Matthew 13:24-30   Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. “The owner’s servants came to him and said, `Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ “`An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, `Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ “`No,’ he answered, `because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.'”

A few years ago Cheryl and I found a blueberry farm north of Bonham. The first thing I noticed is picking blueberries is a lot easier than picking blackberries! Blueberry bushes don’t have any thorns. The lady who ran the place started explaining to us all the different varieties she had available in her patch: “TifBlue”, “Premier”, and a couple of rows of “Climax.” I had no idea there were different varieties of blueberries! And once we got started we could not remember which ones were which. The way we operated was pretty simple. If we saw some ripe berries on a bush, we’d pop one in our mouth and see if we liked the way it tasted. If it was sweet, we started picking. If it was more on the tart side, we went to the next bush or the next row. Some bushes were loaded with ripe berries. Other bushes were picked clean. Some had a few ripe berries but many more green and white and reddish looking ones that were in various stages of ripening.

That experience reminded me of the reading above. While picking blueberries may not be what you think of when you hear the word “harvest,” that is what we were doing. We were harvesting. Because we were doing it by hand, we could be selective about which berries we picked and which ones we skipped over. It is a little different in a wheat harvest. You wait until the entire field is ready, they you cut it all down to collect the grain. You also need to separate the wheat from the weeds. While that is done mechanically in our world today, the Gospel lesson talks about harvesting by hand, manually separating the crop from the weeds.

Jesus tells us that the final harvest is coming, it is a certainty, it will take place. We will stand before our God as our Judge. Those whoe trust in what Jesus did for us all will be saved. Those without faith will not. This passage speaks of it in terms of the weeds being separated from the wheat.

Do you know what a weed is? By definition, a weed is something growing where you don’t want it to grow. Bermuda grass is what I want to grow in my yard, but when it is growing in the flower bed, it is a weed. And isn’t it funny how it seems to grow so much better where you don’t want it? The same is true for farming. Wildflowers may look pretty on the side of the road, but they are more than a nuisance in a crop – they can cut into the profits.

The congregation I served in Oklahoma had a lot of wheat farmers, and they told me that in every harvest there will be weeds. You try your best to keep them to a minimum, but they will be there. However, the situation described in this lesson is an intentional sowing of weeds in the crop. The weeds would sprout with and resemble the wheat at first until it was too late. Evidently, someone sowing weeds was something that happened so much in those days that there was a Roman law that specifically addressed this act and made it criminal. In this parable, the weeds would be left alone until the final harvest so that none of the desired crop would be destroyed. The owner was so concerned about the wheat that he doesn’t want any of it uprooted by pulling out the weeds.

Tomorrow we’ll look at how Jesus explained this parable.