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Beth and I are just back from spending the week at the farm in East Texas. Things are green and lush in that part of the state that borders on Louisiana. It was a refreshing little break, even though there are always farm chores to be done, chores that meant a couple of trips to the hardware store in Center. Along the way I took particular notice of a certain pleasant looking
well-kept farm each time we passed by. The grass was a deep green, nicely mowed, and full of neatly wrapped rolls of hay. The piney woods on the edge of the property were cleared of underbrush. The house and grounds looked like they received much care. It looked quite idyllic, and I was taken with appreciation for the work that goes into creating such a scene, because it can all be set topsy-turvy by any number of challenges that may arise.
Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like life on a farm. You go to bed one night to get a good night’s sleep for tomorrow’s chores, and while everyone is asleep an enemy sneaks in, sows weeds among the wheat, and sneaks off.
The weed is darnel. It won’t be noticed at first, until the first sprouts break the surface of the soil. Darnel is more than just a nuisance. To the wheat it is poisonous, introducing a fungus that can do great harm to a wheat crop. The farmer has a crew of experienced farm hands. They notice the darnel when it sprouts. “Didn’t you plant good seed?” they ask. “I did,” says the farmer. “An enemy did this.”
Does this sound like paranoia? An enemy did this? It is actually quite plausible. Roman law even provided for punishment against those who sowed darnel into a field. It was apparently sometimes done to exact revenge for some wrongdoing. It became a problem for Rome because Rome needed wheat to grind into flour to bake into bread to feed its people, especially its soldiers.
The farm hands want to get after the darnel before it really takes hold of the field. “Let us pull the weeds now,” but the farmer says no, because you might pull up some good wheat while you’re at it. Let’s wait until harvest time. It will be easier to separate then. The harvesters will get the darnel first and put it in the burn pile, then gather the wheat into the barn.
Tell us how this story is like the kingdom, say the disciples to Jesus, who explicates the various characters and elements of the parable, not to feed them the answers, I think, but to give them food for thought. The Farmer, he says, is the Son of man, a title Jesus uses of himself, taken from the 7th chapter of Daniel, where one like a Son of man is given authority to judge and rule over monstrous beasts who represent oppressive kingdoms. The field is this world, a good creation called into existence by God’s words, “Let there be.” The good seeds are the people of the kingdom and the bad seeds are those who belong to the evil one, whom Jesus identifies as the Devil, the enemy who sows the darnel in the field by night. Jesus doesn’t explain the origins of the Devil or of evil. He simply takes the existence of evil as fact. Evil, though, will not have the last word. Jesus tells of a harvest time that is coming, for which patient waiting is required, when angelic harvesters will sort the bad from the good. It won’t be so good for the bad, but the good will shine like the sun in their Father’s kingdom. Then, Jesus invites the disciples to put it all together. “If you have your listening ears on, you’ll get my point.
My listening ears are hearing the troubling news that evil does indeed exist. Jesus attributes it to the Devil, the same word from which we get diabolical, which says something about the purposeful nature of evil, that there is more to it than just random misfortune or misdeed. The evil one Jesus describes as the enemy works purposefully, scattering darnel seeds in the wheat field by night. The seeds of his work spread through God’s good world like a fungus. It can be insidious, distressing, and destructive, but it will not spoil the crop. Patience, though, is very much required. Those farm hands want to pull up the darnel as soon as it sprouts, but the farmer tells them to let it be and wait for harvest time when it is easier to separate, then the harvesters will take care of it. Instead, the farm hands are to spend the season nurturing the good wheat so it can grow to its best potential under the circumstances.
Nurture the good wheat. I hear that as such wise counsel as I move through the small part of God’s field, God’s world, where he has placed me to serve him.
Nurture the good wheat. Pay attention to the good - in our community, in our co-workers, in our neighbors, in our families, in our church. Nurture the good and all shall be well come harvest-time, which will come in God’s good time, we need not rush it, we need not force it. We need only tend the good with the daily fungicide of prayer and nutrition of the word, the regular irrigation of sacrament, sufficient rays of grace that shine upon each day like sun making its course across the sky, and the calm that embraces the soul that knows itself to be watched over in love that shimmers like a canopy of stars in the Texas night sky.
