Our Patient Master: 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Let both, weeds and wheat, grow side by side until the harvest.” (Matthew 13:30).

Yesterday, as Bishop Parsley announced the election of our suffragan bishop, Kee Sloan, to be the next diocesan bishop of Alabama, I thought of today's parable. Aside from his gentle and positive spirit, I think that so many of us at the convention voted for him because, having served in this diocese as long as he has, Kee knows where the wheat and the weeds are in this diocese. I also suspect that when Kee is “invested” as our diocesan bishop, and the buck stops with him, he will discover a few more weeds. It's not the weeds we know about that trip us up, but the ones we don't see until, like the landowner in our parable, it seems to be “too late.” But it's never too late for the landowner of this world.

So what is a parable? Let's start with this definition of a parable by C.H. Dodd: “At its simplest a parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature of common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” At the very least, a parable is not an allegory. It's not like of Aesop's fables, where the characters and images represent a specific thing, and there is a clear moral lesson to be taught. But the wonderful thing about Jesus's parables is that they can mean different things, depending on who is hearing the parable.

In fact, this parable might have meant one thing to those who first heard Jesus tell it, and something at least slightly different to Matthew. I'm struck by the differences between the telling of the parable and its interpretation. In Jesus' telling of this parable, what I hear most of all is the patience and mercy of the Landowner. In the interpretation of this parable, the emphasis is on this Master’s judgment and vindication. I believe that Jesus intended for his parables to be “strange” enough, and doubtful enough about its precise application, to inspire each generation to find in these stories the truth they need to hear.

Speaking to “the crowds,” Jesus tells his story of a landowner who plants good seeds of whole grain wheat in his field. But that night, with the ground feshly plowed, an enemy comes and scatters the seeds of darnel. Darnel was a weed. It didn't bear fruitful grain. But you wouldn't know that right away. The darnel weed looked like the wheat when it sprouted and grew. You wouldn't know the difference between the wheat and the weeds until the end, when the grain came forth, and the poor landowner sees all those weeds among his wheat. His servants are clearly irritated at the extra work they have to do. But they’re ready to defend their master and root out those evil weeds. But their Master says, “No, because if you gather the weeds, you’ll pull up the wheat along with them. Let both grow side by side until the harvest.”

Now taken literally, the story doesn't entirely make sense. If the wheat has borne its grain, then it shouldn't be that hard to tell the difference between the wheat and weeds, and to pull the weeds while leaving the wheat alone. So why wait? One interpretation might be that it's for God to decide when it is time to pull up the weeds, not us, and that we need to be patient with God when it seems to us that he is taking too long. Another way to see this story might be to remember how hard it is to tell the difference between the darnel and the wheat while they're still growing. As the landowner is patient enough to wait for the weeds and wheat to reveal themselves, we who certainly know less than the landowner should also be patient with the weeds.

When we come to the “interpretation” of this parable, a half of one verse about the burning of the weeds has become three verses in the interpretation. Most biblical scholars who aren’t fundamentalists agree that the Gospels were written some 30 years after the events they reported, when it became clear that Jesus wasn’t returning right away, and it became necessary to preserve Jesus’s message. Perhaps Matthew got a little impatient, and wanted to reassure his fellow Christians suffering persecution that they would be vindicated, that there would be a harvest of the wheat and justice for the weeds.

But we need the parable and its “interpretation.” Sometimes we see only the bad; in ourselves, in our community, in our church. It is then that we need to be reminded of the patient landowner. And perhaps we also need to be reminded that what look like weeds to us may, in God’s good and patient time, turn into wheat by God’s amazing grace. Other times we may be too complacent, or too afraid, to face the weeds within us and around us. It is then that we need to hear the voice of our Master, begging us to face those weeds, to change our hearts and lives.

That is never easy, and we might fear the Master’s judgment. But we must always come back to the Master who is also the patient landowner, who doesn’t care how overgrown the weeds might have gotten in our hearts and our lives. He will always see the wheat. If we let our Master and our Owner work with us. If we let him gently and patiently pull up those weeds, only the wheat will be left, to shine like the sun in our Father’s kingdom.