Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field

 Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house.  And His disciples came to Him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field."  He answered and said to them:  "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.  The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one.  The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels.  Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.  The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire.  There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"

- Matthew 13:36-43

 In yesterday's reading, Jesus gave more parables to the crowds. (Chapter 13 of Matthew's Gospel introduces us to Jesus' use of parables, beginning with the parable of the Sower, and then the Wheat the Tares).  Jesus taught,  "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches."  Another parable He spoke to them:  "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened."  All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without a parable He did not speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying:  "I will open My mouth in parables;  I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world."

Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house.  And His disciples came to Him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field."  He answered and said to them:  "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.  The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one.  The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels.  Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.  The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire.  There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"  Just as with the parable of the Sower, Jesus explains in private to His disciples the parable of the tares of the field (also called the Wheat and the Tares, and given in Thursday's reading).  Jesus explains in terms of Judgment, and the end of the age.  If we look closely at the timeline of the Gospel, we see Jesus' teachings giving us a picture of how His kingdom works since the time it became clear that He will be rejected by the religious leadership.  His Kingdom is one in which we are united in faith; not by nation or people or ancestry.  He has taught that "whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother," giving spiritual kinship as definition of real community.  Here, He teaches about the "weeds and the tares" growing together:  those who belong to this community and those who do not, and are in fact 'sown by the enemy' -- those who are "sons" of the one who works against this kingdom.  In our present state, all grow together.  Jesus has taken pains in the parable to say that to root up one may be to root up the other, and my study bible has commented that the Church does not condemn its nominal members nor judges those outside the Church for this reason:  Judgment belongs to God, and comes at the end of the age -- that is, beyond the time in which we now live.  His teachings give us the picture of community and kinship, but also what constitutes "outside" status and yet resembles the "insiders" and how all live together in the present time.

Judgment becomes important at this stage of Jesus' ministry, because it is clear how He is going to be rejected.  There will be those who follow in faith, and those who do not.  This is the state of our world, and the time in which we currently live -- a time initiated by His ministry and Incarnation in the world.  It is a picture in which distinctions remain somewhat hidden and blurry:  heresy and sophistry resemble spiritual truth, just as the tares are a wild plant that resemble the wheat in the parable.  His parable gives us a picture not only of the world in which we live, in which spiritual struggle is taking place behind the scenes of what we see and know, but also tells us that we bear a kind of responsibility for our part in this struggle.  That responsibility becomes a focus on our own inner life of guarding the heart, searching for truth, knowing ourselves, and also a focus on growth and awareness.  Clearly, responsibility for Judgment is in God's hands, and comes at the end of the age.  So our focus has to be on being good stewards and disciples, bearing the good fruit that features in so much of His teaching in recent readings.  In His examples in yesterday's reading -- of the mustard seed that grows into a large tree, and the leaven that works its way into the whole of the meal -- Jesus gives us pictures of what that growth and that work of faith is really like.  He teaches us about the workings of the Kingdom within us and among us.  He gives us a picture of the "world" He is introducing, the ways of the Kingdom, and how we must understand ourselves in the world if we are to follow in His faith.  Heresy will be among us, sophistry will proliferate and filter into our lives.  But our job is the job of faith, the work of faith, and it becomes up to us to learn what that is from what He teaches.  This is the picture He's given us in His ministry, and we go forward to learn more from Him through the Gospel and our future readings.  The parables give us truth couched in riddles, so to speak, in images from every day life, and it's up to us to desire what they hold for our understanding -- just as the disciples ask Him to explain.  The world works in a way similar to the parables:  hidden in our daily life is the struggle for spiritual truth, for hearts and minds.  If we pay attention, we take that seriously, for that is the working of our faith within us, the struggle He invites us into.   The fire that burns or illuminates is the same fire.  When Jesus teaches, "Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father," He is both expressing that illumination, and also a time of revelation, when the truth that has been hidden but present all along becomes manifest and clear to all.  "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"

Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field

Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said to them: "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"

- Matthew 13:36-43

Similarly to Jesus' discussion of the Parable of the Sower, this parable - of the Wheat and the Tares - appears in two sequences. First we are given the parable as preached to the crowds ("the multitude"), and then we are given Jesus' private explanation to his disciples, after he "sent the multitude away and went into the house." For the readings of the Parable of the Sower, see Why do you speak to them in parables? and Therefore hear the parable of the sower. For the first part of this discussion of the parable of the Wheat and the Tares, as Jesus preached the parable to the crowds, see The Wheat and the Tares. As with the parable of the Sower, the parable of the Wheat and the Tares was also accompanied by Jesus' explanation about parables and their usage, in yesterday's reading, Things kept secret from the foundation of the world. There is an interesting pattern of "doubling" in Matthew's gospel, not only with this pattern of the parables, but also in stories that appear in other synoptic gospels: the Gergesene demoniac, for example, appears as two men healed in Matthew's gospel.

In The Wheat and the Tares, I shared a note from my study bible that also applies to today's reading, Jesus' explanation. I'll repeat again, with an added note that applies to this section: "The parable of the wheat and tares builds on the previous parable of the sower. Here Christ gives attention to the work of the enemy, the devil, who comes to sow his own seed after the fruits have multiplied. Falsehood comes in after truth: after the prophets came false prophets; after Christ will come the Antichrist. The devil fashions falsehood and heresy to resemble the true Faith: the weeds look somewhat like the wheat. The evil one also comes while everybody is asleep. While the devices of the evil one do not extend into heaven, in this age he intermingles the counterfeit with the Kingdom. This parable explains why the Church does not expel her nominal members. To weed out the tares is to disrupt the wheat. Those who are watchful and remain faithful will shine forth as the sun (v. 43, above) forever."

It's important that we understand the concept of "watchfulness" as noted about the last verse (above, in the note from my study bible). We are to be awake, not asleep. We are not blind followers, but those for whom "the law is written on our hearts" as in Jeremiah 31:33: "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people." We are responsible to learn discernment, to be watchful. In this picture of the Wheat and the Tares, in which the tares (a kind of ryegrass which closely resembles wheat) seem to be like the wheat, we are challenged to discernment, to understand from the heart what we are to follow, and what snares we may be tempted toward that we wish to avoid. This is the picture that Jesus gives us.

The judgment is at the end of the age. We are not to practice that judgment - it is beyond us to understand. That is up to the Son of Man, and his angels, the reapers. Jesus clearly refers to himself here as judge - the Son of Man is a messianic title from the book of Daniel. Jesus tells us that at this time of the judgment, "then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." It seems to me that this, therefore, will be a time when discernment is easy, the time of trial and confusion is over -- and it will be obvious which "sons" are truly sons of the Father. But until that time, we are in the here and now of the current age. We are all in this together, and we are in a time where there is yet time, in which the whole process expressed through the parable of the Sower: where some seed takes root, some is choked by the cares of the world, some taken by difficulty and tribulation, and some is never understood at all, is still happening around us and with us. This is our life, our current state. We are meant to be those who persevere in righteousness.

Christ makes it clear here that he knew perfectly well what kind of world we live in, now or then. Life isn't always easy, and we live side by side with the myriad ways there are of interpreting these words. We live with those who appear outwardly righteous and are not - as he warned many times in his own gospel message, preaching against the hypocrites, and those who are "wolves in sheep's clothing," whom he also said would come in his name. We live in a world where all is not black and white, where the unrighteous may resemble the righteous. We live in a world where the righteous were treated as criminals, and the one who calls himself Son of Man here was crucified. We are to be awake, and we need discernment, and perseverance. It is at the end of the age when "the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." But not in the present time; in the present time, we persevere, we cultivate the laws written on the heart and in our minds, we seek to understand and to grow the good growth of the seed of the kingdom. This is our job now.

Many people find it distasteful and frightening to speak of judgment. Certainly these passages have been misused, and by those whom he called "wolves in sheep's clothing." But to have an awareness of the importance of discernment, wakefulness, is extremely important. To have an awareness of judgment in the sense in which our choices are important means that we are not blind sheep, but rational sheep. We have responsibility. As human beings, we are not blind creatures without choice, but upon us is conferred the choice of what sort of world we wish to live in, what sort of world we create. Do we follow the Father who is love? Or do we seek "the enemy" which sows hardship, cruelty, hypocrisy? These are the questions we ask ourselves and to which this parable points. They are questions written on our own hearts, for each of us to choose and to seek to understand for ourselves, so that we make our choices. God who is love also sends a fire of love which is cleansing, to cleanse each of us - as in the fire of the burning bush, which burned with fire but was not consumed. The saints throughout history have written about this burning fire as a fire of love. The apostles on the way to Emmaus spoke of how their "hearts were burning" as Christ opened the Scriptures to them. It is also that fire of love that teaches us what needs to go, which ways we need to change and what things we need to discard from our hearts and minds, so that we are healed. I think of this fire as that fire of love with which the angel burned in the midst of the bush. It is a holy fire. And hence, we make our choices: do we choose that which does not burn but lives in the fire - or that which perishes in the fire? It is up to us. God is love - and the very nature of judgment, therefore, is love. It is up to us to choose that love as part of ourselves and our identity. In this way we will be the righteous, those who shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.