Wheat, weeds and the patience of God
Matthew 13:24-30,36-43
One of the big questions that we ask is why – if there is a God of love and power – is there evil in the world. Why doesn’t God root it out?
And that was an even bigger question for the first followers of Jesus. They were seeing amazing things. People were being healed, evil was being cast out. The Messiah had come. So why was there still evil?
And these verses show us how we should live in this in between time: the time between the first coming of the Messiah, of the ‘Son of Man’ and the second coming, at the end of time.
1. We are not to judge others, whether they are wheat or weeds.
This story separates people into the children of the kingdom and the children of the evil one.
But I don’t think that the main point that Jesus is making here is that there are those who are wheat and those who are weeds, although he is saying that.
Rather he is saying that we don’t know who is wheat and who is weed and it is not up to us to judge.
The reason that God does not separate the wheat and the weeds is because of his patience.
God waits for the good seed to reveal itself as wheat, and for the seed that is evil to reveal itself as weed – because he doesn’t want any wheat lost.
Jesus himself says that the end will only come when the message of the forgiveness of sins has reached everywhere. So that people can hear and turn to God in repentance.
Peter writes that the patience of God is our salvation.
And if God is patient, we too are called to be patient. Patient with others, and patient with ourselves.
It takes time for the seed to become wheat
It takes time for the mustard seed to become a tree
It takes time for the yeast to work its way through the bread
I worked for someone in Hackney who said that in his experience it took about 7 years from someone first receiving Jesus to begin to genuinely change in such a way that committed worship became a regular part of their life. I suspect that today it takes longer.
In the marriage service, we speak of how marriage enables both partners to grow to maturity in love.
Growing to maturity in love is for all of us, whether married or not. But that growing to maturity in love involves climbing mountains and dropping into deep chasms. It involves persevering through the everyday mundane. And it takes time to learn to die to ourselves and to come alive to the other.
We need to be patient with others.
Patient in sharing the message of Christ when the opportunity presents itself, so that people hear of the God who loves them and invites them into a relationship with him.
Patient with those who profess to be believers and yet hold views that we do not think are compatible with a Christian confession.
Patient with those who so obviously fall.
Patient with those who hurt us.
The disciples ask Jesus how often they should forgive people in the church who offend us. Seven times? Jesus replies, Seventy by seven times.
And if we are counting, then we probably have missed the point!
And we need to be patient with ourselves.
Do not despair. Just because we mess up – and go on repeating the same mess up maybe even very badly – it does not mean that we are weed.
If we mess up and couldn’t care less, then we are walking on very dangerous ground.
But the very fact that we are broken when we mess up, and that we turn to Jesus in our brokenness, is pretty solid evidence that we are wheat.
In the commission in the baptism service, the newly baptised – if adults – are asked: “Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?”.
I really like that. It assumes that we will fall into sin, and that we can repent.
God is patient with us
3. We are to seek to mature as wheat by listening to Jesus.
Verse 41, Jesus says, ‘Let anyone with ears listen!’
One of the very clear signs that we are wheat is that we will listen to Jesus. We will want to listen to him, and to understand what he is saying.
The disciples heard Jesus tell this parable, but they did not understand it. They didn’t go off and say, Jesus told a pointless story about a farmer. They wanted to understand, so instead, ‘His disciples approached him, saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field’. (v36)
And if we want to grow, to become mature wheat, we will seek to listen. We will put aside time to listen. We will allow God to speak to us, to feed us, to shape our thinking.
And when we do not understand, or we find something difficult, we do what the disciples do here. We go to Jesus. We pray, ‘Help me to understand’.
We grow into mature wheat by listening to Jesus.
One of the big questions that we ask is why – if there is a God of love and power – is there evil in the world. Why doesn’t God root it out?
And that was an even bigger question for the first followers of Jesus. They were seeing amazing things. People were being healed, evil was being cast out. The Messiah had come. So why was there still evil?
And the answer these verses give is that there will be a judgement, a harvest, a separation of good from evil, but it will be in God’s time.
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And these verses show us how we should live in this in between time: the time between the first coming of the Messiah, of the ‘Son of Man’ and the second coming, at the end of time.
1. We are not to judge others, whether they are wheat or weeds.
This story separates people into the children of the kingdom and the children of the evil one.
But I don’t think that the main point that Jesus is making here is that there are those who are wheat and those who are weeds, although he is saying that.
Rather he is saying that we don’t know who is wheat and who is weed and it is not up to us to judge.
It is a call to humility
We do not know the hearts and minds of people.
They may be people who seem respectable and do ‘good’ things.
Or they may be people who do terrible things.
But we do not really know what is going on here, in the heart, why they do what they do.
That is not to say that we cannot say what is right or wrong.
We do not know the hearts and minds of people.
They may be people who seem respectable and do ‘good’ things.
Or they may be people who do terrible things.
But we do not really know what is going on here, in the heart, why they do what they do.
That is not to say that we cannot say what is right or wrong.
Jesus in Matthew tells us that we need to have a righteousness that exceeds the Pharisees – and that is quite a high standard.
He challenges our hatred, our cutting remarks, the looseness to which we hold to our word, the way we see other people as objects to satisfy our lusts, our unfaithfulness, our hunger for revenge and our lack of love.
Of course, we can say what is right and wrong, what is wheat stuff and weed stuff. And we can challenge others, and we can be challenged ourselves.
Jesus himself says that good seed will bear good fruit
But this passage says that before the end we can never say of another this one is wheat and this one is weed.
It would have seemed, after his denial of Jesus, that Peter was weed. But that would have been to get it so wrong.
It would have seemed that both criminals hanging on the cross next to Jesus were weed. They had killed people in a rebellion. But that would have been so wrong. One of them turns to Jesus.
Jesus tells a story of people who only come into the Kingdom at the very last hour. If you had looked at them even five minutes before that, you would have thought they were weed.
And to say that this one is wheat and this one is weed is to forget that the primary evidence that one is wheat is the fruit of repentance, of turning to God and seeking and receiving his forgiveness and his strength to live a holy life – and that is something that a person can do in the very last hour of their life.
2. We are to be patient
He challenges our hatred, our cutting remarks, the looseness to which we hold to our word, the way we see other people as objects to satisfy our lusts, our unfaithfulness, our hunger for revenge and our lack of love.
Of course, we can say what is right and wrong, what is wheat stuff and weed stuff. And we can challenge others, and we can be challenged ourselves.
Jesus himself says that good seed will bear good fruit
But this passage says that before the end we can never say of another this one is wheat and this one is weed.
It would have seemed, after his denial of Jesus, that Peter was weed. But that would have been to get it so wrong.
It would have seemed that both criminals hanging on the cross next to Jesus were weed. They had killed people in a rebellion. But that would have been so wrong. One of them turns to Jesus.
Jesus tells a story of people who only come into the Kingdom at the very last hour. If you had looked at them even five minutes before that, you would have thought they were weed.
And to say that this one is wheat and this one is weed is to forget that the primary evidence that one is wheat is the fruit of repentance, of turning to God and seeking and receiving his forgiveness and his strength to live a holy life – and that is something that a person can do in the very last hour of their life.
2. We are to be patient
The reason that God does not separate the wheat and the weeds is because of his patience.
God waits for the good seed to reveal itself as wheat, and for the seed that is evil to reveal itself as weed – because he doesn’t want any wheat lost.
Jesus himself says that the end will only come when the message of the forgiveness of sins has reached everywhere. So that people can hear and turn to God in repentance.
Peter writes that the patience of God is our salvation.
And if God is patient, we too are called to be patient. Patient with others, and patient with ourselves.
It takes time for the seed to become wheat
It takes time for the mustard seed to become a tree
It takes time for the yeast to work its way through the bread
I worked for someone in Hackney who said that in his experience it took about 7 years from someone first receiving Jesus to begin to genuinely change in such a way that committed worship became a regular part of their life. I suspect that today it takes longer.
In the marriage service, we speak of how marriage enables both partners to grow to maturity in love.
Growing to maturity in love is for all of us, whether married or not. But that growing to maturity in love involves climbing mountains and dropping into deep chasms. It involves persevering through the everyday mundane. And it takes time to learn to die to ourselves and to come alive to the other.
We need to be patient with others.
Patient in sharing the message of Christ when the opportunity presents itself, so that people hear of the God who loves them and invites them into a relationship with him.
Patient with those who profess to be believers and yet hold views that we do not think are compatible with a Christian confession.
Patient with those who so obviously fall.
Patient with those who hurt us.
The disciples ask Jesus how often they should forgive people in the church who offend us. Seven times? Jesus replies, Seventy by seven times.
And if we are counting, then we probably have missed the point!
And we need to be patient with ourselves.
Do not despair. Just because we mess up – and go on repeating the same mess up maybe even very badly – it does not mean that we are weed.
If we mess up and couldn’t care less, then we are walking on very dangerous ground.
But the very fact that we are broken when we mess up, and that we turn to Jesus in our brokenness, is pretty solid evidence that we are wheat.
In the commission in the baptism service, the newly baptised – if adults – are asked: “Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?”.
I really like that. It assumes that we will fall into sin, and that we can repent.
God is patient with us
3. We are to seek to mature as wheat by listening to Jesus.
Verse 41, Jesus says, ‘Let anyone with ears listen!’
One of the very clear signs that we are wheat is that we will listen to Jesus. We will want to listen to him, and to understand what he is saying.
The disciples heard Jesus tell this parable, but they did not understand it. They didn’t go off and say, Jesus told a pointless story about a farmer. They wanted to understand, so instead, ‘His disciples approached him, saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field’. (v36)
And if we want to grow, to become mature wheat, we will seek to listen. We will put aside time to listen. We will allow God to speak to us, to feed us, to shape our thinking.
And when we do not understand, or we find something difficult, we do what the disciples do here. We go to Jesus. We pray, ‘Help me to understand’.
We grow into mature wheat by listening to Jesus.
4. We live in hope
Just because God has not uprooted evil now, it does not mean that he will never do so.
There will be a day when the wheat and the weeds will be separated, when what is evil and ‘the causes of evil’ will be uprooted and removed.
We are non-judgemental as to who is who – that is God’s job.
We are, like God, immensely patient with others and ourselves when we do evil things.
We seek to grow, to mature as strong wheat – through listening and repentance
But we must never ever find ourselves at ease with evil, with what is God denying, self-obsessed and ultimately destructive, of ourselves and of others. Because one day it will be rooted out and burned up.
I hope and pray that that is something that for us is not frightening – but something that we long for: for that day when we ‘will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of our Father’, that kingdom of God which is full of what is right and true and good and beautiful and holy, full of life and peace and joy.
Just because God has not uprooted evil now, it does not mean that he will never do so.
There will be a day when the wheat and the weeds will be separated, when what is evil and ‘the causes of evil’ will be uprooted and removed.
We are non-judgemental as to who is who – that is God’s job.
We are, like God, immensely patient with others and ourselves when we do evil things.
We seek to grow, to mature as strong wheat – through listening and repentance
But we must never ever find ourselves at ease with evil, with what is God denying, self-obsessed and ultimately destructive, of ourselves and of others. Because one day it will be rooted out and burned up.
I hope and pray that that is something that for us is not frightening – but something that we long for: for that day when we ‘will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of our Father’, that kingdom of God which is full of what is right and true and good and beautiful and holy, full of life and peace and joy.
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