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Matthew 13 is what might be called, "The Sermon on the Lake," a series of parables (short teaching stories) intended to help us learn about God's character / what is pleasing to God / what the Kingdom of Heaven (i.e. God's rule) is like / how to behave now in order to practice how to behave in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Just as the preceding parable of the Sower had an extravagantly generous (or wasteful?) God giving the Good News even to the hardened, the shallow, and the trapped; this parable now talks about the other reality: it is not just the soils that vary, there are also different kinds of "seeds."
The fact that an enemy would come in the night and sabotage one's livelihood was not unheard of - not a surprise - to Jesus' hearers. A widespread fact of life was generations of feuding between families or other groups.
And while we may no longer experience weeds being placed there by enemies, we still have the widespread experience of something keeping anything from being totally perfect.
No matter how good, pure and perfect to begin, something always happens that takes the bloom off the rose.
What to do?
First, notice that Jesus does NOT advise taking revenge of the enemy. He does not advise continuing the feud by getting back at the enemy.
Second, notice that Jesus does NOT advise that WE try and make the situation pure and perfect. He rightly points out that OUR trying to makes things perfect will only make things worse.
Third, notice that while the wheat and weed PLANTS can be separated, the ROOTS cannot. Pulling up weed plants will also unavoidably pull up wheat roots.
Fourth, notice that Jesus does NOT call the weeds "wild plants that also have an honoured place in the diversity of God's creation." The weeds will not be gathered into the barn at the harvest.
Fifth, notice that - unlike real life - these weeds do NOT harm the growth of the wheat. It would be a tragic mistake to interpret this parable as toleration of harmful behaviour.
Sixth, it would also be a tragic mistake to interpret this parable as applying to different individuals. This is a parable about the FIELD - about the collective experience. It should be interpreted as a comment on the collective experience of the whole world; or a whole congregation; or a whole person - in all cases we find an unavoidable, inseparable mixture of good and bad, wheat and weeds together sown. According to this parable, we should expect that to be true; and we should not expect that God is going to come and take out all the bad things and make everything and everyone wholly good and pure. Darn.
Seventh, notice that is not lost; all is not left muddled and pointless. At the end, the weeds ARE separated and burned. At the end, what is pleasing to God is taken in to God's care and keeping. But remember, think of yourself as the FIELD. At the harvest, the weeds in you are removed, and the wheat in you is gathered in.
Personally, though the work of harvesting is arduous, this sounds like Good News to me.
David Ewart,
www.davidewart.ca
PS: Most scholars agree that Matthew 13:36-43 are NOT the words of Jesus, but an interpretation added by the early Christian community. If you think you can count yourself amongst the wheat, it is a great passage for beating up on those you consider to be amongst the weeds. But I'm not sure what the Good News of that is.
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