“No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat 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 wheat into my barn.” – Matthew 13:29-30

Such a simple story, Jesus. But I have to say
that life is much more complicated than you’ve said.

We are not seeds, you know, that can be labeled
“good” and “bad.” A person wobbles like a child’s toy
through life, a nod to good this moment, leaning to
the bad the next. No simple good and bad.

We need no enemy except what we call up
ourselves to sow the bad amidst the good.
Those who claim “good” know well their ill within
and evil souls have shown the signs of care.

We’re more complex than this, your tale,
suggests. We struggle so against the ills
around us and we struggle with the ills within.
How much we’d welcome weeding in our fields!

But…

If life is much more complicated than
your story, how much harder would the task
of weeding be, when wheat and weeds are all
the same, and each may bear good fruit some day.

Your story may be simple, Jesus, but
its lesson holds. Our lives are far too wound about
with good and bad, with health and ill, to separate
them in the here and now.

May we, someday,
bear good fruit.

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 11 (16).

The image is Les Sataniques. Satan semant l’ivraie (The Satanics: Satan Sowing Tares) by Félicien Rops – photo by Hans Joachim Neyer (Hrsg.): Felicien Rops. 1833 – 1898. Katalog der Ausstellung im Wilhelm-Busch-Museum Hannover 17. Januar bis 21. März 1999. Hatje, Ostfildern 1999, ISBN 3-7757-0821-9, Abb. 61, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12525528.