One Wheat

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 

We are all children of God.


More on Weeds 

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mt 13:24-33

  Read this Scripture @usccb.org 

Photo by Warren Wong at Unsplash