The Parable of the Wheat and Tares

The Parable of the Wheat and Tares, Abraham Bloemaert (1624), Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, MD.

[Jesus] put before [the crowds] another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 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?” He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 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.” ’  (Matt. 13:24-30)


Later...


Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.’ He answered, ‘The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man;the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen! (Matt. 13:36-43)


Unlike the other parables concerning agriculture, this parable only exists in Matthew's Gospel.  Now, we must understand that the overarching theme of Matthew is not eschatology, but the here and now.  Indeed, while the Kingdom of God may be a future kingdom, it also has a shape and form now.  Jesus did not come to just give us a good idea to chew on until he returns - Jesus challenges and changes our lives in the now.  Unlike President Obama, who promised "change we can believe in", Jesus was even more radical (or, dare we say, worse?).  Jesus gave us "change or die."  Let us not be glib about Jesus - we may have a great friend in Jesus, but Jesus demanded a Copernican revolution in how we live our lives.  How we regard everything about us, by virtue of claiming that "we follow Jesus", changes, from our private property to family.  It's easy to sugarcoat everything and cherry-pick our interpretation so things we like should be taken literally, and things we don't like should be taken figuratively.  This is not biblical interpretation, but convenient justification. And if you elevate convenient justification to canonical and authoritative status, you don't get Christian theology, you get secular humanism written in "Christian-ese".  


The same goes for these parables - the Parable of the Wheat and Tares, as the above story is known as sounds pretty simple.  It seems obvious that it's about the endtimes - God will allow heretics and orthodox people to cohabitate on this earth, and in the end the heretics are burned at the stake, and the orthodox people have halos on their heads.  But then, why should we reach out to the non-Christians?  If we take this parable literally, it seems that if they were obviously sown by the devil, they were predestined for hell, so why bother?  But then at the end of Matthew, Jesus issues the Great Commission!  So there seems to be a great contradiction.  


We need to remember that this parable, along with the other agricultural parables, concern the Kingdom of God now, not in the distant future.  The book of Matthew, indeed, rotates around that central theme of the "nowness" of the Kingdom of God.  This is important for us because, as our world deteriorates, it's easy to think that the Kingdom of God is some social ideal set into the distant future. Christianity, then, just needs to be patient and wait for that future to come while figuring out what to do now.  Yes and No, says Matthew.  Yes, there's a world to come that will be ideal (note: ideal according to God, so dispel any communist/capitalist notion you may have of heaven right now).  No, that ideal can be strived for right now, and Christians need to be a people who, by the grace of God, live as heaven on earth. 


At the same time, however, the Parable of the Wheat and Tares warn us that life on this side of the resurrection will not be peachy-keen.  The "tares" or "weeds" Matthew mentions is today called darnel.  It is, indeed, a weed that looks almost like wheat.  In fact the only way one can differentiate between the two is to wait until both start to bear grain; wheat grains become golden-yellow while darnel grains become purple-black.  To make it worse, darnel is a hallucinogenic poison, and farmers in antiquity go through the grain meticulously to ensure there are no dark grain.  Grind this grain, and you could, in sufficient amounts, send your customers to meet their Maker.  


Given this information, one can see why it's an idea means of agricultural sabotage.  First, you create additional work for your competition (i.e. raise their labor costs significantly), but you also adversely affect the quality of your competitor as well.  The weeds, by the time they can be differentiated, can't be pulled out of the ground because their roots are intertwined with that of the wheat.  This robs some nutrients from the wheat, and can't be helped. 


This parable reminds us that the Kingdom of God in our time is like wheat growing among weeds.  Kingdom life is not easy.  There are weeds around us, left and right, stealing nourishment from us.  We should not be surprised that the Parable of the Four Soils is not far away in the narrative. Oftentimes, we have this notion that the Christian life is supposed to be peachy-keen, as if God were a positivist philosopher.  And so when we are confronted with evils or suffering, we spin them so that we can maintain the positive nature of God.  


How?  We perpetrate the notion that once you believe in God, all your questions are answered.  And so we wonder why God remained silent during an exam when we prayed for an answer to this really hard math question.  My brother reported to me a small group discussion he had where the leader maintained that if only you believe in God, you wouldn't need to worry at all.  That's B.S.  If you're a father, and your child is missing, are you supposed to go, "Well, God is in control, so I'm not gonna worry, no not at all!  God will bring my child back, yes, He will."  NO! You call the police, you call your relatives, you call every single person on this planet and pray your blood and tears in between calls until you find out where your child is!  


As the Parable of the Wheat and Tares reveals to us, life is not expected to get "better" post-conversion.  Jesus did not die on the cross to take our worries away, or to take our hard lives and make it easy.  His death did not change "urban" into "suburban" or Wheaton into Harvard (Wheaties, by the way, get used to the fact that we're not the Harvard of anything.  Deal with it.)  That's why suffering is always part of authentic Christianity, because Christianity never walks in lockstep with the world.  Because there are many occasions where Christianity needs to run counter to this world, many people will bump and brush against you.  But as the world runs headlong into the ravine of self-destruction, we need to ensure that we don't follow along.


If we're honest with ourselves, we know full-well that most Christians, particularly in the developed world, are running along with the world into that ravine.  Some Christian churches have completely abandoned the one true God and opted to follow the god of capitalism, the god of socialism, the god of libertarianism, the god of imperialism, the god of careerism, the god of individualism, and even the god of nationalism.  Some American Christians maintain that America was founded on Christian foundations.      It sounds nice, and of course warms the hearts of American Christians, but unless Deism is orthodox Christianity (it's not), America cannot be said to have operated on Christian foundations.  I read a paper not long ago arguing for how the Bible supports no inheritance taxes, flat income taxes, and other conservative fiscal positions.  I have no trouble with those who argue for/against them for purely economic reasons, but I have every trouble with those who argue for Biblical reasons... unless Old Testament Israelite politics included monetary and fiscal policy (it did not... when did YHWH demand interest rates to be set at xx%?). 


And, the most blatant violation remains the prosperity gospel, in which health, wealth, and everything nice is directly correlated with Christian faith.  I was hoping that this past recession would "price out" those who adhere to this gospel, but unfortunately, it failed to do so, to my utter disappointment. 


But again we are not to be surprised.  The wheat and the weeds grow together until the final days.  Indeed, we need to await patiently for the final days where the wheat will be separated from the darnel.  At the same time,  however, it does not encourage us to just sit still and wait, twiddling our fingers until the final days arrive.  The Kingdom of God consists of a people who live a certain way.  How are we supposed to live?  Micah 6:8 provides one of the best summaries in Scripture: to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.  You can have all the correct soteriological doctrines, you can hit the mark on the three articles of the Nicene Creed, and you can be snooty enough to read the Bible only in its original Hebrew and Greek, but if we forsake justice, mercy, and God, we might as well give up.  


In fact, the three are interrelated, aren't they?  Those who practice injustice, hatred, have no semblance of loving God at all!  This past Thursday's terrorist attack is an example.  Here's a Christian - a Christian! - who had an inordinate hatred of non-whites living in Norway, and sought for their expulsion at all costs. It should not surprise us that he decided to make use of terrorism to enforce his extreme doctrine.  But unfortunately, we live among weeds in our world.  Let us, therefore, live wisely and walk with God in all justice and mercy, that others may see and taste that the Lord, indeed, is good.