Another day; another sermon. Does it feel like Monday to anyone else?
Matthew 13:24-30,36-43; Romans 8:12-25; Psalm 86:11-17; Isaiah 44:6-8
The parable of the weeds is an interesting one. Now for me, weeds really aren’t that big of a deal, in part because I’m not a huge gardener. Actually, one could easily say that I have the exact opposite of a green thumb — I tend to kill plants not keep them alive. On the other hand I could understand why a gardener, especially a farmer, would be incredibly annoyed at weeds. Weeds have a tendency to overgrow the plants we intended to grow somewhere, in part because the weeds are better adapted to our climate than, say, our rose bushes.
Now in the parable of the weeds, a farmer sows wheat, and his enemy sows weeds, which people better-read than me have said is the darnel plant. Curiously enough, this very action was prohibited by Roman law of the time. Now this darnel is kind of sneaky, as it looks quite a bit like wheat until it ripens. So the farmer’s inclination to let the darnel remain and grow with the wheat is a practical one, as when ripe, while wheat is brown with heavy, drooping heads, darnel turns black and has lighter heads which don’t weigh down the plant.
Jesus explains this parable as referencing the world, and focuses on an eschatological view where at the end times the weeds will be pulled up and thrown into the fire, and the righteous, symbolized by the wheat, will be in the kingdom of God. St. Augustine focuses the interpretation of this passage, as a reminder that not all those within the church — both in leadership and not — are really believers, but it won’t be until the time of the harvest that anyone can tell the difference.
But let’s leave the wheat and weeds alone for a minute, we’ll come back to it though, and look at Romans 8. Paul, at the end of Romans 7, reminded us of his struggle against the sinful nature, and how through Christ he was set free from his “body of death.” Last week, at the beginning of Romans 8, you read that, in Christ and through His Spirit, we are no longer controlled by the sinful nature, but instead it is the Spirit who gives us life. Now, starting in verse 12, Paul tells us that we are no longer slaves to our sin, but instead we are adopted as sons and daughters of God.
He goes on to say that just as we are looking forward to the day we are completely free from sin, so also all of creation is groaning with us, awaiting our final perfection in Christ. In a way, creation is waiting for the final harvest as well, which sets us and it complete free from the influence of sin.
So, sin is still a problem, even though in Christ we have forgiveness and through the Spirit can know the will of the Father to avoid sin in the future. Back to the parable of the weeds. What if the parable not only applies to world, or to the church, but to our lives as well? Parables have the tendency to carry with them several layers of meaning, and while Jesus’ explanation is the primary layer, it’s good sometimes to play with the other layers of meaning to see what comes out.
Like in the parable of the sower, God’s Word is sown in our lives and brings us knowledge of Him, leads us to Christ, and does all of the other good things that the Word does. But, the enemy still sneaks in to sow his lies — lies that we’re not good enough to be God’s children, that we did something so bad even God can’t forgive us, or that we don’t really need God anyways. These are all things weeds that the enemy sows on us, to try and get in the way of God’s Word. Now the enemy is clever; while sometimes he sows big lies, we usually catch those early. More often than not, it’s lies so subtle that we can’t always tell if they are lies at all. Sometimes the lie is so subtle, that at first it is indistinguishable from truth, just like the darnel is indistinguishable from wheat early in its growth.
So what can we do? Well you can always tell the lie from Truth by its fruit. If the words bring life, they are most likely Truth; if they bring death, it’s more than likely a lie. Now I realize this is easier said than done, but we have the Holy Spirit to help is distinguish, and the more time we spend with Truth — through prayer and the Scriptures — the easier it is to identify the lies. Because, as Paul so often reminds us, we are no longer bound to the sinful nature, which leads to death, but set free in Christ to eternal life.