Matt 13:24-30 [Jesus] put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in her field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the grain, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to her, ‘Kyrie, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ She answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to her, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the grain along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the grain into my barn.'”

Jesus is on a roll, he tells five parables about the kingdom of God aka the kingdom of heaven in Matthew, some of which emphasizing growth, and others, including the parable in hand, with a focus on judgment. This is where it gets hot. Literally! With fire, a blazing furnace, weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Personally, I don’t like the language of fire and hell, for one thing, it makes me uncomfortable but I also don’t believe in a God with the capacity to burn someone for eternity for their wrong beliefs or even deeds.

A friend asked me the other day if I believed in heaven and hell and I said of course. But I believe that they are both here and now. While our parable for today is categorized and certainly implied as a judgment parable or pertaining to the Day of Judgment, I want to challenge us this morning to read it with contemporary notions of the kingdom, and in light of the Divine who walked on earth, restored the broken, advocated for the marginalized, and gave hope to the hopeless.

The sower went out to sow, she planted good seeds. But then the enemy came at night and scattered some bad seeds in between. At harvest time, the slaves are summoned to collect the weeds and then the reapers will collect the wheats and grains. Notice the dualism in this story! You have the sower who is the good person and then you have the enemy. There is the wheat (or good seed) and there is the weed (or the bad seed). Then you have the slaves collect the latter while the reapers collect the former. Just a lot of parallelism. Let’s keep that in the back pocket for now.

Now, Jesus grew up in an agricultural environment; he knew for darn sure that there is a variety of seeds and a variety of plants that could grow in a field; it is not all wheat and weeds, but there exist hundreds of types of plants; some are good, some are bad, some are neither nor, some could be both!

Yet, Jesus chooses to highlight two options in his kingdom analogy: one could be a wheat or a weed. I want to talk about this dichotomy, about the dualist worldview that we see in this parable. It is very black and white!

You know I used to be much more black and white. My colleagues are looking at me and going: “you used to??” I am learning to sit in the gray zone, to be more diplomatic or what we call in our setting pastoral; to see the truth in both sides.

But I learned from observing Jesus’s life that there are situations when gray is not enough. Actually there are situations where gray is not acceptable. Certain worldly philosophies should be unacceptable to a person of faith. Instead it is wheat and weeds, and if it is not the former, then it is the latter.

People in America and everywhere are divided and that includes the church; on LGBTQ rights, on the rights of immigrants, on issues of people of color, on police brutality, on the homeless situation… and many other issues. Remarkably, both sides quote the words of Jesus, and both sides believe that Jesus stands with them. But both sides cannot be correct, can they?

It’s impossible that those working to keep immigrant children in cages and those working to provide sanctuary are both serving Christ. It’s impossible that those working to legalize discrimination against LGBTQ people and those working crisis hotlines for trans-youth are both serving Christ. Someone is right and someone is wrong. Someone is serving Christ, and someone … well … isn’t. There are the wheats and there are the weeds, and according to today’s scripture, there is nothing in between!

So why does it matter? What’s the end result of all this? Heaven and hell are the terms scriptures use to describe it. Heaven and hell isn’t really about reward and punishment, though I know it feels good to think that we will be rewarded for living good lives and others who didn’t will be punished.

But let us think for a moment about the kingdom as inaugurated by Jesus’s ministry; an earthly and present kingdom; the here and now kingdom. How would that influence our theology and the way we live out our faith?

Jesus says in v 30, referring to wheats and weeds: “Let both grow together until the harvest.” Friends we all grow together, good, bad, believers, non-believers, liberals, conservatives, doubters, agnostics… The truth is we all have equal chances in life, equal share of joy and of sorrow; Jesus himself said that God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. All humans have equal shares and possibilities in this life.

The only difference lies in the fruits we bear. The wheat will bear grain, and the wild weeds will keep going about their lives looking full on the outside but there is nothing nourishing on the inside, and that my friends … is hell.

Friends, the Judgment Day Jesus talks about is today. We live in an age where -and you’ve heard me say this multiple times- we are defined by our word, or by the lack thereof! 

If until this day you’re still deciding where you stand from racial justice issues, it’s time to decide: be a wheat or be a weed. Just be something.

If you cannot yet tell whether or not you affirm that certain peoples’ lives matter and you have questions about it, then you need to be a wheat or a weed, but be something.
If, as a Christian, you still struggle with accepting people for their sexual orientation, you need to be a weed or a weed. Be something.

If you are blinking on exploiting the resources of the world because you’re on the receiver’s side, now you need to decide and be a wheat or a weed, just, For God’s sake, be something.

When it comes to certain moral questions, if you’re not a wheat, you are a wild grass! Revelation 3:16 says “because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

As Christians, we are people of principle; signature Jesus-non-compromising-Christ. Many will try to play it safe by staying in the gray. That’s weed too.  Jesus wasn’t a play it safe or gray kind of dude. He clearly and obviously called his hearers to stand out as a wheat and bear grains, or else get plucked out and die as a weed. But it is not your or my job to judge, but only to bear grains and let God take care of it.

The kingdom of God is about transformation not about futuristic rewards and condemnation. And that means that the Christian life is a continuous choice to follow Christ every day.

Today, if you have chosen to follow Christ, you’re wheat. And if you’re wheat, You look like wheat, you smell like wheat, you act like wheat, you bear the characteristics of wheat. There is no time in your life, when the circumstances are tough, when no one is looking or any other time when you can be something else, even if you tried! You’re a wheat!!!

So, be passionate, be vocal, bear grain, feed others… And may the God of good harvest grant us all discernment. Amen.