« Friday Links O’ Fun | Home | Pensive Question of the Week »

Thoughts on the Wheat and the Tares (Parable of the Weeds)

By Dan | May 31, 2008

I read a great little piece on the Wheat and the Tares or Parable of the Wees (Mtt. 13:24-30, 36-43), the other day by Reinhold Niebuhr. It really helped me think about this parable and our own culture in a little different way.

Sometimes within the Christian culture we get really mad at the postmodern relativisitic impulses. Sometimes for good reasons, but think about some of the impulses within today’s mindset- a focus on grays rather than black and white, a focus on waiting or not judging, etc.

Well, both of these ideas come up in this parable. In large part, what this parable is telling us is that within this world, and from our own limited human outlook it is difficult for us to always separate what/who is truly good and what/who is truly evil in this world, or in the process of trying to do so, we may cause more harm than good.

Yes, we have reason to be frustrated when postmoderns tell us that we should never judge and that morality is relative, but maybe we could also gain in wisdom if we saw how this postmodern mindset does capture some truth too. As the parable shows, sometimes judgment about people or actions is best delayed. And even in terms of the deeds of a person, sometimes it’s hard to tell what part is motivated by sinful nature and what by God. These things are so mixed together in our world.

So this parable is a helpful one as we seek to find balance. I think it is especially helpful becuase it allows us to communicate to come to a postmodern generation and say, “yes you have a side of the truth”. We don’t just shut them down. This allows us to open the conversation and then bridge toward the other side of God’s tension, that ultimately God does know truth and right and wrong, and that he does seek to start that work in this world as he brings us toward that day when he will return and make it all right.