Don’t Pull the Weeds!
When I was young, around the age of seven or eight, I couldn’t do much to help with chores, but one thing I could do was pick weeds in the garden and around the house. This was not a job I enjoyed. It was, perhaps, my least favorite task. And to top it off, the job of weed picking, I soon found out, was never-ending. If I picked all the weeds in the garden on Saturday, by Sunday afternoon just as many would be poking through the dirt as I had picked the day before!
If, at that time, I had known about Jesus’s Parable of the Weeds, no doubt I would have used it to my advantage. You see, in that parable, Jesus actually orders his disciples not to pick the weeds! I would’ve made sure to let my parents know about this peculiar command of Jesus.
We find this parable in Matthew 13:24-30. To paraphrase it, a man sows his field with good seed, but when he was not aware, his enemy “sowed weeds among the wheat.” When the weeds sprouted amongst the good seed, the man’s servants asked if they should go through the field and pull up the weeds. But the man tells them no, “because when you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time, I will collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn” (vv. 29-30). Later Jesus explains that the Son of Man is the man who sows the seed, and the wheat “stands for the sons of the kingdom,” while “the weeds are the sons of the evil one” (v. 38). Jesus explains that the angels will do the harvesting, “and they will weed out all who do evil” (v. 41).
It seems we should be relieved that Jesus does not ask us to pull these weeds (as I know from experience how exasperating a task that can be). And yet, we seem to have trouble leaving those weeds alone. We can be zealous to root out any sign of evil that we see around us, whether in the world or in the church. But the wisdom Jesus teaches in this parable is that God does not give us the task of rooting out these weeds. In doing so, we might damage the tender shoots of the good seed he has planted.
James says, “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you, who are you to judge your neighbor?” (4:12). James suggests we lack both the skill and the equipment to do this “weeding.” In making these judgments, we can do much harm—and we can make the church unattractive to outsiders by showing forth an ugly, condemning face to the world rather than spreading wide the merciful arms of Jesus.
Paul says that God will handle the judging of outsiders (1 Cor. 5:12), and there is a method described for handling those within the church who are obviously living in ways contrary to the Lord’s commands (Matthew 18:15-17). But we can be overzealous in judging those within God’s kingdom. In Romans 14, Paul emphasizes that we should allow liberty of conscience amongst believers in matters that are not obvious, because, as he says, “Who are you to judge another’s servant?” (v. 4). Our brothers and sisters are striving to serve the Lord, not us. Thus, God is the judge of their work, not us.
The parable implies that it can be difficult to distinguish a weed that is just sprouting from the young shoots of wheat. There are those who want to hunt down each “weed” they think they’ve identified within the church. It’s as if they get down on their knees with magnifying glasses to find that little sprout of evil. This kind of “weed pulling” has indeed damaged the faith of many Christians, young and old, through the years. Jesus cautions us to be careful, very careful, with the tender shoots of the wheat he has planted. He does not want to lose one good seed in his field.
Let God pull the weeds. My eight-year-old self would have been more than grateful for that. Why would we be any different?
-Nick Boone
First published in Words of Life Bulletin