Try for a minute to imagine—if you can—
A land of wheat and weeds.
A world, a country, a society,
Seemingly split into two clear
camps.
The only thing they can agree on is that
There are indeed two
distinct camps.
The weeds and the wheat.
Those who call themselves the wheat will quickly tell you—
The weeds are evil, they’re destroying the land.
Slightly less harsh wheat might allow that
Some weeds
aren’t truly evil.
They’re just misled—unthinking sheep, or zombies.
Or just hopelessly ignorant.
But, whether evil or merely stupid, the weeds have to go.
Is that a land any of us would want to live in?
Can you imagine any place worse than that?
Let me help.
Imagine that in addition to the deep division
And tension and
animosity,
And the urge to get rid of the weeds.
There’s also universal confusion.
It turns out that everyone is self-confident
That they
are the wheat.
They and those like themselves are fine.
The others—the weeds—should be uprooted, destroyed.
Or at least banished or pushed out of the way.
As hard as all that may be to imagine today, in America.
The problem of weeds was something that
Jesus thought worth mentioning 2,000 years ago.
And his solution was to leave the weeds
To grow along with the
wheat.
There was too much risk that uprooting the weeds
Would harm
the wheat.
Some wheat might be mistaken for weeds.
Other wheat might be swept up with the weeds
Because of their close proximity.
In explaining his parable, Jesus says the good seed
Sown by the Son of Man—the wheat—
Are the children of the kingdom.
And the bad seed sown by the evil one—the weeds—
Are the children of the Devil.
But we can’t take that too literally.
The Devil can’t create souls, create children.
He can’t sow
life.
Only God has that power.
So, all the children are children of God.
What the Devil can do is win over children
And
make them his own.
Transform them—deform them—turn them into weeds.
But his hold on them isn’t necessarily permanent.
Those weeds can transform again—reform—
To become wheat again.
And so, Jesus tells us to hold back our judgement.
To let him be the judge.
When we’re ready to label someone a weed,
Even if we’ve successfully put our prejudices aside,
There’s still a good chance we could be wrong.
And even if we’re right at that instant,
That particular weed might yet grow into wheat.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some people
Doing truly
evil things.
There are.
And we do have to protect ourselves and others from them.
But, we can’t just quickly lump others in with those weeds.
Especially not over mere disagreements.
Jesus also told us that
A house divided against itself cannot
stand.
So, we need to find a way
For all of us self-confident wheat to
reconcile.
It won’t be easy, divisions are deep.
There’s a lot of damage
to repair.
I remember when my daughters were in grade school.
One of their teachers, Mrs Liardi,
Had an impressive way of addressing misbehavior.
When someone was doing something wrong
She would ask, usually in a loud voice:
Child of God, what are you doing?
Imagine how much better things could be
If all of us self-proclaimed wheat
Could look at the supposed
weeds
And give them that same recognition.
Reminding ourselves, and them, that
16th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Mt 13:24-33
