[Jesus] put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”
Beloved in Christ, we heard the parable just a few moments ago. Let us hear our Lord’s explanation of it: “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.” These words, along with the gospel previously read, serve as our text.
Beloved in Christ, we tend to underestimate God’s righteousness and His mercy, and so we are ill prepared for the Day of Judgment. We are tempted to think that God will never judge the world. He will never hold up His righteousness as a standard by which to judge our works. And consequently we tend to minimize His mercy. We assume that we won’t need it and, if we happen to need it on that day, we will well deserve it. Or we assume that God’s mercy might extend to us, but not to other sinners.
Our Lord’s parable of the weeds and the wheat teaches us to think differently, both about the world as it is presently constituted and about the Day of Judgment. It reminds us that we live in a world where the most pious of Christians must live cheek by jowl with the most debauched of the heathen. This is not something new to our age. Throughout the history of the church, Abel has lived next to Cain, Lot next to Sodom, Israel next to the Canaanites, Elijah next to Jezebel, and Christ next to Herod and the Pharisees. As long as the earth remains in its current form, there will be no lack of evil here on earth. But the earth will not remain in its current form forever. There will be a Judgment Day. There will be a reckoning—a harvest of the nations and a sorting out of wheat from weed. On that day those who oppose the Lord will be banished and those who believe in Christ as their Savior will experience only joy.
In the meantime we suffer as wickedness and godliness coexist and are often hard to distinguish. And our Lord’s parable is meant to get us thinking. He paints a rather bleak picture, a worst case scenario. What if weeds were always weeds and could never change? Now we know that God calls sinners to repentance and that one who today is a weed—an unrepentant, defiant sinner, in other words—could tomorrow be a fruitful ear of wheat—a faithful Christian, in other words. But let’s say for the sake of argument, our Lord is saying, that wheat is always wheat and weeds are always weeds, that there is no possibility of anyone ever repenting or backsliding. In such a case would it make sense to pluck weeds as soon as they sprout up and manifest themselves as weeds? In other words, should we nip evil in the bud?
No. The reason the farmer in the parable would not pluck up the weeds is that he knew it was not always easy to distinguish wheat from weeds. Moreover, even if you could clearly distinguish the weeds from the wheat, the weeds often grow around the roots of the wheat and you cannot pull up the weeds without simultaneously pulling up the wheat. In the same way, it is not always easy to distinguish Christians from unbelievers. It’s easy enough for people to behave decently; they get the credit for being an upstanding citizen and they don’t have to worry about getting into trouble. But that doesn’t make them heirs of heaven, for God demands us to be more righteous than that. He demands absolute perfection. We can either try to attain that on our own and fail, or we can trust that God will give us that perfection by pronouncing us righteous because Christ has removed our guilt and forgiven our sins. And so we should not think that everyone who has a helpful attitude and a nice demeanor is part of God’s people.
By the same token we should not write off those whose sins are obvious as wicked unbelievers. We Christians are forgiven our sins and the guilt is completely removed, but that doesn’t mean that our sinful nature has been removed. All Christians, no matter how pious, struggle against a sinful part of themselves. And some people struggle more visibly than others. That is to say, their sins are easier to spot. But that does not make them worse. Someone who blows up on every little occasion is easier to spot than someone who nurses a grudge, all the while smiling and making nice. But both are dealing with the sin of anger. If we were not careful, we might write off the person who loses his temper as an unbeliever, all the while praising the one who bears a grudge as a fine Christian example.
It is not easy to tell the hypocrites from the true believers or to tell the one who is unrepentant from the one who keeps lapsing but fights bitterly against temptation. And that is why our Lord warns us against making the final judgment before Judgment Day. Now you might say, doesn’t our Lord contradict Himself five chapters later, when He tells us to admonish our brother or sister in Christ who sins? He even says that if they don’t listen to us, we should kick them out of the church! Isn’t He telling us to do some weeding before the Last Day and to pronounce judgments where we should not? Not at all. Real Christians do not take sin lightly—in our own lives or in the lives of our fellow believers. If you read Matthew 18 carefully, you will see that our Lord lays out a process to make sure that people are living repentant lives and are not staying stuck in unrepentance. If someone sins, is admonished, and repents, he or she is to be forgiven. And even if in a single day they sin and ask for forgiveness seventy times seven times, we must still forgive them, for we are not seeking their condemnation. We want them (and us) to repent constantly of sin and to put all our trust in Christ. Even if someone stubbornly refuses to repent and is excluded, that is not a final judgment, for at the smallest hint or repentance they are to be welcomed back into the fold of the church.
And so sinners find mercy. Yes, that often means that hypocrites fool us by pretending to repent and we respond by forgiving them and encouraging them with God’s love. Hypocrites may very well laugh at us for being so generous and even downright prodigal in dispensing forgiveness, love, and mercy. And even a saint now and then raises an eyebrow and wonders if we aren’t getting a little too lax. But let us make sure that we know why God doesn’t want us to pull up the weeds now. He doesn’t want any wheat destroyed, even accidentally, as would happen if we were overly zealous to remove all weeds.
It is for the sake of the wheat that the weeds are tolerated. It is for the sake of the saints that the wicked are allowed to prosper. God would rather let ten overtly wicked people flourish in this life rather than let one of His weaker but faithful people be accidentally rooted out. We in the church sometimes forget that. And the wicked certainly do not grasp that point. If the weeds in the parable could talk and you had asked one of them, they would say, “The field is ours. We love the person who sowed us in this field and made sure that we could grow up nice and strong. We love it that we can roughhouse the wheat. And nobody is going to do anything to stop us.” Of course, the weeds will think differently, come harvest day. In the same way, the wicked think that the world is their peach and they are meant to enjoy it. They think that they are having a grand time while we have too many scruples to enjoy life as it really ought to be enjoyed. They don’t understand that it is only for the sake of the saints—especially the weaker of the saints—that the wicked are allowed to prosper and are not made to face their judgment in this life. It was for the sake of ten righteous people that Sodom was not destroyed. In fact, even when ten righteous people could not be found there, the mere presence of Lot and his family (four people at most) kept Sodom from being destroyed. As soon as they left, God’s judgment fell upon the city. And so we wheat should understand that God is slow to judgment for our sake because He wants to give us greater time to repent and to experience His forgiveness. He is not just tolerant of evil for evil’s sake.
And so, beloved in Christ, we see that it is for our sake that God allows evil to remain in this world. And if weeds remained weeds and wheat remained wheat, it would still make sense not to try to pull the weeds in advance of the harvest. But weeds do not need to remain weeds. And so the person whom we know to be defiant against God today may well repent tomorrow and be a valuable stalk of wheat. If a farmer would spare a weed that he knows will never turn into a good plant, how much more should he spare a weed that might become a good plant one day!
Beloved in the Lord, if you have stubbornly refused to repent, now is the time to turn from evil. Now is the time to stop being a weed. Our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross that you might be forever a precious stalk of wheat in His kingdom. Do not rely upon your own righteous, but trust in Him. And those of you who have long heard this message and count yourselves good stalks of wheat in our Lord’s field, continue in what you have heard and believed. Continue to repent of your sins and trust in Christ and His righteousness. And do not be disappointed to find weeds among the field, but pray the Lord of harvest for His protection and guidance. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
SOLI DEO GLORIA
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