Flaps Blog

Jesus tells a story about weeds and wheat in Matt 13

24Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26When 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. 30Let 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.’ “

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The words ?wheat? and ?weed? sound much the same, but are spelt very differently, with an obvious totally opposite meaning. ?Wheat? and ?weed? often look the same in this world we live in.

Now people are always in a hurry to pull the weeds out. ?Let?s just clear out the weeds who are having such a negative influence on our poor wheat?. Jesus understood something that the servants did not understand then, and most of society don?t understand today.

WHEAT CAN BE MISJUDGED AS WEED AND VICE VERSA.

Our best attempt (however prayed through and then saturated with our best discerned wisdom) to adjudge who is weed and who is wheat WILL at some point be wrong. And some wheat will be plucked out. That is heartbreaking. Many people have been hurt deeply by the church in this way.

I have had many people involved in my life and ministry that I might have adjudged to be weed and have proved themselves to be wheat. And then there have been those innocent wheat looking individuals whose roots are filled with poison.

Because we cannot make these calls to soon, we have to love all people and connect with all people and give everybody a fair chance to prove their core.

We need to get comfortable living amongst the weed (which may prove to be wheat). Jesus did. They were his friends (irrelevant if they proved later to be wheat or not). His friendship was unconditional.

One day God will sort the weed.

Mynhardt preached on Stories versus Steps at Re:Verb this week - part of our ‘Authentic faith versus commercial Christianity’ series. He said a lot of things, but he said one thing that stuck in my mind and made me think. When we read in the first book of John about Jesus being the Word that became flesh, it might be paraphrased as Jesus becoming the story - and his story became part of the story of people around him. And influenced their story. And the stories became integrated. (If you read a lot of my writing you will know that’s my favourite word - integrated)

The same way today we should steer away from trying to give people the ‘3 steps’ or ‘5 steps’ or whatever amount of steps (or answers) to whatever. And just share our stories and live our stories. And the truth and life within will integrate. And it will bring change, as Jesus did by living amongst his people.

It is so amazing how God lives within the good and the bad. And he wishes to keep drawing us closer to him. That’s what he did 2000 years ago and still does. We should do the same. So often, however, our lives are just about creating our story, our next chapter. Our last chapter. The happy ending. Very self-centered.

As a screenwriter I can tell you that any story needs supporting characters with their own sub-plot and own stories to add value to the hero’s story. A story with just one character is totally useless. The more intricate and the more involved characters are with each other, the more they add value to each other’s stories.

Let’s sacrifice our stories for the sake of others. By sacrifice I don’t mean give up. I mean offer them. Let’s make our stories available to others’ stories. And become part. Integrate.

It’s Easter - At Re:Verb this Sunday I preached about Simon, this ordinary man who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Or perhaps the right place at the right time.

Jesus did it all - Spiritually he conquered death. 4 major things happened when he died. Darkness. An earthquake. The curtain in the temple tore. AND MANY DEAD PEOPLE STOD UP FROM THE GRAVE. (Somehow in 25 years of reading the Bible I somehow never knew this). Anyway due to this incident in the history of mankind, we have life today.

Yet Simon still had to struggle up that hill carrying that cross with much pain.

Jesus’ loved ones still had to mourn their friend/family member’s death.

Many of the disciples still died in ministry later in their lives.

Thank you Jesus for giving us life. Give us strength to journey with you, even though it’s up Golgotha, or through whatever other hardship we may face in this world.