1st. Reading: OT: Daniel Chap. 3
(The fiery furnace )
2nd. Reading: NT: Matthew Chap. 13 vv. 24-30 & 36-43
(Parable of good seed and weeds)
Hey!, What are you planting there son? They’re weeds! But Dad, they are useful plants. This part is
going to be for helpful things.
Many years ago
our family had just moved from
I was just old
enough to have learnt the hard way, by painful experience, that there were such
plants called stinging nettles, but also that there was a natural remedy or
antidote to their stings in the form of Dock leaves. So, I had decided that in
my patch I was going to plant and grow at least some Dock plants that would be
very useful to me and my friends as ready antidotes to these nasty dangerous
nettles.
Unfortunately,
as I remember, Dad did not see it that way. He was trying to clear and rid the
garden of troublesome, intruding weeds, and Docks were weeds! This garden was
to be for vegetables, mown grass lawn and flowers. Proper plants! Things one
has in a real garden!
So I suppose
that I must have had to relent and surrender my idea to the more usual suspects
of a row or two of nice vegetables! Much more useful son!
Perhaps that
incident has suppressed my enthusiasm for gardening for many years since.
In the NT
reading we have heard how Jesus told a parable of the good seed and bad, the
good grain and the weeds.
The farm
workers noticed the weeds growing together with the grain, the food crop, and
wanted to clear the weeds away. To root them out and leave
the good grain to grow on its’ own to maturity. The weeds have been
infiltrated into the useful food crop by an outside agency. These pose a
potentially dangerous threat to the main crop, so need to be got rid of as soon
as possible, in the eyes of the workers. The owner of the land (God) says not
to do this yet. Let them both grow on together until maturity at harvest. Then
the sorting from good and bad, / weeds from grain will take place.
To my simple
young child’s mind Dock leaves may have been wild plants, but they had a
positive, beneficial use, to ease the pain of nettle stings. Why not have some close by in
our garden ready to deal with nettle stings?
In recent years
I have heard of, but not yet personally experienced, that even stinging nettles
have a use. Apparently there is such a thing as nettle tea? Also in that
strange, remote foreign country of
The point is
that even some plants that are classified generally as weeds can have their
uses, even as food items! Consider also the likes of brambles and delicious
fresh wild blackberries in the autumn. Or the fragrant leaves of others that
are used as herbs for adding flavour to many foods.
The weeds posed
a problem for the farmers of Jesus’s time and it has
not changed much in modern times. To make the growing of food grains as
efficient as possible vast areas in some places are given over to a single
crop. But we have discovered that this comes at a price to try to maintain that
purity or cleanliness. Weedkillers and disease
resistant plants have had to be developed. Extra fertilizer supplied. Potential
beneficial effects of other plants and attracting wildlife are lost.
In the new and
increasing awareness of Sustainable Environmental Issues, some farmers are
encouraged to deliberately leave margins of the fields to become wild and a
therefore a refuge for other plants and shelters for wild life. In some ways
this may help the desired crop to grow more naturally, with less human
manipulation.
But is there a
message for our human communities in this parable? We take comfort and mutual
encouragement by forming ourselves into various groupings of like minded
people, clubs and societies. We may be fortunate to have a wide choice of
groups we might wish to join. Certain rules and regulations are decided by elected
committees to maintain the structure and purity of the particular group. To
makesure it continues in the way initially envisaged
by the founding members.
But what
happens when differences start to become apparent? New people, even
outsiders, move in. Who decides and when, to root out those who appear
different from the majority? Those not quite the same as the rest of us!
Unexpected
consequences may occur. Relationships have developed and the leaving of those
who don’t conform may also take some of the ‘good’ with them. The structure of
the group may be damaged significantly.
Evil or bad
things have been part of creation since the Garden of Eden, but it is not for
humans to make too swift a judgment and root out what we consider evil and bad.
Yes the wrong
needs to be acknowledged, identified and maybe
confronted in a caring, humane way. Not simply ignored and allowed to fester
totally unchecked While the two co-exist there is a
chance that the good can overcome the evil. As Paul writes in
Chapter 12 of his letter to Romans.
That
those who don’t conform may well be persuaded to change and see the error of
their ways. A chance of repentance , a remembering
with God. It is God who will be the true and ultimate judge, not us humans. Let God deal with the alleged weediness
of others.
In his
explanation of the parable to his disciples, Matthew has Jesus referring to the
End Time when God will sort out the good from the bad, and how the bad will be
destroyed by fire.
The writer of
the chapter from Daniel heard as our OT reading this evening also uses the
analogy of fire consuming that which does not conform, but in this scenario, to
human rules and laws, not God’s.
In this famous
story that I can remember from Sunday School days, King Nebuchadnezzar of
Babylon tried to rid his court of the three Jews, who would not conform, by
refusing to worship his huge new statue. He subjected them to a fire.
To the
Israelites of generations before Jesus, this was a similar story of an earthly
king trying to bring his judgment and punishment on whoever he considered
was in/ or who was out, of his club, his kingdom.
It was not for
Jesus very
probably heard this story as a young boy as he attended classes at his local
synagogue and learnt the Jewish Scriptures. It was a way for the Jews to try to
understand how their one true God would ultimately sort out the world and deal
with the weeds, those who did not recognise and worship Him.
It is a fact of
life for us here in the 21st Cent. just as it was for
those long ago, that there are weeds, bad things, sin in each one of us people
in the world. They are going to co-exist. It may be part of God’s plan that
they do.
Certainly the
message of this parable is that they are better left to live and grow until
God’s harvest. Not for human judgment to interfere and risk also destroying
parts that are good as well as the bad. Or as for
To
go back to the plants and my early attempts at garden selection. I have through
my life so far become aware of how scientific advances have discovered many
potentially helpful and healing properties from substances extracted from
plants or the plants themselves, that previous generations considered useless
or even harmful. Weeds that needed to be eradicated.
Had that policy
been pursued their helpful sides would also have been lost.
So it is with
people. We believe that God loves and has a purpose for each one of us. Who are
we to make a premature judgment and destroy or ignore what may develop into
good.
To
precis part of the harvest hymn; Wheat and tares
together sown. Those that have ears need to use them to listen and to act
on God’s word. He will take his harvest and purge away all that is not good in
His time. May God enable us to be ready for that day.
Amen