Wheat and weeds grow side by side in all of us. We will never completely lose the capacity to surprise ourselves with thoughts and emotions that well up spontaneously and fly in the face of our deepest-held values. Just when we think we have forgiven someone, anger resurfaces and we grind our teeth. Just when we think we have conquered our judgmental attitude, we catch ourselves looking askance at a stranger who does not meet our exacting standards. Just when we think we have developed a discipline of prayer, we find ourselves watching a mindless TV show rather than saying good night to the Lord.
We work hard on a fault, do our best to overcome it, but it remains. We turn our lives around, give up the dangerous roads we once traveled and place our lives completely and sincerely in the hands of God, but old habits haunt us. We joyfully accept God’s mercy when we have sinned, only to be surprised by a new fault or frustrated by an unrelenting familiar one.
Why can’t I get it right, I ask myself. Why doesn’t God notice my sincerity and give me the help I need? Why can’t I correct this sin myself? Does the fact that my sins still glare at me mean that I have made no progress? Or am I afraid of being weak, afraid of admitting that I need God?
Jesus tells a beautiful parable that captures both our fickle nature and God’s mysterious ways.
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 13:25-30)
Wheat and weeds grow side by side in all of us: faults remain even as we grow spiritually. The devil hopes we will be discouraged by the persistence of the hearty weeds and stop trying to grow spiritually. He does not want us to lean even more on God, because he knows God is ready to help us! For his part, God does not fret about weeds, and he will not do us violence by uprooting weeds and wheat together; he wants us to rely on him and trust that he protects us from any long-term harm the weeds could cause us and will use them somehow for good.
It is important that we unmask a fallacy that often dupes us: the unwitting assumption that whatever “wheat” grows within us is the produce of our own effort. Our frustration with weeds, then, stems in part from frustration that we have not been able to wipe them out by ourselves. To unmask the fallacy is to admit that every bit of wheat growing within us is the work of God, and his alone! Remember that the slaves in Jesus’ parable asked the householder, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?” The seed comes from the hand of the Master, and the wheat grows by his cultivation, not ours.
I like the parable very much, because it demonstrates God’s patience with the garden — the field — the farm– that is my life. Just as it is he who has caused the wheat to grow, just as it is he who has inspired me to be better, so it is he who sometimes allows weeds to grow alongside wheat and who will use them somehow for my good. Weeds keep me humble! The best thing that could happen is that I will lean more on God and recognize how everything is grace, even those things I thought I had done by myself.
Does the fact that God allows some weeds to remain mean that he somehow “sanctions” such faults? Not at all. God can bring good even out of faults — but that is his work, not mine. Moreover, there is a vast difference between realizing with exasperation that weeds are cropping up even as we are growing in goodness, and willingly cultivating weeds by our actions and attitudes. What I mean by cultivating weeds is knowingly allowing ourselves to do things that harm us, frequenting places that are not good for us, entering into conversations that will lead us to sin, ignoring opportunities to participate in the sacraments and prayer, and so forth.
Lent offers the opportunity to ask if we are willingly cultivating any weeds. If so, we ask God’s help to repent and seek only that which nourishes the wheat of goodness and holiness. He asks us to cooperate with what his grace is doing in us, to change and correct what we can — and when those exasperating weeds persist, to lean on him even more, trusting that just as he sowed the good seed he will prosper the wheat.
Do you have an intention for Bishop Sartain’s prayer? If so, send it to him at Bishop Sartain’s Prayer List, Diocese of Little Rock, 2500 North Tyler St., P.O. Box 7239, Little Rock, AR 72217.
