Deep Weeds Matthew 13 Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds Last week we started into the parables

s of Matthew 13. The first big one is the parable of the soil. Its not about the sower, its about the soil. What is the soil of our heart? Do we need to take care of some weeds? Do we need to haul out some rocks? We want GOOD soil in our lives. We want our hearts READY to receive what God is bringing to us. The parables are teaching tools. They have one point, generally. Also, the images used in one parable dont necessarily translate into the exact same meaning in another parable. The parable of the wheat and the weeds is a great example. The seed in this parable represents the children of the Kingdom. In the parable of the soil, it was the Word of God. The parables Jesus launches into in this chapter open up our eyes to the power of the Kingdom of God. They also demonstrate some powerful lessons in the context of Jesus ministry. Think about this. When Jesus comes into his ministry there is the Roman occupation going on. The Jews have been living under occupation from Alexander the Great to this time period. Theyve longed for their own freedom again. Theyve looked for spiritual answers. Theyve had their temple restored. It is a magnificent place. The teachers of the day are giving them the Word of God, but something just isnt sitting right. Here are these authorities SAYING what to do, but DOING things differently. The weight of religiosity is weighing on people. And into this steps Jesus. He is refreshing. He is also aggravating. He is Jewish to the core and been trained, but he keeps leaving the reservation! He keeps hanging out with low-life people, like prostitutes, drunks, tax collectors, and (HORRORS!) Gentiles! But the fact of the matter is that those who were supposedly outsiders were flocking to Jesus. They were taking him in. They were believing him.
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Meanwhile, the religious leaders who were supposed to be leading the people into righteousness are sitting on the outside looking in. They dont have to! They can join the festivities. They can take in what Jesus is saying. But they dont. They sit on the outside and decide to start lobbing theological grenades. They see their power base eroding. The intensity ratchets up the further Jesus goes in his ministry. They start arguing theological assumptions. Theyre mad that he doesnt keep the Law like they do. Its escalating. In light of that, Jesus launches into these parables. A LOT of what he says in these parables has to do with how the religious leaders were taking things. And in this we find lessons for our own day. How are WE taking our walk with Christ? How are WE taking our Christianity? Is it serious? Is it truly KINGDOM minded, or is it more cultural? There are some tough questions. In the parable of the soils Jesus demonstrates there are different types of hearts that hear the Kingdom of God. Far and away he is pointing out the hardness of heart found in the religious leaders. They thought they were IN. Jesus is saying, You may want to reevaluate that position, guys! This parable of the wheat and the weeds, then another one well look at briefly (The parable of the net), shows another twist in what Jesus is saying about the religious leaders of his day. What he is really aiming at is spiritual complacency. What was going on? The religious leaders werent interested in living relationship. They had drifted into legalism. It is so much easier to gauge spirituality when you can SEE it! So, they drifted into rules and regulations. So, in their minds, you could SEE who was wheat and who was a weed. The trouble is that you dont ALWAYS know, do you. In this story, the seed sown by the enemy looked enough like wheat that it stayed in the field too long. By the time it was
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recognized as a weed, it was too late. To go deal with it at that stage would be detrimental to the wheat. The point of the parable is to understand a couple of key things:
1.Who is IN? Its not always easy to tell. We want to make rules to it IS easy to tell.

Yet, our rules dont always get the job done.

2.The solution is worked out NOT by the workers, but by the Lord of the Harvest.

His way in his time.

This is a tough parable. As is the parable of the net. Its about the KINGDOM sorting all of this out in the end. We, as believers, really want this stuff sorted out here and now. We want it sorted out in government, in social issues, in justice issues, in identifying who is TRULY a follower of Christ, and so much more. Its just SOOO much easier that way! But its not that easy. In fact, its often just a mess. We look around and find ourselves in deep weeds, wondering if we may be the only stalk of wheat in the field! This parable forces us to look at some key areas in our spiritual walk.
1.How do we truly view others? Are we truly out to love our neighbor? Or, are we

putting spiritual conditions SET BY US on those relationships?

2.How do we truly live IN this world as we wait for the Kingdom to settle all the

scores? HOW WE VIEW OTHERS It is a huge temptation to slip into legalist mode. Lets identify who is IN and OUT by our standards. So, we set it up. It looks different from time to time. It could be how we dress. It could be what Bible we use. It could be what confession we cite in our creed.

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It could be as small as THAT. Im not kidding. There are people who will judge whether someone is truly a believer by the way they end their prayers. If you dont end it, In the name of Jesus, well, you may not be a believer! (I readily confess I sometimes dont end my prayers that way when I know someone like that is in the audience.) We set up all kinds of parameters. I have met people on both ends of the political spectrum who say the exact opposite thing. One guy I know truly believes you cant be a Democrat and a Christian. I know another guy who truly believes you cant be a Republican and a Christian. Ive heard about that lawyer and Christian thing but I know good Christians who happen to be lawyers. Im still working on that one myself! Some time ago I came upon a fellow on a trip who was carrying a Bible. "Are you a believer?" I asked him. "Yes," he said excitedly. I've learned you can't be too careful. "Virgin birth?" I asked. "I accept it." "Deity of Jesus?" "No doubt." "Death of Christ on the cross?" "He died for all people." Could it be that I was face to face with a Christian? Perhaps. Nonetheless, I continued my checklist. "Status of man." "Sinner in need of grace." "Definition of grace." "God doing for man what man can't do." "Return of Christ?" "Imminent." "Bible?" "Inspired." "The Church?" "The Body of Christ."
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I started getting excited. "Conservative or liberal?" He was getting interested too. "Conservative." My heart began to beat faster. "Heritage?" "Southern Congregationalist Holy Son of God Dispensationalist Triune Convention." That was mine! "Branch?" "Pre-millennial, post-trib, noncharismatic, King James, one-cup communion." My eyes misted. I had only one other question. "Is your pulpit wooden or fiberglass?" "Fiberglass," he responded. I withdrew my hand and stiffened my neck. "Heretic!" I said and walked away. Its SO EASY to label! We want to be able to identify wheat and get rid of the weeds. We make it our brand. Jesus lets us know its just not that simple. His ministry was living proof. He had supposed insiders who were giving him a hard time while the outsiders were readily taking in what he was saying and BELIEVING in him. I grew up in a time when you just didnt mix it up with Catholics. They were headed for hell! They probably had a faster train to hell than the town drunk. Lutherans? Good grief! Where I grew up NO ONE admitted to being a Lutheran! They hid out until Sunday! It was a day when you just looked with suspicion at anyone who just wasnt your exact brand of Christianity. When it comes to others, HOW do we look at them? Do we look at them as possible gospel targets? We aim at them every day and prepare to SHOOT? If we determine they arent believers, how do we treat them? If they dont convert in a decent amount of time, how do we treat them? How quick are we to treat them as weeds and just leave them to be burned at the end?
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There is a strong temptation to label wheat and weeds in our daily walk. One of the things that is pointed out in this parable is until the wheat heads form, the wheat and the weeds looked a lot alike. There are certain weeds that will do that. So, are WE making the call of wheat and weeds too early? Even if we recognize weeds and its becoming obvious, WHAT DO WE DO? This is the difficult question. How do we live IN this world until the Kingdom sorts it all out in the end. Through the centuries there have been several responses. -- Remove yourself from this world. -- Live in a monastic community -- Live in an Amish community -- Withdraw. Get a huge chunk of land and find a way to insulate yourself from this world as best you can -- Give up and just live LIKE this world. -- We are Christian in name only -- We leave the authority of Scripture and hold it lightly as myth -- Its good to believe in SOMETHING... -- ATTACK this world -- We live righteously, and make it obvious -- We demand that sinners act like believers (such as Hollywood films, politicians, etc.) -- If we cant evangelize our way to a moral society, we will sue them to a moral society, or elect them to a moral society. -- There is nothing wrong with having Christians in politics. Its just the realization of what limited good that may do. It can do GREAT good (as in William Wilberforce). It can also have minimal effect as well. Then, we live disappointed. -- Live holy in this world -- We follow Christ, even as others follow darkness.
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-- We proclaim LIGHT in the midst of darkness, but not everyone comes to light, even if they eventually realize how dark their world may be. -- We may not get society transformed, but we see PEOPLE transformed. These are things I have wrestled with throughout my life. Ive lived through the Moral Majority. Ive lived through the conservative Evangelical movement being courted to vote lock step for a political party only to be let down in a major way. Ive watched Christians hitch their hopes to political wagons, then the wagon speeds off and dumps them. We live IN this world. We have the distinct privilege of living in a very protected part of the world, the United States. We dont go to church under threat of imprisonment. In Iran today there is an evangelical pastor facing a death sentence because he dares to teach the claims of Christ. We dont live in THAT part of the world. But what if we did? What if where we lived was HOSTILE to the gospel and it was REALLY obvious that we were wheat living among weeds? Jesus in his parable shows the dilemma. Can you go out and pull the weeds? Lets just have a righteous world! Lets just have a righteous society! But there are weeds! And to pull those weeds may bring harm to some of the wheat. If you focus so much on the negative (the weeds) you may lose some of the positive (the wheat). We can be that way. We can get so uptight with the evil in our world, or in our culture. It assaults us. It makes it TOUGH to live. Here we thought we had a good clean field full of wheat and all of a sudden we look around and were standing in a lot of WEEDS as well! All we want to do at that point (or the temptation may come) is pull weeds. Oh, sure, some good stuff came up, too, but LOOK! The weeds are gone! If we give a huge amount of attention to the problem, we lose sight of the GOOD. There is GOOD to attend to! There is WHEAT in that field! The need is to recognize our priorities in this world. The harvest is still a ways off. We make sure WE are bearing fruit and we keep our eyes on the harvest.

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The parable of the net that follows this parable also shows the priorities of the Kingdom. (13:47-51) At the end, what is GOOD is left and brought into the Kingdom. What is BAD is tossed out. Whose job is it to do the sorting? The Lord of the harvest (in the parable of the weeds). When does it happen? At the end. We often want to make it OUR priority. We sort out, we weed. We make it our primary task to take care of weeds. But its not our job. The owner of the field takes care of the deal. Its in times like these we really need to learn from watching the OWNER... the Master! The owner sowed good seed. The enemy wanted to thwart those plans. The owner stayed with it, though. He was patient. When its obvious weeds were sown in, he stayed the course. HE KNEW THE END. He knew how to get the BEST harvest out. HE decided when the separation would occur. How do we live in this world? What happens when we find ourselves in deep weeds? 1. 2. We surrender to the Lord of the Harvest. He knows WHEN to take care of things. We dont become weed eaters. We dont make pulling weeds OUR priority. The temptation is HUGE to make everything work out in OUR time. But the world and its final condition is our FATHERS business. 3. We live strong in the Lord. We bear fruit. In other illustrations it would be called BEING LIGHT or BEING SALT. We dont live to overcome the weeds or weed out the bad stuff in this world. We live to INFLUENCE. Let the world see transformed lives. Remember that all of this context of the early Church is set in the Roman world. They are oppressed. They dont get their say. Jesus didnt command them to go out and overthrow the Roman government. But living as fruit-bearers, they changed their world! The Romans didnt become a Christian government, but the empire was thoroughly
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planted with WHEAT by the end of the third century. By 300 AD it is estimated that 10 percent of the Roman world was Christian. We need to remember the priorities of the Kingdom in OUR lives. We live strong in the Lord. The weeds may encroach. (Again, this is a different picture of weeds and what to do about it than in the parable of the soil.) But our call is to LIVE AS LIGHT in this world. At the end, the Lord sorts it all out. The ministry of Jesus and the ministry of the early Church offer some solutions for us. Jesus identified so readily with what the religious leaders would term weeds. He hung out with outcasts. They were willing to welcome him in AND hear him! When they saw the change he could bring, many bought in. The early Church was the same way. They lived in the world with power. They readily identified with sinners. THEY DIDNT KNOW WHO THE WEEDS WERE. And neither do we. How do we live IN this world? How do we treat OTHERS? These are crucial questions and the Scriptures and the early church offer us powerful answers. Can we deal with those answers? We are to live TRANSFORMED lives. We live AS WHEAT. Let transformation HAPPEN. The results are to be IN US. Its not about the number of conversions WE had in our lives. (How do WE convert someone anyway?) Its about the fruit of the Kingdom we bore. That fruit has effects on those around us, and the Lord of the Harvest can see that. Often, we cant. Live with our eyes on the LORD of the harvest, and not on the weeds. Live transformed lives. Others will notice. The Kingdom will come to them. Let the beauty of Jesus SHINE through! Let the Lord of the Harvest do HIS job!

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When this is all over, the LORD gets to sort this out. Although time wont exist anymore on THAT side of eternity, I will use time to illustrate. I think well spend the first 200 years or so of eternity walking around with eyes wide open saying, THEY made it into the Kingdom? Dont worry, someone will be staring at you thinking the same thing! The RESULTS of the harvest are not up to us. How the weeds are taken care of isnt our call. Living as fruit bearing wheat IS our call. COMMUNION LORDS PRAYER! (using trespasses)

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