“Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.”
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2025), Matthew 13:36-43.
If you’ve ever tried to maintain a lawn or a garden, you understand the problem induced by the weed. You walk out with your morning coffee, and instead of admiring the roses or checking on the tomatoes, your eyes immediately lock onto that one stubborn dandelion. Before you know it, you’re on your knees, dirt under your fingernails, obsessively pulling. We do this in our spiritual lives, too. We look at our communities, our nation, our schools, and yes, even our churches, and we instantly become self-appointed spiritual landscapers. We point fingers. There’s a weed. There’s another one. We’ve got to get rid of them. However, Jesus looks at his anxious disciples, who are ready to start weeding, and tells them to put down their gardening tools. Because they risk getting lost in the weeds.
When the disciples ask Jesus to explain the Parable of the Weeds, they are looking for a manual. They want to know who is “in” and who is “out.” Jesus’ explanation doesn’t give them the answer they wanted, but rather it is striking because Jesus responds with where they should be focusing their attention: “The field is the world.” The field is not a sterile, perfectly gated greenhouse, but rather it’s the world. In spite of all its beautiful, messy, chaotic reality, God plants the good seed and the enemy plants the weeds, but in the world they grow side by side, and their roots are tangled together. The priesthood of all believers affirms our call to be in the world because we cannot retreat into holy bubbles, which requires us to accept that we live in a mixed reality. Grace and brokenness, justice and injustice, wheat and weeds are completely intertwined in our daily lives. However, we also try to avoid the temptation to spend our lives playing detective, pointing out the weeds among us by judging someone else’s lifestyle, political views, or the depth of their faith. Jesus makes it clear that the judgment is not our job.
Therefore, Jesus tells us to leave the weeds alone. We are terrible judges of what is wheat and what is a weed. The weeds that grow alongside wheat and wheat itself look nearly identical in the early stages. If we start tearing up everything we think is a weed, we will inevitably rip out the good wheat, too. People have left the Church entirely because eager weed-pullers made them feel like they didn’t belong before they even had a chance to take root. When we focus on pointing out the weeds, we do three dangerous things: we assume God’s role, acting as if we have the Creator’s wisdom when we are just fellow plants in the dirt; We damage the vulnerable, crushing the tender, struggling faith of others under the boot of our judgment; and we stunt our own growth, because we cannot grow deep roots of love, joy, and peace when we are constantly consumed by anger and suspicion toward the weeds around you. Thus, we cannot play the role of the harvester, because God is in charge, and we are simply called to follow.
Our theology must be anchored in the absolute sovereignty of God. Thus, the weight of saving the world or even cleaning up the church is not on our shoulders, which should provide us with relief. Jesus reminds us that the sorting happens at the end of the age. The harvest is God’s business. The reapers are the angels. We are officially relieved of our duty as the morality police. Quit wasting our energy worrying about who is truly faithful and who is only a phony follower of the Almighty God. The world is messy and complicated, but we need not worry about what we will do in response, because our only assignment in this season is to grow.
Jesus ends His explanation by saying: “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” This is not the righteous looking at the weeds and scolding them for what they are; instead, they mimic the Father, and they will shine. Our goal is not to look down at the dirt and obsess over what shouldn’t be there. Rather, we are instructed to look up at the Sun of Righteousness, soak in God’s grace, and grow so tall and so fruitful that the weeds don’t stand a chance of choking out our light. We don’t need to manage the harvest because God handles all of that, but instead, we must start focusing on growing. We show signs of growth when we put away our judgment and focus on feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, loving our neighbors, and extending grace to the messy world around us. Let God handle the weeds. May we have ears to hear, and lives that shine.
Horizon Community Church 