The Dandelion Paradox
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Imagine my delight when, as a child who was often coerced into helping pull weed from my Dad’s garden, I learn in Sunday school one week about the parable of the weeds. Jesus said I didn’t have to, that it was a bad thing to pull out the weeds.
Wheat or Weed?
The Paradox:
As I remember, most of the weeds in our yard were dandelions. I grew up thinking that a dandelion was nothing but a useless weed that nobody really wanted around. Imagine my surprise when later I learned that there are people in the world who don’t view dandelions as weeds at all, they view them as vegetables. Would you imagine that, people eating weeds? That is quite a paradox.
Someone once said, "A weed is simply a plant that no one loved."
One person’s plant can be another person’s weed.
Even people we think of as really bad, someone else thinks of as good.
And people we think of, as really good, there are those who think they are not worth the time of day.
Continuing our series "Kingdom Living" with the Parable of the Weeds.
Symbolism:
Jesus himself is the farmer.
The world is the field.
The wheat represents people of faith.
The devil sows the weeds and the weeds are his children.
The harvest is the end of time.
To me the parable of the weeds is a frustrating story, weeds and wheat together. But it’s also very real to our world.
It is real, and what we really want to pray to God is: "Lord, take the weeds away!" Take away all of the evil and all of the temptations and all of the anxieties. Pull those weeds out of my life.
But the kingdom of God is here on earth and wheat and weeds grow side by side, lest in pulling out the weeds we disrupt the wheat as well. Weeds and wheat — side by side. We have to live in the real world.
The point of this parable is not that Jesus is going to go easy on the weeds.
There should be no question, the end of the age will come and judgment will come to everyone, both weeds and wheat.
What Jesus is really trying to teach us in this lesson is that the judgments aren’t our job.
Our focus is not to be on other people’s spiritual life, but on our own spiritual growth.
The challenge for us is to put our energy into being good wheat, instead of trashing the weeds around us.
The best news is that growth and maturity are probably the most effective forms of weed control around.
When we let the wheat grow we don’t have to worry as much about the dandelion paradox. We don’t have to worry whether it is a weed or a vegetable because the good plants will surround us. Yes, weeds will be part of the world, but when some of them see the life of the wheat, they too might become one of the good plants.