocked down, it stays down. When the time came for harvest, I could toss the weeds on the ground and gather up the barley, but until then I had to be patient or I'd mess up my crop.
In our lives, people live among us who are just poisonous. Just like the frustration with having my field full of noxious weeds without being able to do anything about it, it's frustrating to see people do evil and not have any consequences. We ask ourselves "when are they going to get sorted out, so we can live in peace?" Other than the obvious hope that they repent and change their ways for good like some of us have, all we can do is be patient.
The world is designed such that we live all tangled together with other people, good and bad. We can't rip out the "bad people" any more than you could weed a wheat field. When we try, that's when good people get falsely accused and uprooted from society. It's only at harvest time, when everything is done, that we can tell one from the other, and then it's God's job to sort things out.
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.’”
I had a chance recently to harvest some barley. In with the barley were some other grasses, so I had to separate them as I was gathering it into sheaves. It was a good hands-on illustration of how impossible it is to separate the weeds from the grass until harvest time.
Traditionally, the weeds referred to in the parable were said to be tares. They are known as false wheat, because right up until harvest, they look just like wheat, except that they're poisonous. When it's time to harvest the wheat, the tares turn a different color and stand tall, while the wheat droops a bit.
The thing that struck me is how long I had to tolerate the weeds. I had to spend the whole growing season watching them flourish and eat up the nourishment meant for my barley. I couldn't just wade in and pull the weeds, because then I'd trample the barley and uproot it. It's not like lawn grass; when it gets knocked down, it stays down. When the time came for harvest, I could toss the weeds on the ground and gather up the barley, but until then I had to be patient or I'd mess up my crop.
In our lives, people live among us who are just poisonous. Just like the frustration with having my field full of noxious weeds without being able to do anything about it, it's frustrating to see people do evil and not have any consequences. We ask ourselves "when are they going to get sorted out, so we can live in peace?" Other than the obvious hope that they repent and change their ways for good like some of us have, all we can do is be patient.
The world is designed such that we live all tangled together with other people, good and bad. We can't rip out the "bad people" any more than you could weed a wheat field. When we try, that's when good people get falsely accused and uprooted from society. It's only at harvest time, when everything is done, that we can tell one from the other, and then it's God's job to sort things out.
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