Image #1 - Farmer and Worker - Wheat & Weeds
The artist of this image, Charles McCollough, says this about the parable Wheat and Weeds: "When we presume to know who is evil and to cut them out, we (who are presumed to be good, because we judge ourselves to be good) will damage ourselves in the process."

The parable is a simple one: a farmer is informed that his wheat field has been overrun by weeds called 'tares' - a particular weed known as 'darnel', which looks very similar to wheat. The roots go deep and entangle those of the wheat as they grow, and to pull up the weeds would destroy the wheat crop. So the farmer tells his workers to have patience, to wait until the harvest, and then the weeds and wheat can be separated. In this sculpture we see the farmer, the owner of the field, calling to his worker to stop trying to separate the weeds from the wheat, because otherwise, all will be damaged.

So the main point of his parable is to be patient, to sort things out over time, and not to judge. The judgment will happen at the final harvest. Clearly the harvest is seen as the last days - or the Judgment Seat - when God will sort things out. But more than that, it is a statement that we ourselves are not the ones to do the judging - it is up to God. Sorting ourselves becomes violence.

This is a strange statement for a Jewish rabbi of his time to be saying. The Parisees, Saducees, Essenes and other religious sects in the 1st century had no trouble at all in figuring out who were the weeds and who were the wheat. It was as clear as the beard on a rabbi's face. Gentiles, Romans, foreigners, were to be shunned, and treated as unclean, polluted, taboo. Of course, sinners of all kinds - especially tax-collector, prostitutes, thieves - were to be cast out. Even people who were crippled or deformed, were seen as unclean; God must be punishing them for their sins or the sins of their parents, so they were not allowed in the temple. The poor also were impure, because they usually were unable to obey the hundreds of kosher laws, simply because these took leisure time and money to afford the extra dishes, places to wash, etc. So for most rabbis and religious officials, the separation between wheat and weeds was a no-brainer: it was as simple as pie. They certainly knew who the sinners and inferior people were; and they weren't afraid to enforce the laws.

Image #2 - Worker striking the weeds
We have seen this kind of arrogance in our age. Too often it is religious officials and politicians who have taken on the role of judge and executioner, targeting who they believe are the weeds and who are the wheat. Our country has a terrible history of slavery and racism based on the notion that some people are superior and some inferior, and this was reinforced by the church. It was also enshrined in our Constitution when it read that a slave was 2/5ths of a person. Racism and bigotry was often based on simplistic and primitive ideas about science and genetics. These ideas, imported from America to Germany, around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, had the arrogance to assert which race or nationality was superior and which inferior; creating the demonic vision that the Nazis used to exterminate 6 million Jews, 2 million children, along with 2 million homosexuals and countless handicapped people. More recently and ironically, Christian ministers continue to act as judges. Jerry Falwell, blamed the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on feminists and gays. Pat Robertson said that the disaster of hurricane Katrina that devasted the Gulf Coast, was also because of gays and the excesses in New Orleans. Trying to separate wheat from weeds is a dangerous notion, and often leads to acts of terror and death.

The NY Times columnist David Brooks discussed this in a column last Tuesday, about the value of modern science's respect for mystery, for complexity and humility. He writes:
"Starting in the late 19th century, eugenicists used primitive ideas about genetics to try to re-engineer the human race. In the 20th century, communists used primative ideas about 'scientific materialism' to try to re-engineer a New Soviet Man. Today we have access to our own genetic recipe. But we seem not to be falling into the arrogant temptation - to try to re-engineer society on the based of what we think we know. Saying farewell to the sort of horrible social engineering projects that dominated the 20th century is a major example of human progress."
"The bottom line is this: For a time, it seemed as if we were about to use the bright beam of science to illuminate the murky world of human action. Instead…science finds itself enmeshed with social science and the humanities in what researchers call 'the Gloomy Prospect,' the ineffable mystery of why people do what they do. The prospect may be gloomy for those who seek to understand human behavior, but the flip side is the reminder that each of us is a 'Luxurious Growth.' Our lives are not determined by uniform processes. Instead, human behavior is complex, nonlinear and unpredictable."

Jesus shared this in his ministry to those on the edges of acceptable society: beggars, the blind, the possessed, women with disabilities, foreigners. The parable of the wheat and the weeds is a major example of human progress and spiritual wisdom. In Jesus' parable the owner of the field stops the worker who wants to dig up and destroy the weeds. Stop. Have patience. Don't assume you know it all. Take a deep breath. Wait.

Slide #3 - Owner of the Field
What we need is patience: patience and faith, patience and trust, patience and hope. We need to wait, to let things settle, to watch for the sun to rise after the dark of the night. Let things lie for a while until it all becomes clear. Faith is about patience as much as it is about determination. It is about letting things sort themselves out. Jesus said, "Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known." (Luke 12:2 ) That means patience, watching and waiting, allowing God work in God's own time.

The opposite of patience isn't just impatience; it is fear. We are driven by fear to try to jump to conclusions, to simplify complex issues, to set up barricades and to shut out those we perceive as the enemy. We are a fear-driven society, quick to lock doors and to shun strangers. Jesus said that perfect love casts out fear. Jesus was not fear-based; he didn't run from confrontations with authority; he associated with those others feared: soldiers, Romans, sinners. He didn't even fear the cross as he journeyed toward it. Jesus was compassion-based, having concern for others and for God at the heart of his actions. Patience and understanding overcome fear and division.

Jesus said this in the book of Luke: "I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God's sight. But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows." (Luke 12:4-7) Trust, assurance, and hope are at the heart of God's love for us.

Prayer helps us learn this. Prayer allows us to nurture a sense of satisfaction in the soul, to settle the restless heart, to let the waves and wind and tumult of the day settle down into a deep inner calm. And when that does, then - hmmm - then we are able to allow God to be God - to allow the day to unfold as it is meant to - and to find the patience to listen to the still, small voice within us that says, "Aren't we all really a mixture of wheat and weeds?" Let God sort it out. Inner calm and peace help us to be tolerant.

I read recently a beautiful statement about prayer. It talks about the dangers of using prayer as a way to list what we want from God - or to use prayer as a way to reinforce our prejudices and judgments. No. Prayer is a way to open ourselves to God and to others, to learn patience. Gunilla Norris in the magazine Weavings writes: "There is a difference between asking out of true relatedness to God and telling God how to run things." "Adoration and gratitude are like the two hands of prayer, which free us from trying to be 'gods of sorts in our little words." Adoration is like seeing a fine play or reading a fine poem: it enlarges our world and frees us from the need to be in control. Gratitude creates space for God's gifts and allows for those transformations that the gifts demand of us." In other words, prayer leads us to open our hearts, and to move beyond control and judgment.
This parable teaches us to seek patience, both inside our hearts and outside in society. Then we can build a world in which we don't jump to judgment, we don't stigmatize those who are different, and we are not so arrogant in our assurance about who is a weed and who is not.

Image #4 - Farmer and Worker
An example of this was in the NY Times last Monday about an Iranian dissident named, Ahmad Batebi, who arrived as a refugee to this country on June 24th. At the age of 31, after nearly eight years in Iranian prisons, subjected to torture and twice taken to the gallows and fitted with a noose, he is now free. He unwittingly became one of Iran's leading dissidents, when he stumbled onto a demonstration in 1999 in Tehran, where hundreds of students were protesting the closing of a newspaper. As the NY Times article reads: "When the police fired into a crowd, a bullet hit a young man next to Mr. Batebi, who pulled off the student's shirt to try to staunch the bleeding. After carrying the wounded man to a makeshift clinic, he held up the shirt to warn other students against marching outside. A photographer caught the moment." The picture ended up on the cover of The Economist magazine, which made him instantly famous. But by that time he was already in prison. When a judge showed him the picture, his response was, "At first, I was shocked and scared, but then I thought that even though they're going to kill me, I've caused a major blow to their regime."

He experienced terrible ordeals and interrogations and torture in prison. Finally he was able to flee, and was taken by Kurdish rebels into Iraq. There he was able to meet with United Nations staff, and finally secured safe passage to the US.

The article states: "When his flight from Vienna landed at Dulles Airport in Virginia in late June, Mr. Batebi was astonished to see that the airport worker waving the jet into the gate was a Muslim woman wearing a tight head scarf. Mr. Batebi was enthralled, sensing a casual tolerance that was exactly what he had longed for in his own country. 'It seems to me that people here are free to live their own lives, as long as they do no harm to anyone else.' He said."

This kind of freedom is a great gift in our land and in our faith, and reflects the kind of patience and tolerance that Jesus calls for in his parable. Jesus is asking that we resist the temptation to leap to judgment, to try to engineer our lives by labeling those around us as either wheat or weeds. Patience, tolerance, understanding; these are what Jesus clearly teaches in his ministry. As his followers, we are called to do the same. Let us pray for it to be so. Amen.

I was shocked, confused, bewildered
as I entered Heaven's door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
by the lights or its decor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
who made me sputter and gasp--
the thieves, the liars, the sinners,
the alcoholics, the trash.
There stood the kid from seventh grade
who swiped my lunch money twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
who never said anything nice.
Herb, who I always thought
was rotting away in hell,
was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
looking incredibly well.
I nudged Jesus, "What's the deal?
I would love to hear Your take.
How'd all these sinners get up here?
God must've made a mistake.
And why's everyone so quiet,
so somber? Give me a clue."
"Hush child," said He "They're all in shock.
No one thought they'd see you."