The Weeds and the Wheat

Richard Rohr’s meditation this morning captured my imagination (read it here). He was reflecting on Jesus’ parable in Matthew 13:24-30. Jesus tells a story about how an enemy sowed weeds in a farmer’s field. The servants asked if they should go pull them. The farmer 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.”

Richard Rohr says,

Jesus shows us an absolute realism. He says something that was never said to me when I was a young person: “Let the weeds and the wheat both grow together.” Wow! That’s risky. I can’t pretend to logically understand it, although I know it allows me to be compassionate with myself. After all, I’m also a field of weeds and wheat, just like you are, and just like everything is. Everything is a mixed bag, a combination of good and bad. We are not all weeds, but we are not all wheat, either. We have to learn, even now, to accept and forgive this mixed bag of reality in ourselves and in everybody else. If we don’t, we normally become very angry people. Our world is filled with a lot of angry people because they cannot accept their own weeds.

This is one of the many reasons I transferred into the Lutheran tribe. Lutherans understand the both/and nature of reality. We are simultaneously saints and sinners.

I hope you can have compassion with yourself and with your enemies today.

Peace.

Here is the parable in the context of Matthew 13. It is a collection of parables regarding the Kingdom of Heaven. Click the image to view it on A Cartoonist’s Guide to the Bible.