The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares

The Devil sowing tares.

Jesus proposed another parable to the crowds, saying:
“The kingdom of heaven may be likened
to a man who sowed good seed in his field.
While everyone was asleep his enemy came
and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.
When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.
The slaves of the householder came to him and said,
‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?
Where have the weeds come from?’
He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’
His slaves said to him,
‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds
you might uproot the wheat along with them.
Let them grow together until harvest;
then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters,
“First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning;
but gather the wheat into my barn.” – Matthew 13.

Yesterday’s mass reading began with this parable.

Few ever seem to notice that parables always include something that, on the surface, makes no sense.

Any amateur gardener should see it. Nobody allows the weed to grow in their garden or their field until harvest. Weeding is the crucial chore in gardening. If they do not take over altogether, untended weeds will stunt the crop. And make it difficult to harvest.

The gods must be crazy.

The householder does not want the weeds pulled up because his servants might not be able to see the difference between weeds and wheat. Yet he assumes that the eventual harvesters will have no trouble doing so: first they will collect the weeds for burning, then gather the wheat. This is aggressively illogical.

When we see such things, we should assume we are being required to take a closer look; things are not as they appear.

Jesus gives a partial explanation to his apostles:

“He who sows good seed is the Son of Man,
the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom.
The weeds are the children of the evil one,
and the enemy who sows them is the devil.
The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire,
so will it be at the end of the age.
The Son of Man will send his angels,
and they will collect out of his kingdom
all who cause others to sin and all evildoers.
They will throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
Then the righteous will shine like the sun
in the kingdom of their Father.
Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

So the wheat is the good people, and the weeds are the bad people, and the field is the world. And the question addressed is, why does God allow the evil to prosper? Why not just strike them with a lightning bolt?

It cannot be that his servants cannot identify them. For who are his servants in this parable? Not mortal followers: those are the good seeds. The servants must be angels; he identifies them as angels at the harvest. There is no question that God knows all the time who the evil people are. There is no question that he has the power to tell the angels who they are.

But doing so, it would seem, would “uproot the wheat along with them.”

How so? It cannot be in the conventional sense; it cannot be in the literal sense. It is that the wheat cannot be wheat without the weeds.

The weeds are “all who cause others to sin and all evildoers.” The evil will thrive in this world, as weeds will in an unweeded field. If they did not, there would be no temptation for anyone to do evil.

So the good can only be the good, can only grow to be wheat, if they are exposed to and can survive the weeds without becoming weeds. The point is that with souls it is the opposite of with wheat.