Wheat and Tares: A Meditation on Matthew 13 for the 8th Sunday in Pentecost

Another parable put he 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.

 

Jesus gave His disciples several parables regarding the Kingdom of God, and this is another where St. Matthew recorded Jesus’ explanation.  Lest the lesson be lost on His people and to successive generations, Jesus revealed that it is He who spreads the good seed of His Word and Spirit in the world to raise up people who will live in Him by grace through faith.  The people of the world who reject Him and live in evil are the work of the devil who sows his own lies, deceits, violence, and treachery, so that he might have his own diabolical disciples in the world.  God could have chosen to rip out the evil of the world early on, but it would have jeopardized the people He was raising up by faith and repentance, so He directed His Holy Angels to let them grow together until the Last Day.  But on that final day of the world, the Lord would send His Holy Angels to gather up every soul devoted to evil, bind them and throw them into the fires of hell for all eternity.  Then those same Holy Angels would gather together His people into His own Kingdom where they would shine forth like the sun forevermore.  It is an image of final judgement and restoration, and a hope for those who suffer from the evils of a fallen world.  Anecdotally, it’s also a good reminder to regard the Holy Angels as the righteous and powerful servants of God that they are, and not as they are often scandalously portrayed in art or cinema.

 

When viewed rightly, Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares is a comfort to His people in their suffering, and what later theologians might describe as a Theology of the Cross.  The fact that the world is populated with both good and evil people causes tremendous suffering, as conflict and persecution are bound to arise between them.  Evil people will do evil things, because the conviction of their hearts and minds is in the word of the evil one, who succors them the think themselves gods, to satisfy their own lusts, and to subjugate their fellow people.  Evil is not just an abstraction of thought, but a bad idea put into action by the people who embrace it.  As human beings composed of both soul and body, of mind and will, we are able to take a bad idea and run with it through whatever created powers we have been given.  Thus we find real murderers in the world, and real fraudsters; real tyrants and real traitors; real sex traffickers and real thieves; real witches and real satanists.  Evil is not just found in books, though evil ideas can certainly be found there.  On the contrary, given our incarnate nature in a material universe, human beings are capable of not only being evil in thoughts, but bringing forth evil fruit in their words and actions.  The evil brought forth by people who embrace the lies of the evil one are real and tangible, and they cause real pain and suffering in a very real world.

 

In that context, it is not hard to understand why the Holy Angels would ask the Lord if they should just go down and rip out the evil which the devil had sown in the world, and God would have been entirely just in giving that order.  God knew even better than the Angels did, that the word of the devil had corrupted not only the hearts of those who brought forth rampant evil, but also the hearts of those who struggled to remain faithful to Him.  Every human heart, through the fall into sin and death, was now infected with evil tares, and to rip them out of the world would leave all mankind destined to an eternity in hell with the devil and demons who led them there.  Yet the Lord offered compassion and grace so that mankind might survive their mortal peril, and that men might find salvation in Him alone, though the path back to eternal life would be one of suffering, sacrifice, and death.  The good and the evil would be allowed to live together, generation after generation, with God sowing the good seed of His Word and the devil sowing his lies, until that Last Day when all would be sorted out.  To make this path viable, He would send His Only Begotten Son to live as a man, to suffer as a man, to die as a man, and to rise again as a man who would never taste death again.  Jesus, fully divine and fully man, satisfied the just demands of the Law against evil in the world and in every human heart, nailing our evil to the Cross in His own body, and burying it in His tomb.

 

Thus for those who abide in the Word and Spirit of the Living God, alive by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, there is no condemnation, because the Son has set them free.  They will live side by side with evil, suffering temporal slights and mistreatments, but they know the Word which has saved them.  This same Word of grace and forgiveness, of life and redemption, is what sustains their soul not only against the evils of the world outside them, but from the evils which try daily to rise within them.  Each day their Baptism drowns the tares of demonic lies and corrupted passions, leading them to trust in the Word of God alone as their hope and life.  Each day they rise in the hope of the Gospel and the rigors of the Law, and each night they rest in that same hope and rigor.  Life in the Spirit, as St. Paul would describe it in his letter to the Romans, is not one of tranquility and ease in this world, but a life of divine strength so powerful that it can endure every trial and temptation of the evil one.  This life of the Cross is a life which persists even through death, when the individual harvest of one’s soul is made complete, all the tares and lies of the evil one ripped out, so that the holy perfection of that ransomed soul might shine forth like the sun unto all eternity.  As our Lord has taught us and shown us by His own example, the Way of the Cross is the path to Resurrection and eternal life, first for the individual soul which trusts in Him, and also for the entirety of the saints who will trust Him in every generation down to that Last and glorious Day of His return.  When every soul destined for the Kingdom of God has been brought forth and sealed with the Gospel of salvation, then the end will come—but until then, the Way of the Cross remains the only path of life for all people.

 

Be of good cheer, dear Christian, and do not be dismayed by the evil in the world.  It is the Lord who will keep you and guard you, deliver and preserve you, by the same omnipotent power of His Word and Spirit which saved you from the evils within your own heart.  And as one marked by the sign of His Cross, so to do you bear the Word and Spirit of your Savior, with the Medicine of Immortality upon your lips.  Every soul needs what you have been given in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and every day the Way of the Cross leads all people to that Last Day.  May the Word and Spirit of Jesus which has enlivened and saved you, raise you up and send you to bear witness of the same, that others with you might repent, believe, and live forever.  Soli Deo Gloria— Amen.