An enemy has done this

One of the curious characteristics of Matthew’s gospel is that his theological imagination is shaped by a series of binaries. He loves to draw contrasts: there is the parable of the sheep and the goats, a parable of wise maidens and foolish ones, good seed and bad, the righteous and the wicked, and today we have the parable of the wheat and the weeds. For Matthew, sometimes the world seems so neatly compartmentalized between goodies and baddies. One might be forgiven for thinking, if only our lives were as simple as that.

The Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds follows on directly from the Parable of the Sower in Matthew. It forms part of a series of parables which in a sense serve to complicate the question posed by the Parable of the Sower. These are all parables of the kingdom, a kingdom which so often seems elusive, precarious, uncertain.

The story goes that, having sowed good seed in his field, ‘while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away’. The seeds begin to sprout and the mixture of wheat and weeds is discovered by the householder’s slaves. ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ Right at the beginning of the parable, the householder sees the infected weeds amidst the wheat and says ‘an enemy has done this’.

For those of us who find ourselves looking at the encroaching bindweed in the garden, ‘An enemy has done this’ might not be the most obvious response. But here the language is clear, even confrontational. ‘An enemy has done this.’ The battle-lines are drawn. ‘An enemy has done this’. Its an easy response, particularly if we can eschew any responsibility for what has happened. Someone else can take the rap for this as we rush to say, ‘An enemy has done this.’

Confronted by Matthew’s easy dualism, the inference is that we are innocent. The evil rests elsewhere. The householder’s response serves to deflect attention from us, and suggest that the problem lies with someone else. We are not responsible. This was never our fault, not our problem. All of us can find strategies for evading responsibility, when it suits, because we know that responsibility is hard and difficult and costly. It is intriguing to reflect for a moment that the twentieth century Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, used to reflect on the idea of sacrifice in substitutionary terms. He described it in terms of ‘taking responsibility for the responsibility of others’.

And yet, before we get carried away by the binaries of Matthew’s theological imagination, it is perhaps important to note that this parable serves to complicate the question. A field littered with wheat and weeds, left to grow together before the final harvest in the face of suspended judgement, perhaps presents a more ambiguous picture of human experience. The battle lines drawn by Matthew between goodies and baddies are not quite as straightforward as perhaps he might have thought. And so a more ambiguous and rather compromised picture begin to emerge.

Certainly, the parable has given licence to such interpretations. One of the greatest theologians of the Western Church, St Augustine of Hippo, who lived in Africa in the fifth century, deploys the imagery of the parable to underline the distinction he makes between the two cities, the city of God and the city of man. The wheat and the weeds provide a telling commentary on the life of the church. Commenting on the flaws and sorrows generated by the Church in his day, he says: ‘In this situation, many reprobates are mingled in the Church with the good, and both sorts are collected as it were in the dragnet of the gospel; and in this world, as in a sea, both kinds swim without separation, enclosed in nets until the shore is reached’. You can see the kind of parallels which might be drawn. But then the twentieth century American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, who reflects on the ambiguities and complexities of our lives and uses the parable basically to condemn all forms of Christian attempts to live without sinning (what he really wants to do is to defend the theory of a just war): ‘According to Niebuhr, the parable does not teach that a specific form of evil does not exist, but that in history good and evil are so mixed (in particular in the church) that we try to distinguish between them only to our detriment’(Stanley Hauerwas).

And yet, I find I am not persuaded by Augustine or Niebuhr. Augustine of course is dealing with tensions within the Christian Church. In the context of the Donatist controversy, it suits him to speak of the wheat and the weeds to be found within the church. The Donatists were the ones who were set on doing quite a bit of ruthless weeding and pruning. Similarly, Niebuhr’s use of the imagery to reflect on the ambiguities and tensions which lie within the human heart, sidesteps Augustine’s questions about church discipline, and yet leaves us adrift, suspending judgement, hesitant about the possibility of genuine transformation, unsure about the promise of redemption.  

I was thinking of this as I was watching the recent BBC series, The Sixth Commandment. Based on a true story about the abuse of two elderly people, it is harrowing and challenging to watch, not least because the central character, someone who occupies a prominent place in the life of the local church turns out to be a murderer and a psychopath. A ready example of one of Augustine’s weeds? Perhaps, but it shows us just how problematic Augustine’s interpretation is, because the parable is suggesting that faced with the weeds, we should not attempt to do anything about it. And yet, Matthew’s community were perfectly familiar with the phenomenon of excommunication. Chapter 18 tells us as much. We cannot read this parable as a counsel of despair, refusing to grasp nettles, or turning a blind eye to things that are wrong. Matthew frequently tells us to guard and protect 'the little ones', those who are most vulnerable.

The problem for Augustine is that he thinks the story is all about the Church, for Niebuhr, that it is all about the human heart, but when you look at what Matthew actually says, you begin to realise that he has other ideas. ‘And his disciples approached Jesus, saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.’ He answered ’The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world….’, - not the Church, not the human heart, - the world. When Matthew says, ‘An enemy has done this’, he is not suggesting that we shirk responsibility, or that we manufacture fictions of our own innocence. He is telling us, that in the face of a complex, overwhelming and sometimes hostile world, there are times when we need to recognize our own creatureliness, our finitude, even our powerlessness in the face of evil, and sin, and wickedness. That is a challenging and uncomfortable place to be. But before we rush to judgement, before we despair in the face of our helplessness, we need to follow this story to the place where it ends, with the story of the cross and the resurrection. For it is in the light of the resurrection that we discover that ultimately ‘goodness is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Light is stronger than darkness. Life is stronger than death’(Desmond Tutu). That is our hope. That is why the gospel continues to be a source of strength and joy to us, as we discover again and again the ground of our hope.