I don’t know about you, friends, but I can’t stand weeds! We are constantly doing battle with them in the cracks and crevices of our sidewalks: we’ve tried chemicals, a salt and vinegar spray, spent hours pulling them up by hand. And still they just laugh and keep taking over! And those of you who grow veggies and flowers are probably even more keenly aware of the challenges and frustrations that come with weeds encroaching on and taking over garden beds, stealing the soil’s nutrients from the good growth. They’re so insidious like that…
I’m afraid I have some not-so-good-news for us today, y’all. 
According to Jesus, there are still weeds in the kingdom of heaven. Not only that, but someone – an enemy, the text says – is PLANTING them among the good seed sown into the wheat fields. But seemingly, this isn’t the farmer’s first rodeo; he knows that telling the workers to gather the weeds now, just as they’re sprouting alongside the wheat, will disturb the roots and growth of the wheat itself. So he says, “Let both grow side by side until the harvest.” At harvest, the weeds will be gathered first, to burn, and the wheat gathered second, for the barn.
Traditionally, this text is read like many parables: we follow the path of least resistance to the most simple reading we can identify of these complicated, nuanced anecdotes. Am I a weed? Or am I wheat? Or perhaps more likely: That person over there, are they a weed? Is this group over here, are they wheat?
Well, friends, here’s the good news: in all their messiness, this parable and others remind us that we are all weeds AND wheat, we are all sheep AND goats, we are all lost AND found, we are all sinners AND saints.
Now, I know that might not sound like good news, but here’s the thing: knowing that each and every one of us is both weed and wheat frees us up to stop making us-them assumptions that surely “we” are wheat, while “they” are weeds. Instead, it calls us to the work of the parable and the work of faith: identifying our own weeds. This is called “The Parable of the Weeds,” after all, so that is where we must turn our attention.
It is an invitation to self-reflection and growing awareness about what within us – individually and collectively – is precluding the flourishing of the whole. Where are our weeds choking out the good wheat of our lives or stealing nutrients from the wider community? Where are my needs and wants taking up too much space? Where is my discomfort precluding the growth of the congregation? Where is that which has taken over my perspective precluding growth of good, faithful stuff here and in the wider world?
These aren’t easy questions to answer, because they insist on acknowledging that within ourselves and among us all which we’d rather ignore. But Jesus, through this parable, makes it clear that what’s easy isn’t the most faithful path forward to the most abundant harvest. Instead, we’ve got to acknowledge and root out our weeds.
Where anxiety and fear crowd out trust and steadfastness, gather the weeds first. Where what is polite and comfortable encroaches on what’s faithful and just, gather the weeds first. Where insecurity limits the growth of groundedness, gather the weeds first. Where certainty precludes the flourishing of curiosity and openness, gather the weeds first. Where the way it has always been takes energy from the possibilities of a more vibrant, diverse, faithful future, gather the weeds first.
One cautionary note here, though, friends. Sometimes it can be easy to misidentify what is a weed and what is wheat; sometimes the weeds have become so prevalent that the sprouting wheat seems like the thing that sticks out and doesn’t belong. That’s when we have to be extra careful in our reflection and self-assessment.
Leading up to our Independence day holiday, I’m always thinking about how patriotism can be both weed and wheat: a patriotism grounded in reality and critical thinking can see the limits of our nation’s current ability to live into the “liberty and justice for all” which we proclaim; that kind of patriotism is wheat – it calls us to higher and better for everyone’s flourishing, especially those who’ve never known flourishing as a reality. Whereas Christian nationalist patriotism which insists on its own flourishing to the exclusion of anyone who’s not a white, America-first fundamentalist Christian… well, that’s a weed.
I’m also thinking here about the ways in which the culture that is “dominant” or the people groups who are “normal” suppress the thriving of cultures and people groups who are too often labeled as “other.” In this way, we participate in opposing the flourishing of communities that are oppressed and marginalized, and in this way, we are fields full of weeds preventing the growth of wheat.
Here’s an example that comes to mind.
Two Black men are breaking the law. They’ve been arrested and sent to prison before. Multiple times, in fact. They encounter police, a confrontation ensues, and the situation escalates and turns violent. The story makes the news. Who gets identified as the weeds and who gets identified as the wheat?
What if I told you the two Black men in the story are C.T. Vivian and John Lewis, both Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, and the incident in question was the Freedom Rides. (Or really any other encounter during their organizing and activism during the Civil Rights Movement.) Who gets identified as the weeds and who gets identified as the wheat?
Both leaders died on July 17, 2020. History has given us the gift of perspective here, and we are quick to lift up and celebrate the legacy of such necessary social action and public witness. But how do we feel about and talk about young people engaging in civil unrest and activism in our country today? Who gets identified as the weeds and who gets identified as the wheat? Are we even willing to say so?
It is no coincidence that both C.T. Vivian and John Lewis were men of faith. In fact, Vivian was a Baptist minister and the Dean of the Shaw University Divinity School. So their witness was a distinctively Christian one, and this is where I hear the words of John Lewis:
“Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.
“When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something, do something.
“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”
Friends, the reality is that our country is more diverse than it ever has been. And that is a trajectory which will only continue to grow. We must be working to expand our understanding of our country’s identity and deepening our commitment to real liberty and true justice for all. This week’s Supreme Court rulings make clear that we have much work ahead of us.
So we must be diligent in asking ourselves: What are the weeds and what is the wheat? How might we be complicit in letting weeds grow? What in ourselves chokes out the growth of faith and justice and love? What in us inspires the growth of wheat, the flourishing of all people, especially those who’ve been relegated to the margins? How are we using our resources to tend to the wheat so that our community’s harvest might be more bountiful?
Beloveds – weeds and wheat, sinner and saint. We are every bit of both. If only we’re willing to do the hard-but-faithful work to see what’s what and gather the weeds first. May we do so with God’s help. This day and each day. Amen.