Today we’ve heard Jesus talking about weeds. If we think of the world as God’s field, the ground in which he plants, we might wonder why it’s not all good, and why there are weeds growing in the crop.
The disciples probably did, like the servants in the story who were worried about the weeds that disfigured their master’s crop of good wheat and looked set to spoil his harvest. Why do weeds always seem to grow so much faster than the things you want to grow? As a gardener I know I won’t get a decent crop unless I keep myself busy with the hoe; left alone, rank weeds soon outgrow the crop plants; and they soon shade them out and out-compete for water and nutrients.
Sometimes I’ve left it too long, and though I might do my best to salvage what I can, often the weeds have got so many and so big that it’s hard to pull them out without dislodging the roots of the crop plants. In that case I’m better off leaving them be, though I might chop them off a bit. Like the farmer in the story: and the weeds in the story were darnel, a sort of rye grass that’s hard to tell apart from the growing wheat, so his men might very easily have pulled up the wrong plants.
What’s the point of the story? Well, Jesus is saying that we do have to accept that the world we’re living in will contain both good and bad, and that’s how it remains, this side of harvest. That’s not to say we shouldn’t be actively trying to make things better. Jesus makes that clear in lots of the other stories he told, like the parable of the Good Samaritan - so we know that Christians should always be ready to respond and reach out when people are getting hurt. We’re supposed to be proclaiming God’s kingdom, and we do that not by talking about it but by living in it: the kingdom happens when God’s way of love is being actively and courageously lived, and in however small a way healing hurts, driving back darkness, and challenging injustice, lack of care, and the abuse of power.
When we pray “thy kingdom come” as we do when we say the Lord’s Prayer, that’s not just we asking God to make things better, but we committing ourselves to be part of that. But in telling this story Jesus also wants us to know that even though as we look at the world around us now and see so much bad stuff - and we do: harm being done, wrong sometimes being rewarded (or that’s how it seems) - even though things may seem very dark and evil, we shouldn’t lose faith. We can see weeds among the wheat, but it’s not yet harvest time. That harvest will be made when the time is right. While the crop grows the weeds will grow with it, but at harvest all will be set right. Meanwhile, God is biding his time.
As we wait for harvest we can see that things aren’t how God wants them to be, and we might ask why it is that a good and loving God lets horrible weeds grow in his garden? That’s not an easy question, but it has something to do with free will, and with love. God’s way is the way of love, and for love to happen, there has to be the freedom not to love.
Three things, though: firstly, as I look at the world and as I meet people I see more that’s good than I do bad. So we should never let our world view be distorted by the fact that bad news makes for bigger headlines. There are weeds, and some of those weeds may seem pretty big and nasty, but the good wheat is still there and it’s still growing.
Secondly, on a personal level maybe I’m glad that God’s not been too quick to hoe out all the weeds; sometimes, if I’m honest, I’m more of a weed than a fruitful crop, as I think of things I’ve done that I’d have been better not doing, and things I’ve not done that I should have done: chances I’ve missed to be fruitful in God’s service, times when I’ve been a useless weed, and not fruitful at all. So while I’ve got the time, I’m glad that God’s allowing me the chance to do better, and I need make sure I make the most of that chance.
And thirdly, some of the weeds in our world may not stay weeds. There’s always hope of change; I’ve heard some moving and amazing stories of people whose lives were transformed by an encounter with Christ, people who’ve turned from darkness to embrace the light. How do people encounter Christ? Sometimes very directly, but most often by finding in other people examples of Christian love, compassion and care that offer hope and challenge the old certainties of their lives. God lets the weeds stay in his field because while there’s life, there’s hope. The most unlikely, the most degraded people may yet turn and bear fruit. And even in the most hurtful places of our world there are heroic acts of love.
The story of the weeds promises that in God’s time a harvest is being prepared: meanwhile our task is to be a good harvest ourselves, and to encourage and bring in the harvest God desires of his world. In this service of Holy Communion, we recall the last meal Jesus ate with his disciples, at a time when evil seemed to be closing in. Next day the disciples saw what must have seemed like the final triumph of evil, as their Lord hung dying on a cross. But their minds were turned to believe as we believe that what actually took place on that cross was the great confrontation between love and evil, and in that crucial encounter love proved stronger. At the cross, death is turned to life, and we - despite our sin - are saved.
We are Easter people, following those first disciples who saw their Lord not only dying, but then newly alive. They and we are called by him afresh to be witnesses to the world of a love that we know has won the victory. So the heart of our Christian faith when we think about the existence of evil in our world is this: that the fundamental victory is already won. The cross at our altar assures us that the harvest will be brought in; and meanwhile this is true - that love is stronger than hatred, good is stronger than evil, light is stronger than darkness, life is stronger than death.
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