Weeds Among Wheat
He proposed another parable to them. “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest;* then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’” Matthew 13: 24-30
Each time I have heard this parable of the weeds among the wheat, I’ve wondered why the Master allowed the weeds to grow up alongside the wheat. I know the Master explains it may uproot the wheat, but to me, it seems that if you pulled the weeds early, they could be prevented from uprooting the wheat. In my landscaping beds, it’s easy to see the weeds and pull them early, and rarely do they uproot the good plants.
A priest recently spoke about this in his homily and when I heard it, I had a huge “AHA” moment. He explained that in the middle east, there is a weed called darnel which is insidious and poisonous. Darnel is often called a “mimic weed.” Darnel seeds are stowaways: the plant’s survival requires its seeds to be harvested along with wheat and their roots become entangled. It’s extremely difficult for a person to tell the difference between weed and wheat while it’s growing. However, at harvest time, the ears of the wheat turn a golden brown color while the darnel turns black, then making it easy for the farmer to distinguish between the weeds from the wheat.
Since we don’t live in that part of the world, we don’t understand how detrimental darnel can be to a crop of wheat. Yet the people of Jesus’ time were very familiar with darnel. They understood why it was necessary to separate the wheat from the weeds at harvest time. Jesus compared this act of separating to the Kingdom of Heaven as an example for people on how to live their lives. His disciples came to Jesus to ask him to explain the parable further. Jesus tells them that at the end of time, He will send His Angels to separate the good people from the bad and the bad will be thrown into Gehenna while the good will be gathered into heaven.
I have been contemplating this new understanding of the weeds versus the wheat ever since I heard the priest’s homily. One part that continues to rise to the forefront of my thoughts is that while the weeds and the wheat are growing, they are almost indistinguishable making it hard to tell them apart. This means that Jesus is saying it will be difficult as we go through life to determine the righteous people from the unrighteous.
Difficult, but not impossible.
The enemy, the evil one, is deceptive and he works stealthily among us. He speaks a message of relativism in our society through people in power, position, and influence. Relativism basically says there is no one absolute truth. Therefore, it is easy to deceive people by calling what God calls good evil and evil good. If you believe in relativism, then you think different people can have different views about what is moral and immoral, what is right and what is wrong, and what is good and what is evil.
The evil one is clever. He is able to blur the lines between the righteous and the unrighteous. And He would be delighted if he could fool the righteous to deceive them into falling into unrighteous ways. Essentially it takes the focus off of Jesus and puts the focus front and center on man. So, we must be very careful. If we are focusing on others instead of Jesus, we could easily be deceived in how we are to live our lives.
Sometimes the world can be very appealing. We see people in positions of power, or we see people around us that profess to be Christians, but their behavior is the opposite. They mimic Christ with their words but by their actions, we can see that they are not truly what they proclaim to be. If we get distracted by focusing on the message of the world and relativism, and not focusing on Christ, we could be in danger of losing our eternal life. We could lose that Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus promises us if we do not follow Him.
The lesson for me in this “AHA” moment is realizing that it is imperative that I keep my eyes focused on Jesus instead of those around me. I must strive diligently to live a holy life, even when I stumble and fall.
I must love Jesus with all my heart, all my mind, and all my strength and I must love those around me, serving them as Jesus does and spreading His gospel. Even if those whom I share the message of Jesus with don’t accept it, I must be faithful in doing so. I pray that after keeping my heart and eyes focused on Jesus, He will be able to see the golden fruit of my life.
Today and every day, let us keep our eyes focused on Jesus. Let us be the wheat among the weeds as we live our daily lives. Let us pray at our harvest time, we hear Jesus say, “Welcome to my Kingdom, my good and faithful servant.”
© 2023 Kendall Berry Lasseigne
