422 Living With Weeds

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Living With Weeds”, originally shared on July 16, 2026. It was the 422^nd video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   There are a lot of challenges to growing your own food. One teaches us about living as Christians in this world. Today, we’re going to find out what it is.

   I have grown many plants in our garden, but there is one kind that I grow better than any other: weeds! 😊

   It has always mystified me that it is so hard to keep the weeds from killing the grass in the soil in the back of our house, but I can’t stop the grass from growing between the slabs of concrete in the front of our house.

   Many people ask this about the Christian life. Why does it seem that good people suffer while evil people thrive?

   The short answer to that question is in the comedian Gary Shandling’s response to the ruthless coach of the Dodgers, Leo Dorocher, when the Dodgers were located in Brooklyn, New York, who famously said, “Nice guys finish last.”

   Gary Shandling said, “Nice guys finish first, and anyone who doesn’t know that doesn’t know where the finish line is.”

   Where is the finish line? And when will it appear?

   The finish line is when Jesus returns for the Last Judgment of all people, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth. The finish line is the end of time.

   Both of the Christians Church’s primary historic statements of belief say something about the end of the world as we know it and the beginning of the new.

   The Apostles’ Creed says, “…and he (Jesus) will come to judge the living and the dead.”

   The Nicene Creed says, “He (Jesus) will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”

   There will be signs that the end is coming, but no one will know when it is coming.

   Before we get there, however, there are going to be some very hard times.

   Jesus is teaching from a boat on the Sea of Galilee to a large group of people in the text from the Gospels that will be read in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming Sunday, Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.

   He tells them that the good and the bad in this life live side-by-side for a reason.

   This Gospel reading answers one of the most important questions that people ask about the Christian faith. That is, “If God is good, and if God is all powerful, then why is there evil in the world?”

   Jesus’ teaching begins with a parable, an earthly story with a heavenly meaning, in Matthew 13:24-28a,

²⁴ He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; ²⁵ but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. ²⁶ So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. ²⁷ And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ ²⁸ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’

   Jesus tells us that evil was not God’s plan for the world.

   God created a perfect world where human beings had a perfect relationship with God, and with each other, and with everything that God had created.

   But human beings were created above everything else for a personal relationship with the one, true, living God, and to be good managers, or “stewards” of everything God had made.

   In order for human beings to say “yes” to their relationship with God, in a way that meant anything, they first had to have the ability to say “no”.

   The devil, the enemy of God, lied to the first humans, Adam and Eve, and persuaded them to say “no” to God. That’s how the weeds were sown in the field. That’s how evil entered the world, and continues to enter the world. The world is the way it is because an enemy brought evil into it through us.

   What can we do? Nothing.

   We need a Savior.

   Jesus continues in Matthew 13:28b-30,

The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ ²⁹ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. ³⁰ 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.’ ”

   Jesus will come in the Last Judgement, and there will be a separation of the mature wheat from the mature weeds.

   Who will be the “wheat” that is saved and who will be the “weeds” that will be destroyed? Jesus explains the answer only to his disciples.

   Jesus leaves the crowds at the Sea of Galilee and goes into a house, probably the house of Simon Peter and Andrew, in the fishing village of Capernaum, and the disciples ask Jesus to explain the parable.

   The text for Sunday concludes with the explanation in Matthew 13:36-43,

³⁶ Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” ³⁷ He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; ³⁸ the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, ³⁹ and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. ⁴⁰ Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, ⁴² and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³ Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

   The children of the kingdom are the good seed, sown by God, that grow up to be useful plants that reproduce and are taken to God. The children of the evil one that are the weeds, sown by the devil, and they will be destroyed.

   People don’t decide to accept Jesus into their hearts, they don’t make a decision for God. We can’t. We are sinners, we are cut off from God by our sin.

   But God makes the decision for us. God opens our hearts. Then we repent and believe. We experience the forgiveness from God and the total restoration of the living relationship with God, or “faith”, for which we were intended from the beginning of Creation, a relationship that we messed up. We become a new Creation by God’s grace at the cross. We are born again. We serve God, and our neighbors, and we multiply.

   But the weeds still try to choke us out.

   How do we live with weeds?  

   We take a longer view of life. We know where the finish line is, and we tell the world that we are all getting closer to it every day.

   We live as good managers, or stewards, of what God has given us.

   God’s harvest is coming, and we are getting ready.

   Billy Graham once said that he had never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul trailer.

   It’s been said that we can’t take our wealth with us to heaven, but we can send it on ahead.

   Martin Luther, the 16^th century Church reformer once said, “I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.”

   The time, the treasure, and the talent we give to God for the work God does in His Church is the expression of our thanks for what God has already done for us on the cross. It is stored for us in heaven so that our heart may with God.

   Fortune cookies used to come after every meal in Chinese restaurants in the United States, even in our favorite Thai restaurant, because some Westerners thought all Asian restaurants were the same. 😊 But fortune cookies didn’t come from China. They originated in a Japanese restaurant in San Francisco!

   It’s hard to find them. Maybe it’s because there are more really good Chinese restaurants now. Maybe it’s because American’s tastes and sophistication have improved. Maybe it’s because we don’t find them useful.

   Fortune cookies contained “lucky” numbers and wise sayings.

   But our lives are not lived by fortune cookie wisdom, but by the Empty Tomb of the resurrected Jesus who gave his life for you and for me and then took it back and rose from the dead.

   All cultures have sayings that pass on wisdom from generation to generation. Like, “The early bird gets the worm,” to say that the earlier you start, the better the outcome will be.

   And it’s true, the early bird gets the worm. But the second mouse gets the cheese. 😊

   I thought of that when I read was what was described as an “ancient Chinese proverb” attributed to the philosophers Confucius or Mencius. It says, “A gentleman would rescue a man trapped in a well, but he would not jump in himself.”

   I think that it’s a way of saying that it is good to be heroic, but it Is reckless to put both the rescuer and the one in need of rescue in jeopardy at the same time. It would risk creating two victims with no one to help them.

   And yet, that’s exactly what Jesus did.

   Jesus jumped into the well with us when we were drowning in Sin. Jesus took on human flesh to be our Savior. Jesus came to make a way to restore the relationship with God for which human beings were created.

   Jesus was fully God and fully human, he gave his life and he took it back again, but he suffered, unbelievably, from whipping to humiliation to lingering pain and public ridicule. Nothing was taken from Him, but he gave everything, including His life for our sake.

   It was reckless, but it didn’t create two victims. Or even one. It created zero victims.

   Instead, Jesus cloaks himself in honor and majesty, and we are set free from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Jesus rose from the dead and is alive and among us. And Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead. And Jesus will separate the wheat from the weeds. Forever.

   How can that be? How can a good God condemn anyone to eternal punishment?

   Nicky Gumble, a priest of the Evangelical Anglican church in England who wrote an internationally popular course for people who are new to the Christian faith called “Alpha” teaches that he believes that after God’s Final Judgement, people of good will will consider what happened and say, “That’s fair.”

   I believe that, too. It seems right, and it is wise. It does not presume to know the mind of God, or to presume that any human being would be more fair, or more merciful, or more just than God.

   Meanwhile, how do we live with the human weeds, planted by an enemy of God?

1.    We don’t give up on them. We continue to pray for them, do good to them, and we bless them when we are cursed by them. We continue to show God’s love when they show us hate. When they mock us, we share the good news of the power of God to transform every life and make it a new Creation.

2.    We seek to be humble. We aren’t always so sure that we know who are the wheat and who are the weeds. We are saved by Grace alone through faith alone, not by works. We are not better than anyone else, just saved.

3.    We are in this world, not of the world. This is our not our home and feeling a little uneasy here is the way it should be. Wheat points to God.

4.    We seek to maintain our Christian character and integrity in this world so that our witness will be believable to the weeds. We seek to live in accord with Paul’s counsel in Romans 12:2,

² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

5.    We are the light, the salt, the leaven, the small thing that sets us apart from the weeds and, by the presence of God at work within us, transforms everything we inhabit.

6.    Many gardeners say that a weed is just a plant out of place. We look for the goodness in all people and help them find their place in the Kingdom of God.

7.    We aren’t overly concerned about our politics or our identity. We focus on what unites us in Jesus Christ. We have been given spiritual gifts to build up the Body of Christ, the Church. We bear the fruit of the Spirit that bears witness to our new life in Jesus Christ. We serve others as a means, not an end, as Paul counsels in Matthew 5:16,

¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

   The FIFA World Cup will end this coming Sunday. I wonder what the Christian church in the United States has offered the tourists who have come here, and those who have read about us or who have seen us on their electronic devices during the tournament, that will last. What do we present to the world? Has their opinion of Jesus changed? Do they even have an opinion?

   Living with weeds means that we are good stewards, or managers, of the time, the treasure, and the talent God has first given us so that, in the end, all people might come to transformed new lives in Jesus Christ that is God’s will for all people, and enjoy his presence with their friends and family members, and all of God’s people in all nations forever.

   This is how we live with weeds.