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July 17th 2011 THE BIBLE SPEAKS BY PASTOR HARRIS
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The Bible Speaks by Pastor Julian P. Harris
Jesus’ Kingdom-parable of the wheat and the weeds is relevant to many aspects of life from
parenng to pastoring, from the small scale of the individual to the large scale of the Church in the
modern world. How does one engender the good and cull the bad when you must ferlize both? He
makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Ma
5:45) What must we do when we cannot discern the dierence between the good and the evil that
masquerades as the good or—as is more problemac in our society—when you don’t care to make
any disncon between the two: Whitewashing bad people and throwing mud on good people are
equally abhorrent to God. (Prov 17:15)
Rural life in the agrarian South is all about weeds. Weeds in the pea-patch, suckers on the
tomatoes, cockle burrs in the coon eld and milkweed in the tobacco rows. A cockle burr had
shallow but widespread roots and had to be pulled out to get all the roots. If you hacked it o at
the ground level with a hoe it would be back in a week. A milkweed had a very long tap root that
could not be pulled out. If you did try to pull it up, three separate sprouts would be back in a week.
Milkweeds had to be hacked o with a hoe and would bleed and die as the sap ran out. If you didn’t
handle the weeds right, hours of backbreaking work in the sun would be completely wasted.
Jesus knew his weeds as well. The meaning of Jesus’ parable about the wheat and the weeds
becomes clearer when we look at the specic kind of weed he talks about. Tares are bearded darnel
(zizania), a poisonous weed organically related to wheat and dicult to disnguish from wheat in the
early stages of its growth. The weeds had grown enough that their roots were already intertwined
with those of the wheat but not far enough that it would be easy to disnguish them from the wheat;
uproong thus might endanger the wheat. It looks like wheat, it grows like wheat but it is not wheat.
The problem with taking our hoe to the evil weeds of the world is that good and evil somemes look
so much alike. It only becomes clear later: While you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the
wheat with them. Let both grow together unl the harvest. At that me I will tell the harvesters:
First collect the weeds and e them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it
into my barn. (Ma 13:29-30) It fools you!
A crusty old Southerner ran a fruit stand on the outskirts of Sumter on Highway 15 South. An
out-of-town customer stopped to buy oranges. Old Jim saw the New York tag on that converble
Cadillac-car and seizing the chance to strike a blow for the Cause, sold him a sack of citrons. Jim kept
one sweet orange peeled for just such an opportunity and oered it as a sample and a gi for the