sailaway58
08-28-2007, 06:04 PM
A friend gave me this today. It fits well with what I am learning and what I believe the church should act like.
If you are a Christian, good at it or bad, let's not only walk together but grow in wisdom and faith. I'd say hand in hand but you have to give me a little more time. ;)
The parable of the weeds
A new look at Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
by Dave Miller
Once, when I read this parable of Jesus, I remembered a comment I heard in a Sunday school class some years ago. The discussion was about church membership and who should or should not be accepted. “But we have to keep the church pure,” someone said. Although it sounded OK, it bothered me, though I couldn’t say why. Since then I have come to the conclusion that keeping the church pure is not our responsibility, at least not in the way we normally go about it.
Like most of Jesus’ parables, this one deals with the everyday world. In the parable, the farmer sows good seed in his field. While he is unaware, someone who wants to harm him comes and sows weed seeds throughout the field. When the two plants first come up, all look fine, but when the seed heads form, it is obvious there is a problem.
It is commonly believed that the weeds Jesus talked about were a plant that looks similar to wheat when it is young but has a different seed head. Distinguishing the two in early stages of growth was difficult. As soon as the problem becomes apparent, the servants want to get into the field and eliminate the weeds. But the farmer wisely says, No, there is too much risk involved.
The risk the farmer sees is threefold. As the farmer indicates, the first risk is that pulling the weeds likely will also root up some of the wheat. They are closely intermingled in the field, with the roots intertwined below the surface. It is impossible to do what the servants want to do without destroying some of the wheat.
A second risk is that some of the wheat will have been mistakenly pulled out with the weeds. Because of the similarity of the plants, the servants will make mistakes in judging what is weed and what is wheat. Also they are growing so closely together that it will be difficult not to inadvertently grasp a wheat plant along with the weed, even if you correctly identify the weed.
Finally there is the problem of trampling. Have you ever tried walking through a grain field without stepping on the plants? It’s virtually impossible in modern fields, which are machine planted in narrow rows. In the fields of Palestine, it would have been impossible because the seed was planted by hand, scattered evenly over the surface. Had the servants gone into the field after the weeds, many wheat plants would have been bruised, bent and stunted, reducing their potential for producing a good crop.
In his explanation of the parable Jesus says the farmer represents God. The enemy who sows the weed seed represents Satan. The harvesters are the angels. The good seed represents the members of God’s kingdom. While Jesus does not identify the servants, it is logical to understand them to be Christians in the service of God.
In spite of this interpretation, however, my recollection of the sermons I have heard on this parable is that they focused primarily on the judgment depicted at the conclusion, which describes a fiery end to the weeds. But this is not the main point of the parable. Rather the focus is how we relate to those we perceive as sinners. What do we do when we think we see weeds in our midst? Our first instinct is to get rid of them. Yank them out and consign them to the fire. But Jesus clearly warns against this sort of action. It is, after all, a matter of judgment, and we are not called to be judges.
In my growing up years there was much attention given to “weed pulling” in the church. People were disciplined as “weeds” for a variety of reasons, and some were denied participation because they were judged to be weeds. I wonder if this served any useful purpose. Were we a better congregation for eliminating weeds? I doubt it. We were more homogenous, but that is not necessarily better.
Today, people and entire churches are judged to be weeds by those who sit in judgment. How many tender young “wheat plants” are pulled up, trampled or disturbed to the point that they wither and die or, at best, grow up stunted and twisted. That is a sacrifice many seem willing to make. But it does not honor God, even though it’s a sacrifice made with the intent of keeping the church pure.
If we are contemplating this sort of action, two important points in the parable should speak to us. First, remember where the weeds came from. Jesus clearly says the source of evil among us is Satan—the sower of the weed seeds. Too often in our misguided efforts at purity we conclude that the source of evil is the people we think are weeds. Consequently we focus our energies and animosity on them, believing we can rid ourselves of evil if we just get rid of certain people.
A second important point is to note who the harvesters are and what their job is. Jesus says that the sorting out of weeds from wheat is a task for angels, not for servants. It seems to me the assumption of this task for ourselves is not only risky but is arrogant. In spite of how confident we are that we understand God’s will, if we are honest, we need to admit that we are not as perceptive as the angels of God. To say we know the mind of God to the extent that we can correctly judge another person’s relationship with God is to put God into a box of our construction—to use God to support our personal agenda.
Since pulling weeds is not our responsibility, is there anything we can do to keep the church pure?
Yes. There is one area in which we have significant responsibility for the purity of the church, a place where all of us can contribute safely and effectively to church purity: our own lives. This is the only place where we are qualified to look for weeds and pull them out by the roots when we find them. When we open our lives to God, we are competent to recognize the evil within us that has been sown by the enemy while we were asleep or perhaps while we were busy trying to pull weeds elsewhere. Removing those weeds will, more than anything else, promote purity within the church.
Dave Miller is program director of Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen (Ind.) College.
If you are a Christian, good at it or bad, let's not only walk together but grow in wisdom and faith. I'd say hand in hand but you have to give me a little more time. ;)
The parable of the weeds
A new look at Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
by Dave Miller
Once, when I read this parable of Jesus, I remembered a comment I heard in a Sunday school class some years ago. The discussion was about church membership and who should or should not be accepted. “But we have to keep the church pure,” someone said. Although it sounded OK, it bothered me, though I couldn’t say why. Since then I have come to the conclusion that keeping the church pure is not our responsibility, at least not in the way we normally go about it.
Like most of Jesus’ parables, this one deals with the everyday world. In the parable, the farmer sows good seed in his field. While he is unaware, someone who wants to harm him comes and sows weed seeds throughout the field. When the two plants first come up, all look fine, but when the seed heads form, it is obvious there is a problem.
It is commonly believed that the weeds Jesus talked about were a plant that looks similar to wheat when it is young but has a different seed head. Distinguishing the two in early stages of growth was difficult. As soon as the problem becomes apparent, the servants want to get into the field and eliminate the weeds. But the farmer wisely says, No, there is too much risk involved.
The risk the farmer sees is threefold. As the farmer indicates, the first risk is that pulling the weeds likely will also root up some of the wheat. They are closely intermingled in the field, with the roots intertwined below the surface. It is impossible to do what the servants want to do without destroying some of the wheat.
A second risk is that some of the wheat will have been mistakenly pulled out with the weeds. Because of the similarity of the plants, the servants will make mistakes in judging what is weed and what is wheat. Also they are growing so closely together that it will be difficult not to inadvertently grasp a wheat plant along with the weed, even if you correctly identify the weed.
Finally there is the problem of trampling. Have you ever tried walking through a grain field without stepping on the plants? It’s virtually impossible in modern fields, which are machine planted in narrow rows. In the fields of Palestine, it would have been impossible because the seed was planted by hand, scattered evenly over the surface. Had the servants gone into the field after the weeds, many wheat plants would have been bruised, bent and stunted, reducing their potential for producing a good crop.
In his explanation of the parable Jesus says the farmer represents God. The enemy who sows the weed seed represents Satan. The harvesters are the angels. The good seed represents the members of God’s kingdom. While Jesus does not identify the servants, it is logical to understand them to be Christians in the service of God.
In spite of this interpretation, however, my recollection of the sermons I have heard on this parable is that they focused primarily on the judgment depicted at the conclusion, which describes a fiery end to the weeds. But this is not the main point of the parable. Rather the focus is how we relate to those we perceive as sinners. What do we do when we think we see weeds in our midst? Our first instinct is to get rid of them. Yank them out and consign them to the fire. But Jesus clearly warns against this sort of action. It is, after all, a matter of judgment, and we are not called to be judges.
In my growing up years there was much attention given to “weed pulling” in the church. People were disciplined as “weeds” for a variety of reasons, and some were denied participation because they were judged to be weeds. I wonder if this served any useful purpose. Were we a better congregation for eliminating weeds? I doubt it. We were more homogenous, but that is not necessarily better.
Today, people and entire churches are judged to be weeds by those who sit in judgment. How many tender young “wheat plants” are pulled up, trampled or disturbed to the point that they wither and die or, at best, grow up stunted and twisted. That is a sacrifice many seem willing to make. But it does not honor God, even though it’s a sacrifice made with the intent of keeping the church pure.
If we are contemplating this sort of action, two important points in the parable should speak to us. First, remember where the weeds came from. Jesus clearly says the source of evil among us is Satan—the sower of the weed seeds. Too often in our misguided efforts at purity we conclude that the source of evil is the people we think are weeds. Consequently we focus our energies and animosity on them, believing we can rid ourselves of evil if we just get rid of certain people.
A second important point is to note who the harvesters are and what their job is. Jesus says that the sorting out of weeds from wheat is a task for angels, not for servants. It seems to me the assumption of this task for ourselves is not only risky but is arrogant. In spite of how confident we are that we understand God’s will, if we are honest, we need to admit that we are not as perceptive as the angels of God. To say we know the mind of God to the extent that we can correctly judge another person’s relationship with God is to put God into a box of our construction—to use God to support our personal agenda.
Since pulling weeds is not our responsibility, is there anything we can do to keep the church pure?
Yes. There is one area in which we have significant responsibility for the purity of the church, a place where all of us can contribute safely and effectively to church purity: our own lives. This is the only place where we are qualified to look for weeds and pull them out by the roots when we find them. When we open our lives to God, we are competent to recognize the evil within us that has been sown by the enemy while we were asleep or perhaps while we were busy trying to pull weeds elsewhere. Removing those weeds will, more than anything else, promote purity within the church.
Dave Miller is program director of Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen (Ind.) College.