Wisdom 12:13,16-19
Romans 8:26-27 
Matthew 13:24-43

Bishop Untener's Homily

This Gospel set me thinking. Isn't that parable a bit far-fetched? After all, even a city slicker can tell the difference between weeds and wheat.  And then I started thinking, "What is a weed anyway?" What makes a weed a weed?  

That curiosity took me down some interesting paths. First of all, I discovered that a weed is defined as "any plant that is growing where it is not wanted." In other words, while you can point to a certain plant and say, "That's a rose," there isn't any plant that is defined as a weed. It's simply a plant that grows where it's not wanted. One person's wild flower might be another person's weed. We call dandelions weeds even though they can dress up a field, and even though they can be used for food. There are places in the world where orchids are so plentiful that they're considered weeds. 

So, in the parable about the weeds and the wheat, there was a certain kind of plant in that part of the world that looked very much like wheat. The farmer is afraid that the workers will not always be able to distinguish between the wheat and the weeds. 

So, what do we learn from this?

One of the mistakes that we who preach can make is always to have a "therefore" in our homily. We talk a little bit about the Gospel, and then we want to apply it to people's lives. That's where the "therefore" comes in. We say, "Therefore, we should stop treating people as weeds . . . Therefore we should recognize that beneath the surface, there is goodness in many people . . ." And so forth.

The problem with this is that we miss the fact that many Scripture passages aren't trying to teach us how to behave. They teach us something about God, and we should simply catch hold of that and enjoy it. Instead of talking about our behavior, we should think about what God is like. The more we understand God, the more we understand ourselves, because we're made in the image and likeness of God. Then people can draw their own conclusions.

The parable in today's Gospel teaches us about God. God isn't angrily looking for ways to punish us when we fail. God is more like a grandparent who is patient with the grandchildren. The reading from the book of Wisdom describes God as "lenient". Then it says, "O God, you gave your sons and daughters good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins."

That's a wonderful picture of God. 

It occurred to me that we could catch the meaning of this Gospel parable by thinking about high school class re-unions. Those of you who are old enough to have had twenty-five year re-unions know how differently we look at some of our classmates after all that time. When we were in high school, our evaluation of some of our classmates was way wide of the mark. Our judgments were superficial ones - based on their athletic ability or their looks. We thought some were wheat and others were weeds.

But as the years went by we were able to see them in a different light. Some of the people we thought were weeds turned out to be fine people.

Actually, it's probably more likely that we're the ones who think we are a weed. We think of ourselves that way.

But God sees things differently. God is patient, kind, and loving like a grandparent. If you want to know what God is like, picture that farmer in the Gospel. The servants wanted to go and pull up the weeds, and the farmer says, "Well, let's not be too hasty, too quick to judge. Let's give it some time. We might pull out some wheat thinking it's a weed." That's God speaking. And it's a picture of God that Jesus himself gives us. And it's the way God treats us, because God loves us very, very much.

It's wonderful to have a God like that.

That's it. No therefores. Let's simply enjoy our God. When we do that, the love and the praise come naturally.

Originally given on July 21, 2002