Of Wheat and Tares: A Meditation on Matthew 13

Another parable put he put forth unto them, saying,

The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:

But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.

So the servants of the householder came and said unto him,

Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?

He said unto them, An enemy hath done this.

The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.

Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them:

but gather the wheat into my barn…

Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house:

 and his disciples came unto him, saying,

Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.

He answered and said unto them,

He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;

The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom;

but the tares are the children of the wicked one;

The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world;

and the reapers are the angels.

As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire;

so shall it be in the end of this world.

The Son of man shall send forth his angels,

and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend,

and them which do iniquity;

And shall cast them into a furnace of fire:

there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun

in the kingdom of their Father.

Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

All the vignettes of Matthew 13 pertaining to the Kingdom of God are worthy of meditation, and each add to our understanding of who we are relative to that Kingdom.  As Jesus noted when He gave these parables to His disciples, they were making known truth which had been kept secret from the foundation of the world.  It is worth spending time to hear what He has to say, and consider what meaning it has for our lives.

What we see in the parable of the Wheat and the Tares helps us appreciate the suffering we find ourselves in.  God is not the author of evil, nor does He teach men to be evil.  The world He created is good, and by His Word, we know His intentions for the world and everyone in it.  The devil, on the other hand, as an enemy of God and man, plants his seeds of deception, destruction, division, theft, murder, and insurrection in the world, and teaches men to follow in his footsteps.  In the parable, the Holy Angels look upon this mess and ask the Lord if they should tear it all up immediately, so that evil may no more dwell upon the good creation of God.  But God, in His mercy, allows the evil one to persist in his weeds and tempt others toward evil, so that the people of God are allowed to live, and grow, and find their future with Him in the fullness of time.

From the perspective of the wheat, this life among weeds is a constant struggle, with an enemy who is unceasingly working to choke them out.  Not only would the devil corrupt the world by infesting it with his own works of malice and evil, but he would turn every person he could into a noxious reflection of himself.  Every person, tempted as we are by our own fallen nature and the smooth seductions of the evil one, is susceptible to this fate.  And while the Weeds are growing, they seem at times to be winning the war against the Wheat; like the kudzu of the south or the blackberry vines of the northwest, weeds can seem to have the upper hand against cultivated crops, and the temptation of every generation is to simply give in and join them.

However, Jesus is clear that while God allows the suffering of a corrupted world to continue for the sake His people’s continued life, it is not a forbearance without end.  The fullness of time comes, both in an individual sense and as a whole creation.  Each stalk of Wheat, or every child of God who lives by grace through faith in Christ alone, will find an end to their suffering and strife against the evil one and all his minions at the fullness of their time in this world.  It is then that the Holy Angels come to harvest that soul, that it may shine with undimmed glory in the presence our unconquerable King forever.  As individual servants of the Living God, no matter the struggles and strife brought upon us by the servants of the wicked one, our destiny is sealed in the loving promise of our Father in heaven, where we shall live in blessed communion with all the saints forever.  Likewise, the fate of those who embrace the evil one is also sealed regardless of their apparent temporal successes in this world, and those same Holy Angels who come to take the saints to heaven, will gather the wicked to be cast into their hellish prison, a furnace of fire, for all eternity.

And yet, beyond the individual fullness of time we each experience as either Wheat or Tares, disciples of God or disciples of the devil, there is a fullness of time for the world, as well.  Eventually time will run out for the devil and his scheming horde, and the great harvest at the end of the age will come.  There will be a unique event for all who still abide on the earth in those days, where they will see their individual fullness of time coincide with the fullness of time in creation.  For that generation, they will see the return of Jesus to the earth, together with all the saints of every age and the hosts of Holy Angels, who will descend in glory to judge the living and the dead.  In that day, all evil will be removed from the earth, the resurrection of all flesh will be accomplished, and the saints will shine forth in the victory of Jesus in a new heaven and a new earth.

Of this time, we do not know.  Jesus did not reveal it to His disciples, but He did command them to watch.  So while we cannot know the fullness of time for all creation anymore than we can know the fullness of time for our own lives, we watch and we pray, living out our faith in love for God and neighbor, striving to do our duty according to the calling we have received from our Lord.  This life of faith lives in grace, knowing that He who holds all the fullness of time in His omnipotent hands, has promised to work all things out for good to those who love Him.  Our blessing and our duty is to live in faith and repentance, assured of the promise of God’s Word, that He will guide all things—including us—into eternity.  In this promise we find our hope, our rest, our confidence, and our inspiration, as the Eternal Word of the Father gives us a victory no conglomeration of evil men or demons can overcome.  All glory be to our saving God, now and forever!  Amen.

The Life of the Mind: A Meditation on Romans 8

There is therefore now no condemnation

to them which are in Christ Jesus,

who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus

hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

For what the law could not do,

in that it was weak through the flesh,

God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,

and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us,

who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh;

but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

For to be carnally minded is death;

but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Romans chapter 8 continues St. Paul’s theological magnum opus, by drawing out for his readers the significance of the life of the mind and its relationship to the life of the individual.  This life of the mind is something different than many philosophers of the last several centuries might have made it out to be, and certainly not the Gnostic bifurcation of spirit and body that abounded in the Greek culture of Paul’s day.  St. Paul makes clear for his readers in the Church at Rome that the life of the mind cannot be separated from an individual’s life as a whole, and that what begins in the mind as focus or conviction will play itself out in the physical aspects of a person’s life.  A person who, in their own mind, focused on and pursued the Spirit of Christ (another way of saying the Holy Spirit, who bore the Word of Christ through the Prophets and Apostles, and is the ultimate author of the Holy Scriptures which all testify of Jesus) was one who walked or lived in Christ and was free from the law of sin and death.  Conversely, a person who, in their own mind, focused on and pursued the various passions and lusts of their flesh, was one who walked or lived in the flesh and was still subject to the law of sin and death.

In this context, St. Paul was mapping out two distinct paths:  a person could be alive in Christ, where the mind was fixed on Jesus and His Word by grace through faith, continually disciplining both body and mind through repentance, or they could be dead in their trespasses and sins by ignoring Jesus and His Word, fixing their minds instead on the disordered passions and lust of their flesh.  These two paths, one of life and one of death, were paths begun in the mind.  Where the mind began, the body and soul followed.  This allowed St. Paul, as St. John would do later in his epistles, to advise his readers if someone claimed to be a Christian and didn’t walk after Jesus, abiding in Jesus’ Word, then that person did not really belong to Jesus or the fellowship of Christians we call the Church.  While the Christian would aspire to follow Jesus by abiding in His Word through faith and repentance, receiving grace and forgiveness to rise up again if they fell to sin or temptation, the unbeliever wouldn’t really care about Jesus or His Word, and would happily abide in their own sins without faith or repentance, and thereby forgoing grace and forgiveness.  The path of Christian struggle against sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil through faith in Jesus ultimately resolves in resurrection unto eternal life, where the path of the flesh resolves in the terrible resurrection to eternal condemnation in hell.

Thus today, as in St. Paul’s day, Christians continue to gather together around Jesus’ Word and Sacraments by grace through faith, in the hope of eternal life, while striving within themselves to put to death the disordered passions of the flesh, and bring their flesh under the control of the Spirit of Christ.  Unbelievers today, as in days past, still gather together in unbelief around anything other than Jesus’ Word, comforting each other in their sins and passions, and lying to themselves about the judgment which awaits them.  These two paths are irreconcilable, are destined for two entirely different ends, and they both begin with the life of the mind.

It is tempting, but ultimately unfulfilling, to imagine that we are fully in control of our own mind.  Apart from the Word and Spirit of God, our minds are dark, fallen places from which emerge all the sins and wickedness known to mankind.  If the battle for our minds were decided simply by our own efforts to win them, we would be as lost today as we ever were—unable to believe, trust, or hope in the promises of God, or to love Him and keep His commandments.  Our fallen powers are hopelessly twisted, both of body and mind, so that our fallen spirit careens toward the abyss we have rightfully earned.  And yet, in His mercy, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  While we were unable to fix our minds on anything but our lusts and passions, the Word of God Made Flesh became our atonement upon His Cross, and by His Holy Spirit preached this Good News to all who might repent and believe in Him, reconciling the household of faith to the Father by the blood of the Son in the power of the Spirit.  In this the Christian trusts the battle not only for their daily physical walk of life, but of their life of the mind, as well.  For Jesus came to save sinners such as us, who could not save ourselves by our own thought, word, or deed—by the things we’ve done, nor the things we’ve left undone.

The good news to all people today, is the good news that St. Paul shared so many centuries ago, and that the people of God have lived in since the dawn of time:  that we are saved by grace, through faith, in Christ alone.  In Christ alone, we find the power of the Spirit to abide in His Word, that our minds might be conformed to His, and that the entirety of our lives may follow—a work begun in this world, and made perfect in the next.  In Christ alone we find the path of life which rings true to the mind as well as the body and the soul, calling all people to leave behind the ways of death and destruction.  In Christ alone do we find our salvation from the evil which corrupts our every fallen power, and the hell which yawns wide to receive all those who prefer darkness over light.  In Christ alone is our mind renewed as we are born from above by Water and Spirit, that we might be called the children and heirs of God.

Hear the Word of the Lord as it calls to you today.  Turn to the light which would dispel your darkness, the grace which would absolve your sins, and the life which would swallow up your death.  Let the Word of God reign in you, that your mind, your feet, your hands, and all that you are, might be found on the path of life.  Amen. 

The Wisdom of Fools: A Meditation on Matthew 11

Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein

 most of his mighty works were done,

 because they repented not:

Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida!

for if the mighty works, which were done in you,

had been done in Tyre and Sidon,

 they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

 But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable

for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.

And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven,

shalt be brought down to hell:

 for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee,

had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.

But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable

for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.

At that time Jesus answered and said,

I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,

because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,

and hast revealed them unto babes.

Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.

All things are delivered unto me of my Father:

and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father;

neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son,

 and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,

and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;

for I am meek and lowly in heart:

and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Matthew 11 begins after Jesus gave power to His disciples and sent them off to preach in the surrounding towns that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.  Hearing what Jesus was doing, John the Baptist from his prison cell sent two of his disciples to converse with Jesus, whom Jesus received, instructed, and sent back to John.  Then He turned back to the surrounding crowd with some pretty tough accusations, derisively comparing them to market place children playing games with capricious rules.  John the Baptist they didn’t follow, because he was an ascetic, and his lack frivolity didn’t pair with their own; Jesus they were disregarding because he ate and drank and socialized with everyone, including sinners, which conflicted with their own sense of piety.  The people to whom Jesus was speaking thought themselves quite smart, insightful, and judicious, while their rejection of the Prophet John and the Christ Jesus showed them to be fools beyond compare.

In fact, Jesus points out in plaintive tones, that if the preaching of John and the works of Jesus were done in the times and places of previously judged and destroyed cities, those people would have repented and remained until the current day.  Places like Tyre, and Sidon, and Sodom, cities which suffered the severe judgment of God for their misdeeds, were known to Jesus as more righteous and willing to receive His Word than the Jewish towns to which He was now speaking.  This was, of course, a profound rebuke, and many people didn’t take kindly to it.  As with most ages and places, modern people tend to think themselves the wisest and most intelligent, while blind to their true status in history.

Such a time is ours.  Screaming mobs of social justice warriors fill both media and the streets, spouting vulgarities and offenses which would make other generations blanch.  Within hours, or days, or weeks, one stupid idea can become a movement of thousands or even millions of people, tearing down monuments, vandalizing public spaces, destroying individuals and their communities over slanderous accusations.  Armed rioters demanding the dissolution of police; looters demanding the freedom to steal from private businesses; academics and their students using the freedoms of this nation to call for the destruction of the nation; Marxists, Socialists, Fascists, Anarchists, all fanning the flames of public outrage, while sympathetic (or cowardly pathetic) politicians lend their endorsements.  Destructive mobs are promoted and encouraged by mayors and governors and senators, while churches and schools are shut down.  The intelligentsia of our age perceives itself as the pinnacle of enlightenment and sophistication, yet when compared to other ages and places it is petulant, ignorant, and incapable of the civil, ecclesiastical, and artistic triumphs of their ancestors.  Our age tears down the Rembrandts and Aristotles and Augustines of ages past, replacing them with their own compositions of sidewalk chalk art and spray paint graffiti.

And yet, Jesus continues to reveal Himself to every generation, calling everyone to reconciliation with the Father through His grace.  Unlike the vapid and tumultuous mobs whose appetite for power and destruction is never satiated, Jesus shows the world a way which is truly wise, virtuous, righteous, and yields peace.  It is a way which leans not on human understanding or human power, but rather rests in the wisdom and power of God by faith.  Such faith hears the Word of the Lord for the eternal truth that it is, piercing to the center of every person to reveal not only their own personal depravity, but the sacrifice of love which absolves every fallen person in Jesus.  This is the way which leads to eternal life, a fellowship with God today which can never be broken by the putrefying powers of wicked men or demons, regardless of the size of their hordes.  This Word of forgiveness for Jesus’ sake, which calls everyone to turn from their paths of evil to the path of faith, hope, and love, is one marked by grace, life, and peace.  It is a burden which is light, a rest which is won, and a victory which is sure—not because of what we have done or what we can accomplish, but because of what Jesus has done through His life, death, and resurrection, and what He has promised to all who will follow him.

That is the difference in the callings of our times, between the voices leading to death and destruction, and the Voice which leads to life and providence.  Abandon the false wisdom of the fools of our age, and take refuge once again in the Wisdom of God, who alone has been the light and life of every age before us, and will be for every generation to come.  Amen.