Is it our job to decide “who is in” and “who is out”? The parable of the weeds offers an interesting insight into our role in the Kingdom of God when we see things from the perspective of the servants.
As many of you know, our house group is reading The Provocative Church
On Monday night, we had a great discussion after reading the third chapter and I thought I’d share some of our thoughts here. As always, these are my take on our discussion, I’m sure the others will be along to add their comments and I’d love to know your thoughts too – add a comment at the end of the page with your reflections.
We read Matthew 13:24-30 and discussed our responses to the question:
“How would you describe the Kingdom of God in one or two sentences?”
Our discussion ended up focusing on the response of the servants in v28 and the landowners reply.
- They were keen to to separate the weeds from the wheat and remove the weeds.
- The landowner said, don’t do that because you might get it wrong and remove some wheat as well.
- The landowner will sort it out when the time is right – until then everything stays in the field.
Since our discussion last night, my thoughts have been about the servants and how sure they were that they knew best and could accurately identify wheat from weeds.
- Could it be that the landowner had a different understanding about what was valuable and what was not? He sowed the seed after all.
However well intentioned the servants were, the landowner was concerned that they may uproot some wheat whilst pulling up the weeds. Despite their confidence, years of experience and passion, their job was to look after the field, not decide what should grow in it.
Often when first reading this parable, we associate ourselves with the wheat. We are the good things, sowed by God in the world and others, who do not know God, are the weeds.
- What if we put ourselves in the place of the servants?
- What would be our understanding then?
I am challenged that we think we know best and can identify what is good (sowed by God) and what is bad (sowed by the ‘enemy’). Perhaps the servants are a lesson to us and it is not our place to divide people into two groups of who is in and who is out, who is weeds and who is wheat. It is our job to nurture the whole field and the sorting will be done later, when the time is right.
Anyone else want to comment?
added later:
Interestingly, I’ve just had a very nice lady come to the door and give me a leaflet about how God cares for the world and inviting me to have a book that may answer some burning questions. Is she wheat or weeds?
I found this quite interesting on the subject:
http://www.processandfaith.org/lectionary/YearA/2007-2008/2008-07-20.shtml
In a nutshell, we’re often too quick to judge the nature of the weeds by our own agendas. God will decide what’s weeds in due time and deal with it accordingly. But better watch out in case you’re after the wrong enemy!
Interesting link Robin – I like the fact that towards the end of the article the author suggests we should be ‘sowers’ rather than ‘weed pullers’.
Here’s another challenge for all of us showing weed pulling tendancies. The article Robin links to says this:
“What they think is a weed—sure looks like a weed!—is actually the crop. Biblical scholars have pointed out that Jesus is likely referring to the bearded darnel—a plant that looks a lot like wheat when it is just starting to grow. A farmer could easily pull up wheat, mistaking it for the darnel.”
Check out this picture, is it Wheat or Darnel?
http://tinyurl.com/59qbn9