The wheat and the weeds

Uh, the past few years I've noticed a trend in, you may be, in storytelling, and one of those things, maybe you've seen it yourself as well, is a retelling of the villain's story. And, uh, you may have noticed it years ago. I was watching, uh, one of those offshoot Star Wars movies and I noticed how they made the Jedi look bad and the villains of the story look good. And this all spurred because, uh, this past week I was reading in the newspaper and, uh, there's a movie coming out about a villain, showing he's not such a good guy. And so there's a role reversal in storytelling elements about where the heroes in the story are flawed and sometimes downright evil, and the people that are the villain and the evil person in the story are in some ways not that bad. They've been, you know, overused by the system and by the forces around it; they are cultivated and oftentimes victims.

And what's fascinating about this is, as a pastor, I'm always interested in culture, and the stories that a culture tells oftentimes reflect beliefs, values, or even tensions that they sense about life and the world around them. And that tension that we see in our modern storytelling today is one of those where the heroes that we—the good, the righteous—while the evil in the world are oftentimes not righteous. And we've seen scandal after scandal even in our modern times, even throughout history, of people who seem to live this perfect life, who seem to be so good and so righteous and so holy in their life, and then the scandal comes out in the news.

And then oftentimes people that are seen as wicked or bad or wrong, we've begun to see there have been systemic forces oftentimes operating in a way that suppressed and mistreated and created injustice or poverty or whatever in the society that made it hard for that person to really have justice. They grew up in toxic scenarios and suppressive scenarios, and they are simply reacting to that. And so the lines that our society feels between good and evil have some tolerance. They're not always disconnected.

Now that's not to say there's not righteousness and there's not unrighteousness. In fact, Scriptures are clear. But our society is part of pointing at some—but the problem with that, the problem that cannot be resolved by society and by that storyteller, is something to rescue the people from this situation. But all that happens is that the villain responds to the injustice that they face by rebellion. And in that rebellion, oftentimes they break laws and they wind up hurting people around them, which then winds up making them what? Unjust. Not unjust because of just forces of nature around them, but because they chose to do so. Because they respond in unrighteous ways, there is no good in them. And the person who was so good, and the hero that writes the person in the story, is revealed oftentimes as that evil person.

So there's this battle, this conflict of power. One is trying to hold on to the way of life and the power they have; the other is trying to uproot and turn it over. And it's just back, and it's a balance, almost a cosmic battle where no one wins. It's just unrighteousness. But Christianity tells a different story because, even though it says yes, there's righteousness and unrighteousness and there's this paradox sometimes we want, that doesn't mean good is... and Scripture tells us of a righteous one who answers the problem the culture cannot, does not know—the issue of obedience.

So as we look at that, that's going to be part of the backdrop for Jesus's parable. Today we're going to be looking at Matthew chapter 13. Um, there's two parts to this text. So I'm going to read the actual parable itself and then Jesus provides an interpretation. If you post this later, I'll do that as well. So Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43.

So Jesus says, telling his parable, he 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 to gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to burn, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"

Then he left the crowds and he went into the house. And his disciples came to him and said, "Explain to us this parable of the weeds of the field." And he answered, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with the fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin, all lawbreakers, 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." This is God's Word.

One of the difficulties that quietly, uh, again studying this parable this week, because it's not quite as straightforward as some parables because there are some things that we cannot take piece by piece and dissect. One of them, for example, is the fact that Jesus doesn't actually tell us who the servants are as he explains the parable. The other thing that we see here is that he talks about how you have the good seed, and those are sons of righteousness, and then you have the evil seeds, they are sons of the devil. So does that mean there's two different races of people and some people are just bad apples out there? No. That's not what Scripture is going to say. At the end of the day, it's not what some people are born to do. They have chosen, in essence, that.

So, there's parts of the parable right now that you don't want to allegorize. That's what I'm trying to look at. You don't want to allegorize this parable. We want to be able to step back and see what's the main point that Jesus is trying to make in this parable. What is he driving at? And at the end of the day, what he's showing us is that there is good and evil. And sometimes, as we're going to see in a second, it can be very difficult for us to judge and discern the truth. But it exists. And at the end of the day, God knows and God is working. And one day, in his due time, he will come and he will judge the righteous from the unrighteous. And he will make the world right. He will be that Savior. Our world is ultimately looking for the hero in that story.

As we're looking at it, we're going to look and walk through this at four parts today. So, we're going to look at the corruption, the confusion, the reactions, the resolution. All right? So, corruption, confusion, reaction, resolution.

To the corruption: so we see right here from the very beginning it says in verse 24, he put another parable 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 we want to know that Jesus is God. He is ultimately the author of righteousness. All righteousness and goodness flow from Him. He did not make a broken world. But just like we see here, an enemy came along and planted evil. People became tempted—Adam and Eve. And because Adam and Eve listened to that temptation and bought into that lie, sin entered. And ultimately, this is why that parable we don't want to allegorize, because in some ways we've all done that, right? We have all turned. We've all fallen short. Sin is falling short of the word of God. It certainly reminds us in some ways at one point we were all weeds in the story. We were all people under that bondage of sin. We were all corrupted. We were all at some point in life, if you turn to Christ, if you believe the gospel, then God makes you a new creation. He changes you from the inside out.

But when we see the evil and the brokenness in this world, we have to know God is not the author of it. I was, uh, talking to a woman—a heavy conversation. She was waiting on her husband at the place I was at, and, uh, she was reading a book. So we got to talking, and it was a little bit about slavery, and she said, "I just can't understand how people do such things." She said, "Where I live, there are different classes in society. So, it's not by color of skin, it's just by different tiers. And so, we even have that system. People are mistreated, it's suppressed. But in my culture, I'm like, wow, why do some people need to dominate? Why do some do that?" That's what the Bible tells us, because of sin, and because even within our own soul, each of us have been corrupted and tainted by that stain of sin. And even now, at times, even being made good, we still feel that old nature pull us. We haven't been completely sanctified.

God made the world good, all the problems and this life, all the evil—it comes to us by letting people perceive things we bought into. We want you to understand this: we are not just the products of the forces of nature. We can't just point fingers. At the end of the day, we have all rejected at some point the righteousness and the holiness of God, and we've done things that have made us the weeds. So we cannot point to others as a scapegoat.

The second thing I'm looking at is the confusion in this story. So the confusion we see in verse 26, it says, "So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also." So, uh, in the Greek, this word is zizania. That's what it is, that's darnel. And darnel looks exactly like wheat. Uh, in fact, planting that in the ancient world was actually a diabolical thing because the way that it grew so identical to the wheat, you couldn't tell the difference. And even as it began to bear seed, you couldn't really tell the difference until, as it became more mature, the wheat plant would bend down, whereas darnel stays upright. It's not very easy to see the difference. There can be confusion in discerning that, and the servants early on didn't tell the difference. They didn't even know.

And so it is even in life at times. We can oftentimes judge only by outward appearances. We can do sort of like we see in our modern storytelling: we see the person that has the position and the title, we think that's the righteous, that's the good one. We look at the other people who are on the opposing end of that and we say they must be the bad people, they're the enemy. And what we're finding in a sin-stained world is things are not always what they seem. We judge by the outward appearance, but the Lord sees behind the facade. He sees behind all of the lies and the things that you put up in front of Him, and he judges deeper than that.

And you know, there's a danger even in the church to live in a way where you try to keep that facade up, as if, "I have it all together, I am totally good, you know, I don't do any bad things." And it can actually just sweep ourselves away because what happens? You begin, like the Pharisees in Jesus's day, to look at your position, to look at your knowledge of the Torah, to look at the fact that you keep all of these external laws of conformity, and think, "I'm righteous." And what Jesus was constantly doing is pointing to them and saying the heart—the things that are inside of you. And then he was looking at tax collectors and prostitutes, drawing them into repentance, and saying these are justified—not in themselves, I know they've broken the law, but because they've come and repented. There's more justification in that kind of heart, of that kind of spirit, than in those who self-justify themselves, who are self-righteous.

And we must also be careful in that same way to look at the actions of our lives and think, "I go to church, and I read my Bible, and I pray all the time, and I do these things," and only look back and deceive ourselves when the Holy Spirit is trying to convict the heart. We need to do so, we need to be honest with people around us in our spaces so that people can pray for us so our lives are not a facade. That's the wrong spirit. That will create confusion. Confusion makes the world a messy place. It puts up facades, things are not always as they seem. And it doesn't mean that righteousness and unrighteousness do not exist, it just means it's not always easy to point out.

What are our lives producing? Is it toxic? Why are your relationships toxic? Are your thoughts toxic? What do they make? We need to allow the light of God to shine. Um, I'm very fascinated how storytelling in culture does reveal situations. And, uh, one of the things that I've pondered about different stories and movies that I've seen over time, um, there are times when you have characters who try to do their best but they make mistakes. They lash out because they're trying to go against someone who's self-righteous. But every now and then, there's these side characters, and these side characters are almost like sneaky—they whisper little moments of grace. They show the viewers there is a better way. And that's often a side story, just some people sitting off to the side that don't get noticed by the villain or the hero of the story. But yet, there's that story. And in many ways, that's just like even in the darkness, there is that still, small voice of the Holy Spirit in people's lives, telling them the message of mercy in the darkness, trying so hard to follow, helping people out of that darkness just like those signs.

The third thing that we see here is the reaction, verses 27-28, you see it says, "So when the plants came up and bore grain, the weeds appeared also. The servants of the master of the house came and said, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in the field? How then does it have weeds?' He said, 'An enemy has done this.' But the servants said, 'Do you want us to go and gather them up?'" This is the reaction. The reaction of the servants in this, and their reaction is, "Let's pull up the weeds, let's snatch those things up right now." But the Master is experienced, he knows a lot more than the servants. He knows that if they go out there in the immature state because they haven't really developed, you're going to root up the wheat with them. It's hard to actually tell them apart, and God stays with us all along with patience.

So it is with God. We can look in this world and we can so quickly want to take matters into our own hands and say, "I see the righteous people and I see the unrighteous people, and I'm going to start passing judgment on them. I'm going to start correcting things and doing something about it." The Master of the house provides a warning that you might be judging by external metrics. Maybe you can't quite see the heart of that person, you don't know all the story and the big things that are going on in that life. James 4:11 and 12, James says, "Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge."

Now, the word judgment is often misused, but there can be a spirit in our own heart that sits around passing judgment, being ungracious to them, and ultimately, as James is pointing out here, God is judge. And when we begin to walk around life with that judgmental spirit, we try to play God. There's a danger, there's a self-righteousness. We don't judge very well. Number one, we don't see everything, but number two, we tend to elevate ourselves. We tend to wind up suppressing other people so that we can then pass judgment, and we don't see our own faults.

That's why the Master of the house tells the servants, "No, it's not time right now. We're going to wait for the time of harvest." Jesus is calling us to patience and grace. Why does God allow the evil in this world? Why does he allow all the injustice and the wrong and pain? Why can't he just drive out the evil of this world and make this world great right now? Well, he is, but it's a process, because if he judges too quickly, where would that leave us? We've all been weeds, we've all sinned, and if God took us out right now, nobody would pass the bar. Nobody. God is gracious by waiting, because sometimes the people that reveal themselves early on to be evil and unrighteous, what happens? They see the things that they've done, the Holy Spirit convicts them, and they become sons and daughters of the King. God has a plan, he has a purpose, and he is gracious, as Scripture reminds us, by taking time. Second Peter 3:9 tells us, "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."

Now, that doesn't mean sometimes you don't call out sin. That's not what I'm saying. We see even in 1 Corinthians 5 that Paul calls for judgment within the church when something is overtly wrong—you need to say something about that, you need to do something about that. So it doesn't mean that we suspend everything. There's a difference between the clear definitions of Scripture and running around passing judgment on all these other things like James warns against. There's a difference.

Finally, we have the resolution. The resolution is that God, in the right time, as it says in verses 41 to 42, will pass judgment. "Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace."

We don't like judgment. We don't like to talk about hell or any of those sorts of things in our modern world, but judgment is actually what we crave. It's resolution, because we do recognize that there's wrong in this world, and we do recognize that there's this bitter conflict and this confusion and this murkiness of good and evil. And it seems like we're all broken. There's no one to save or rescue us out of this situation. We need someone to come and to bring that. But the thing to know about it is that God, at the right time, He and He alone does that right. And God desires for all to be saved, for all not to harden their hearts, but to turn. But there is, for those who reject and those who will not listen, there is a judgment.

Our world needs a Savior who understands the story of the villain, and all the things that they walked through and faced—as He Himself also faced betrayal and injustice. He knows the story of the mistreated, and yet He was righteous. Even though He walked through the world of life and was tempted based on all these different trials, He Himself came out unstained, was able to sympathize, and yet still remain righteous. And He has a powerful love to destroy the works of the devil.

See this final right here, verse 43: "Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear." What we see in this passage is God finally resolves the story so that all is right. The weeds are no longer entangling and strangling the wheat. They're no longer creating a world of murkiness where we can't tell the difference of what's going on. And at the end of all time, He finally draws His sons and daughters into a world of His presence, His kingdom, where they are right. They themselves are no longer choked by weeds and sin and darkness. They reflect His heart, His goodness, and His holiness, just like the Book of Revelation reminds us: there was no need for a sun, because the glory of God shone, and as sons and daughters of God, we reflect His heart. Those who felt they didn't belong or weren't accepted suddenly find acceptance by His grace. He brings us into the kingdom and calls us all sons and daughters of God.

We struggle to see evil and want to know why it exists, yet we can also know that God will make it right. We need a Savior who challenges the corruption of the system, but He Himself remains just. We need Him to deliver those who have been wrongly treated by this unjust system. Turn to Him, the One who loves them both just as they are and yet calls them out of endless cycles of oppression, battles, victims, rebellion, or confusion and mess.

He is Jesus. He is the Lamb who, in time, makes all things right between good and evil. He is both gracious and just. He is gracious that He understands how everyone is mistreated and enslaved by sin, but yet He Himself is that same justice and righteousness, and He has the power to make your life beautiful. One day the light will shine perfectly. Are we spending our lives like weeds, constantly throwing blame, or are we among those who did receive him, to those who believed on him, he gave the right to be called the children of God?

Let's pray.