The Parable of the Weeds among the Wheat

Today's Reflections 

 

 

The Parable of the Weeds among the Wheat

Mt 13:24-43

²⁴[Jesus] proposed [a] parable to [the crowds]. “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. ²⁵While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. ²⁶When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. ²⁷The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ ²⁸He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ ²⁹He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. ³⁰Let them grow together until harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”

³¹He proposed another parable to them. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. ³²It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.’ ”

³³He spoke to them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.”

³⁴All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, ³⁵to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:/ “I will open my mouth in parables,/ I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation [of the world].”

³⁶Then, dismissing the crowds, he went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” ³⁷He said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, ³⁸the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one, ³⁹and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. ⁴⁰Just as weeds are collected and burned [up] with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. ⁴²They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. ⁴³Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

OF SAINTS AND SINNERS. The parable of the wheat and the weeds is rooted in nature and behavior of people. The word “weeds” refers to darnel, a poisonous plant often found in wheat fields. The “enemy” who sows darnel may be a jealous neighbor; in the “agonistic” (struggling with one another) ambience of the time, people seek honor by putting down others.

Jesus uses this sitz im leben (“situation in life”) to paint what should be the behavior of people “in the kingdom of God,” that is, as governed by the will of God.

The parable appears to be Jesus’ protest against the tendency of the “purists”—the Pharisees, the Zealots, and the Essenes like the Qumran community—to delimit a group of devout people. Jesus rejects this and opens his circle to all kinds of people, including sinners and outcasts. No group is so perfect that it does not include “weeds.” Judgment will indeed expose people’s evil deeds, and there is a consequent separation, but that is left to God, in God’s own time. Meanwhile, people live and struggle in this world as saints and sinners, as wheat and weeds. More, a person may see in his very life wheat and weeds struggling together. He must therefore watch out that what is “poisonous” in him is put under control if not totally obliterated.