Brief synopsis of the readings: We begin in the apocraphyl Old Testament book of Wisdom. The writer, addressing God, acknowledges that God’s justice comes from strength which allows for mercy. God also gives hope that permits repentance for sins. Matthew’s Gospel (short form) continues from last week and describes a parable where a man sows seeds on good soil. But during the night his enemy planted seeds among the wheat. When they grew together the man’s servants recognized what happened they asked the master if they should pull the weeds. But the master told them not to for fear they would pull up the wheat along with the weeds. Instead he told them to wait until the harvest where the wheat and the weeds could be separated. The wheat will go into the barns while the weeds will be burned.

Yes, fellow city folks, we have another Gospel that talks about agriculture. Nearly everyone in Jesus’ crowd either farmed or knew enough to understand what Jesus was talking about. Today we have entire aisles at the grocery store devoted to bread and we have raging debates about gluten and gluten free alternatives. This leads to a problem: because we know little about wheat we take what we read at face value and it’s easy to miss some of the subtleties that give us a deeper understanding about Jesus’ message.

I find it interesting that when the servants recognized weeds growing among the wheat the master decided to leave the fields alone. But even hobbyist gardeners spend time weeding the garden. Even weeds that don’t crowd out the plants and flowers we want steal essential nutrients. If we read today’s Gospel at face value we’re looking at a smaller harvest; the weeds that are burned have stolen what was supposed to be in the wheat. And while this wasn’t possible in the time of Jesus we also have the ability to spray chemicals that will kill the weeds and preserve what we want.

So why were the servants told to allow the weeds to grow? Obviously they could tell the difference or they would not have offered to pull the weeds. Perhaps that’s the point of the Gospel and the point we could easily miss. Today’s Gospel gives us a choice of a long form and a short form and I’ve chosen the short form but the long form includes an explanation. Jesus told the crowd that the wheat represents the children of God while the weeds represent the children of the “evil one.” The reading takes a dark turn when Jesus explains that the children of the evil one will be thrown into a fiery furnace where there will be “wailing and grinding of teeth.”

Unfortunately I’ve found that many Christians have taken this “wailing and grinding of teeth” a little too far. They look at this with smugness and it’s almost as if their belief in their salvation includes watching others in torment. I’ve spoken about this before but years ago I suggested to a conservative Catholic woman that couples who use artificial birth control might still be welcomed into Heaven by God. Her anger at this stunned me and I’m grateful I didn’t follow it up with a suggestion that she would somehow enjoy watching others in torment.

I think sometimes we’re too quick to decide for ourselves who are wheat and who are weeds. At no point in this reading does Jesus suggest that we determine who is and isn’t saved and we are certainly not called to light the fire. As a student at Boston College I had the good fortune to take several classes from the brilliant theologian Peter Kreeft. He suggested that our judgement before God consists of God opening the doors of Heaven and Hell and asking us to choose.

And yet we sometimes insist we have the ability to discern between wheat and weeds. In 1633 Galileo was accused of heresy for suggesting that the earth wasn’t the center of the universe but instead revolved around the sun; this appeared to contradict Joshua 10:13 which describes how God caused the sun to stand still in the sky (how can the sun stand still unless it moves around the earth). This accusation was not lifted until 1992.

In 1959 an interracial couple (Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter) filed suit to overturn Virginia’s prohibition of interracial marriage. The initial ruling determined that interracial marriage was not a right as God placed people of different races in different parts of the world specifically so they wouldn’t marry.

Today we’re seeing scores of laws being passed in several states that outlaw the teaching of the existence of homosexuality in the belief that God condemns and we must also condemn. And what we don’t acknowledge will disappear.

But maybe, just maybe, the servants in today’s Gospel were told not to pull the weeds simply because we’re not as good at differentiating wheat from weeds as we thought. This would explain why the master told the servants to leave the weeds alone. Weeds can’t become wheat but children of the evil one can become children of God. That’s the whole point of evangelization and reconciliation: to bring or restore light to those in darkness.

This takes some humility but as disciples and not peers of God we need to recognize that we don’t know the whole story. If our neighbor is a constant source of irritation maybe that person is living with unhealed pain that we don’t know about. If our child appears to find joy in pointing out our faults maybe this is a step between recognizing hypocrisy and learning to be gentle.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in ministry (and I’ve learned many things) if we treat someone like weeds they oftentimes will never recognize the ability to become wheat. I’ve always chuckled at Mark Twain’s quotation: When I was 17, my father was so stupid, I didn’t want to be seen with him in public. When I was 24, I was amazed at how much the old man had learned in just 7 years.

Most of us who read this aren’t farmers and have much to learn about farming. But all of us continue to our need to learn that if we allow God to separate the wheat from the weeds we’ll end up with more wheat. We may even find there never were any real weeds.