May 10, 2010
Harvesters
In the Parable of the Weeds an enemy slipped into a man’s field and sowed weeds among the wheat. The wheat and the weed sprouted at the same time and the owner’s servants offered to go into the field and pull up the weeds. “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest.’” (Matt 13:29-30a NIV) I think many of us can relate to the servants. We look at our neighbor’s life and immediately want to help him weed out what the enemy has sowed.
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Gail;
-----You present an interesting perspective on this parable. The kingdom of God seems to be most often thought of as the people in the Lord’s body, especially considering this saying. And it is. But Paul said the kingdom of God is also righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. So the kingdom of God is more than the people of the church. It also is their thoughts, feelings, and actions. These grow up in people, bear fruit, and meet harvest, too. In as much as Jesus said that you can tell a tree by its fruit, He implied by this parable that you can tell a blade of wheat by its fruit. As ideas and attitudes take root and grow in my life, it is sometimes difficult for me to tell in their early stages which ones will be nourishing crop, and which will be worthless and damaging weeds. But the reaping of my attitudes, feelings, and ideas when they’ve reached the stage of bearing fruit often creates a contrast useful for identifying the weeds growing beside them. I find myself doing some weeding while I am doing some reaping.
-----So I presume this operates somewhat the same way in other peoples’ lives as well, since we are all human. The Bible does imply a certain responsibility to deal with our neighbor’s weeds, “...if anyone among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” (James 5:19-20) Yet I hesitate to meddle in my neighbor’s life unless the harvest of his crop is quite obviously producing noxious weeds. I like to take the subtler approach of watering my neighbor’s fields with encouragement, then hoping he too will recognize the weeds in his field by the contrast the harvested fruit can produce.
-----I don’t know if I am right in this way, but Paul wrote two things that make it difficult for me to do otherwise. “Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you.” I know my field still needs weeding while it is harvested, and Christ yet welcomes me. I must welcome my neighbor the same way. And, “...and if in anything you are otherwise minded, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.” (Philippians 3:15-16) If Paul felt secure about God’s ability to reveal to a person the harvest of his own thoughts and reasoning, I can not feel any less.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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