Who Plants the Weeds?

• Romans 8:12–25

  12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are obligated, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba![a] Father!” 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness[b] with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we in fact suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

  Future Glory

  18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

• Matthew 13:24-30

  The Parable of Weeds among the Wheat

  24 He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field, 25 but while everybody was asleep an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 27 And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ 28 He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he replied, ‘No, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 30 Let both of them grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”

Last Fall, on September 14, I preached a sermon in which I insinuated, or maybe even declared, that Jesus would have been an incompetent shepherd. This was the Sunday when we heard about Jesus leaving the ninety-nine behind in pursuit of the one sheep who had wandered off or been taken. I talked about how this would not have been considered “best practice” amongst shepherds at the time, as it meant abandoning the bulk of the product for the sake of what could be written off as reasonable losses. I won’t recap that whole sermon, though it is worth a read or listen if you feel so inclined. But if there’s something else that Jesus could not be mistaken for, it’s a botanist. We get a hint of this in the parable of the mustard seed, in which Jesus refers to the mustard seed as the smallest of the seeds. It is not. We see signs of this, too, in this parable of the weeds, in which Jesus seems to think that the weeds that spring up in the wheat fields are planted there by “an enemy.” I’m not sure when we, as humans, first figured out how weeds come to be, but isn’t it reasonable to think that they come from the same place as the plants that we put there on purpose? And I don’t know that it’s fair to say that the wind or critters who often carry these weed seeds are, in fact, the enemy. Are they not just a part of Creation? Are they not simply doing their thing, minding their business? Contrary to what Jesus preaches here, weeds are usually not the product of an intentional act, by a saboteur. 

In fact, there are many naturalists who would argue that the presence of weeds can be an indicator of healthy soil, or a healthy garden. Weeds, like other plants, grow where the conditions are good, where they can dig in and thrive. This should sound familiar, since last week’s gospel reading had something to do with the ground that seeds fall on and where they tend to do best. But plants, like people, don’t all thrive in the same conditions. Some of the plants that we call weeds thrive in loose soil, some in compacted soil. Some thrive in acidic conditions, others in more neutral or alkaline conditions. The types of weeds that grow can tell us what our gardens might be lacking, what our fields might need in order for our crops to thrive, and what we need to do in order to produce the intended outcome. Not to mention the fact that some of the prettiest flowers—like woodsorrel, fleabane, and chicory—are often considered weeds. I won’t defend all weeds, especially not those that are invasive and wreak havoc on native ecosystems. But I do think it’s important for us to consider that what we label as “weeds” are just the plants that we don’t want to have around. Sometimes that’s for good reason, since there are some plants that cause harm to their surroundings and to other plants. Sometimes, though, we label plants as weeds simply because they disrupt the homogeneity of our lawns, the aesthetics of our flower beds, or our personal preferences—without regard for how our weeding impacts the plants themselves or our siblings throughout Creation who depend on them.

All that being said, it’s also important for us to look at the particular weeds that are discussed in this particular parable. In the gospel translation by scholar Sarah Ruden, these weeds are identified specifically as darnel weeds, which, Ruden points out in a footnote, were often mixed in with the wheat seeds that farmers were spreading in Jesus’ day. She elaborates that darnel weed seeds are virtually indistinguishable from wheat seeds, and that it wasn’t until the invention of devices to separate the two that wheat seeds could be sown without the darnel weed seeds mixed in. Because of this, it wouldn’t have been until the wheat and the weeds sprouted that farmers would have been able to tell the difference between the two plants, though it’s worth noting that darnel and wheat still look similar, even when they have sprouted. So, in reality, it was the farmers themselves, not some anonymous enemy, who sowed the weeds with the wheat. Despite their best intentions, despite their best efforts and even their exercise of best practices for the time, there was little they could do to prevent the proliferation of the darnel weeds. And therein lies the rub, that even though they might have done all of what they thought was right, it was still the planters who caused harm to the fields and the plants around them. Although, based on what I read this week about darnel weeds, some farmers would take advantage of the plant’s intoxicating properties to give their beer a little more kick. So, maybe there’s also a lesson in there about silver linings? But that’s not my message today.

This parable is one of many descriptions in the gospels of the kingdom of God as a place where the bad is separated from the good—the weeds from the wheat, the rams from the sheep, the unrighteous from the righteous. But, knowing what we know today about plants, this image becomes messy. It blurs these lines between good and bad, doing good and doing harm, because these first-century planters believed that all they were doing was the right thing, when in reality they were sowing harmful weeds alongside their crops. It’s a reminder to us of a couple things. The first is that, as we awaken more to the world around us, we might more clearly see the ways in which we do harm when we think we are doing good. We might think we are simply doing less harm by buying more expensive clothing that will last longer and reduce waste, when even the more expensive clothing is often made in poor working conditions by those who are paid poverty wages. We might think that we are reducing the harm we do to the planet by putting more into the recycling without reducing how much we consume, when far less than what we put in the bin is actually recycled, and it is our initial consumption that often carries more significance. For that matter, we might think that we can address climate change and the crises that that carries simply by adjusting our personal actions, when it is corporate polluters and military engines that do by far the most harm. 

Reducing the harm that we do is important. But it is also important to see the ways in which we, as individuals and the collective, continue to fall short, continue to sow weeds when we think all we’re doing is sowing wheat. Through our actions, and also through our words. When we repeat phrases such as “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle,” we might think that that is a fruitful idea, when really it carries weeds. When we see local governments and national lawmakers work harder at hiding poverty than improving conditions for the poor, where some might see wheat, we must see the weeds. When those who shape immigration policy see disappearing neighbors and locking up families in deplorable conditions as sowing wheat, it is our call to call out the weeds as we see them. This parable shows us a vision of the kingdom of God, the beloved community, that calls us to claim the seeds we sow—all of the seeds we sow. It calls us to see that even when we think we are on the right side, even when we try our best, even when we put thought and effort into doing as much good and as little harm as possible, still we might plant some weeds. And when that happens, when we plant harmful weeds that choke out the vulnerable plants, it is our call to remove those weeds and make our environment healthier. When we learn that what we are doing causes harm, it is not enough to say that that wasn’t our intention. It is our call to correct our behavior, to turn towards what is healthy and healing, and move onwards towards perfection.

We are called to plant good seeds. We are called to do good, and do no harm. May we see the bad seeds we plant, and plant those no more. May it be sow. Amen.