Matthew 13.24-30

Jesus now tells another parable about agriculture that sounds pretty similar to the third kind of soil we can be, the soil with weeds and thorns. Read this parable and then we will talk about it some more:

 ²⁴ Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. ²⁵ But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. ²⁶ When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
   ²⁷ “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?’
   ²⁸ “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
   “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
   ²⁹ “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. ³⁰ 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.’”


To try and sabotage someone's fields like this was not common at all, but was doable. There was a seed called darnel that looked so much like wheat that you could not tell the difference between the two until it was fully grown. At this point, it was too late to weed out the darnel because its roots had already intertwined with the roots of the wheat, and if you weeded them out, you would pull out the wheat as well. So what you would have to do would be to wait until harvest, when you would cut down both of the plants and then separate the darnel, or weeds, from the wheat. The weeds would be bundled up and thrown into the fire, and the wheat would be harvested and stored in barns. 


This parable will be discussed more in detail in a couple of days, because in Matthew 13.36-43, Jesus explains this parable to his disciples. But as of now, it is good to know that this is Jesus' description of the world in which Kingdom people live in. The people of God, his kingdom, are the wheat and the rest of the world are the weeds. What we have to realize is that to be kingdom people, we will be living among the sinners and pagans of the world. We will be working next to them, sending our kids to school with their kids, going to the public swimming pool and playing in the park with them. This is normal. We are not, as Christians, to separate ourselves, physically, from the world around us. It is impossible!!! we will always be surrounded and intertwined with the fallen world. But we have to remember what we learned yesterday, we cannot allow the world to affect us, we must affect the world.


I was at a high school retreat with my youth group, and the speaker was doing a Q and A session. And I was really fighting this tension in my life about how much time to spend with my non-Christian friends at school and my Christian friends at Church. I wanted to witness and love and care for my non-Christian friends but I didn't want to have my faith choked out by their lives, so to speak. So I asked the speaker what I thought was a really good question, "How do you balance spending time with your Christian friends and non-Christians friends." His answer was very simple, he said the key is to answer the question, "are you affection and influencing them or are they influencing you?" This is the question I have always asked myself when living and working and spending time with non-Christians. "Am I influencing them or are they influencing me?" 


That is my question to you today.