Let Both Grow Together – 5/18/25

Sometime around 1605 Shakespeare wrote “The Tragedy of King Lear.” And it truly is a tragedy. It seems like anything that could go wrong did go wrong, and pretty much everybody by the end is dead. It’s great family entertainment. Yet P.B. Shelley describes King Lear as,

“The most perfect specimen of the dramatic art existing in the world.”

Wow. Why? Perhaps because of the universal themes. In King Lear. Themes like aging and hubris, betrayal, loss, fractured family, mental illness — really big things wrestled with.

Let me give you a super brief summary of the story. King Lear knows he’s getting old and decides to divide his realm among his three daughters. But in order to know which daughter gets which part of the realm, he expects them to flatter him.

The first two daughters, Goneril and Regan, lay it on thick. They fawn over their father with a false love. The third daughter, Cordelia, refuses to participate in the charade. She assumes that “love and be silent” should be her response. Her love for her father is too deep to be superficially or excessively expressed.

Well, the king is not impressed with that response, and so he disinherits her and banishes her from the kingdom. The other two daughters inherit the kingdom. Then they turn on their father, who becomes destitute, homeless, and loses his mind. I’m skipping a lot of details.

When Cordelia searches for him again, he is wearing a crown of weeds. And this twisted crown of weeds pictures a kingdom in chaos and a king who is no longer able to distinguish reality from unreality. He had failed to discern lies from truth when he chose the fawning of his deceitful daughters who end up betraying him over the genuine love of Cordelia.

Now his crown pictures his disordered and deranged heart. One of the weeds mentioned in Act IV, Scene 4 is called “darnel.” Darnel, at times, is called zizania or bearded darnel. The Latin is lolium temulentium. Temulentium is Latin for drunk, drunken or intoxicated. The reason for that is in small doses, darnel can warp vision and slur speech like being drunk. In large doses, it can be lethal.

What does that have to do with the point in Matthew 13? Not sure. Just thought it would be a good story to begin with. No, hopefully that’s not true. Let’s pray, and we’ll hopefully find out.

Father, your Word is a feast for our souls, water that quenches, meat providing spiritual energy, life, a lamp so we know where to go. Help us by your Spirit to understand. You’re the only one who can enable us to understand. We depend on you. We don’t want to be like the servants in this parable who mean well but suggest something that will actually cause more damage than harm. So open our eyes, King Jesus. Show us the way of your kingdom. We pray in Jesus’s name, amen.

Last week we began Matthew 13. And if you’re visiting, we’re journeying through the Gospel of Matthew. We began Matthew 13 with the first parable, the sower and the seed. This week we tackle the second parable, the wheat the weeds.

Let’s divide our time into three parts: the parable presented, explained, and then applied.

1. The parable presented.

I want to just simply read the parable again, let it sink in, beginning in verse 24 of Matthew 13.

“He put another parable before them.”

Pause for a second, that verb, “put before” is very interesting because several times in the gospel that “put before” is like putting a meal before someone. Homer also used the same verb to describe the serving of a meal. So in a sense, Jesus is serving us a parabolic meal. Let’s keep going.

“He put another parable before them saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven.’

Okay, pause one more time. the kingdom of heaven, that multi-dimensional reign of God through Jesus. Multidimensional reign of God through Jesus.

“…may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master. Did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servant said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No. lest in gathering the weeds, you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. And at harvest time, I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned and gather the wheat into my barn.’”

That is the parable presented.

2. The parable explained.

You have to drop down to verse 36.

“Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.’”

And then Jesus makes seven key connections to help us understand this parable. He just lays it out for us.

1. The sower is the Son of Man, verse 37.

Now, the title, “Son of Man,” is Jesus’s favorite self-designation. But it is a bit of a paradox within a parable Why? Well, to the unknowing, it will sound simply like a designation of humanity. I’m a son of man. I’m just a human, a sign of weakness. And that’s true. But also to the knowing, it sounds like a very majestic designation. Why? Look at Daniel 7:13.

“I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man. He came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”

The Sower is the Son of Man.

2. The field is the world, verse 38.

This is key. Not the church. The world. The world. The whole population of earth.

3. The good seed are the sons of the kingdom.

And sons here is not so much emphasizing gender as nature. Someone who has the nature of the kingdom. They resemble the kingdom. They are kingdom people who, as we saw last week, receive and understand the Word.

4. The weeds are the sons of the evil one. Verse 38.

“These who are children of…”

Or resemble or have the nature of Satan, who is

5. The enemy, the devil. The enemy of God. And the enemy of good.

6. The harvest is the end of the age. The consummation of all things.

7. And finally, the reapers are the angels, verse 39 who are sent out to do two kinds of gatherings.

The first gathering is a gathering of evil. Verse 41. Let’s read that,

“The Son of Man will send his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law breakers.”

Interesting description, isn’t it? Causes of sin, Greek word “scandala.” We get our word scandal from that — all people and things that trip and trap — and lawbreakers — all those who act as if there is no law. Verse 42.

“And throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

A gathering of evil.

Secondly, there is a gathering of good. Verse 43. Remember the farmer said back in verse 30,

“gather the wheat into my barn.”

Here in verse 43, he explains.

“Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”

The righteous, those who cannot earn righteousness but who are declared righteous and transformed into righteousness through Jesus.

“He who has ears, let him hear.”

The parable explained. And then finally,

3. The parable applied.

Jesus is helping us see things that we would not otherwise see. He is giving us kingdom eyes and providing a kind of what we’re going to call today, a MAP, M-A-P, three things. We’re going to learn a lot more in the other parables throughout chapter 13. But three today that help us see what is it like to live in the kingdom of God within the world. A kingdom understanding of reality embraces three things here based on this parable.

#1. Mutuality.

Mutuality, look at verse 30.

“Let both grow together.”

The wheat and the weeds  are growing  together. What does that mean? I think it at least means Christians living in the kingdom of God within the world are going to work together with., live together with, near, in the same neighborhoods as Muslims, as Hindus, as agnostics, as atheists, as non-Christians. And this is not a sign that something is wrong. But with kingdom eyes, we see this is a beautiful opportunity.

We got a glimpse of this last fall. Do you remember when the hurricane came through, and in most neighborhoods you could see gangs of people with chainsaws cutting trees, and hauling brush, and people serving neighbors meals, and checking in on one another, and helping one another. And I don’t know, maybe there were, but I don’t know of anywhere where Christians went to people and said, “Hey, are you a Christian? We want to know if we should help you get your tree off your yard.” No, we’re in this together. Obviously, as the Church, we are in this together on a different level than we are in this together with the world.

But Jesus is saying in a very general way, there is a mutuality of Christians and non-Christians. And this is so important, because you will see abuses in both directions throughout church history and even some of them flowing from a misinterpretation of parables like this. For example, you could head off into the Crusader interpretation what motivated… If I had time I could walk through the writings of some of the popes at the time of the Crusades. Many of them were motivated by a desire to rid all evil — the weeds — today, by killing. And Jesus is saying, no, no, no, no.

Another misunderstanding of this parable would be to interpret this as within the Church and assume there’s no need to have church discipline because Jesus said, just let the weeds go. Well, he’s not talking about within the church, he’s talking about it within the world.

Let me show you an example in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul’s talking about church discipline. And he says in verse 9,

“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people — not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world.”

What he’s saying there essentially is the Church doesn’t do church discipline on the world. Because the world is living like the world. But he doesn’t stop there. He goes on. Verse 11.

“But now I’m writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother. If he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler. Not even to eat was such a one for What have I to do with judging outsiders?”

Don’t just run around and try to pull the weeds out of the world.

“Is it not those inside the church for whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. ‘Purge the evil person from among you.’”

We’re dropping into a context. He’s not talking about all of us running around picking on one another. Pointing out failures. We’re going to learn, hopefully very soon when we get to Matthew 18, exactly how to lovingly do what Paul just described so the church isn’t characterized by hypocrisy or a lack of integrity. That is for another discussion. But today, he’s talking very clearly about the fact that Christians are living with neighbors in a neighborly manner — wheat, weeds — living distinctively, but not detached. In, but not of.

A kingdom understanding of reality embraces mutuality.

#2. A kingdom understanding of reality embraces ambiguity.

Ambiguity. And Jesus says this back in verse 30 again when he says, “Let them grow.” It’s just kind of like another way of saying it’s not going to be resolved right away. Put a pause on that. These workers’, these servants’ desire to fix the problem is a good desire. But the way you go about that can either do more damage than good or can allow God in his time to bring about good. What Jesus is saying here is kingdom eyes see a certain level of uncertainty. Things are not fully developed or resolved yet. There is some ambiguity.

Now let’s return to King Lear. When he determined to know the hearts of his daughters through flattery, he set himself up for insanity. He ends up wearing this crown of weeds, with the weed darnel specifically named in the play. Darnel is an imitation wheat weed with intoxication properties. It is also, in a large dose, a kind of poison. Darnel is most likely the kind of weed Jesus is referring to in the parable. It’s a kind of fake wheat. A wheat look-alike that early on is difficult to distinguish from the real thing, which is one of the reasons Jesus said, wait. Don’t try to rip it all up yet. Like King Lear’s inability to discern real love because he was blinded by arrogance, we set ourselves up for the insanity of certainty — a false certainty — if we think we can resolve everything now.

In the parable, the master’s servant suggests gathering up the weeds right away. And the master says, “No, you will end up ripping up both.” Isn’t that interesting? A lot of damage has come to both saved and unsaved when the church has ignored the words of Jesus. And this means a couple things. To let them both grow together communicates yes, a mutuality, but it also communicates for a time an ambiguity. This means we don’t flatter ourselves in thinking we know everyone’s hearts. Our Father knows.

In the second half of the 1700s, John Newton wrote a hymn you most likely have never sung on this parable. And the fourth verse says this.

“We seem alike when thus we meet,
Strangers might think we all are wheat;
But to the Lord’s all-searching eyes
Each heart appears without disguise.”

He knows. And early on, wheat and weed, darnel look similar. Now, over time, as the wheat matures. They become more and more obvious. Kind of like what Jesus taught us back in Matthew 7, “You will know them by their [what?] fruits.” More and more we will begin to see. So we’re not saying there’s total ambiguity. But Jesus is saying, calm down. You don’t know right away. This means also — and I’m going to back up and talk in a more general way. We don’t pretend to know what we don’t know. Ambiguity.

I’ve shared with you that this theme of uncertainty has been a huge part of my wife, Karen, and our journey through cancer over the last four years. The Spirit made it very clear right at the beginning, I’m calling you into a path of uncertainty. But I will be your certainty. Not a treatment plan, not the medical community, not another cure or another way. I will be your certainty. He has been that. Our Father has walked with us and giving grace to Karen through ten surgeries and countless traditional and alternative treatments.

He repeatedly takes us to passages like James 4 when we say, “Come now. We’re going to do this and this and this and this.” And James says,

“Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.”

Can we say that together?

“Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.”

We don’t. That’s ambiguity, right? We don’t know his plan. That’s true for all of us, but we do know him. We do know him. We do know his greatness. He is sovereign. He knows everything and has planned everything. And he is not only great, but he is good. He does what is best. And that shapes our prayers. We can cry out to the one who knows exactly what he’s doing, and we can ask really big requests of our Father every day for healing and provision. Because we know who he is and what he’s done for us through Jesus.

I want to go on a little diversion within the diversion and give you guys an update. Some of you have heard. This past week we met with the doctor to get the results of her latest scan. And it’s been many months since I’ve given an update. The oncologist said that all the tumors in her abdomen and in her lungs have all shrunk significantly or disappeared. Isn’t that crazy? Praise you, Jesus! He said to Karen, “You are a walking miracle.” And we know that. This. particular cancer does not do what it is currently doing. But the cancer’s not in charge. We’re not in charge. But we know the One who is. And we are so, so thankful.

The lesson, though, we’ve learned over the last four years is, can we praise him? When we’ve come out of a really bad scan? Can we praise him when we’ve come out of a really good scan? It’s a lot funner when we come out of a good scan. This idea of ambiguity. Can we find our certainty in the King of the kingdom even if we don’t have all the questions answered? Even if we’re not sure of what is going to come tomorrow? Which is true for all of us.

A kingdom understanding of reality embraces mutuality. It embraces ambiguity.

#3. It embraces patience. Patience. Verse 30 again,

“Let both grow together until the harvest.”

The harvest represents two things. Unimaginable suffering.

Look again at verse 42, expressions. Jesus uses expressions like “fiery furnace,” expressions like “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” which communicates both deep regret and intense rage. These are the words of Jesus! These are not my words. These are not the words of some religious leader. The meek and lowly One. The One who is love and kindness.

You see, when an angry, manipulative person uses words like that, you can easily write them off. You’re cruel. You’re crazy. But what about when a sovereign, kind, patient, loving person uses words like that, you would do well not to try to figure out what is that going to be like. I say unimaginable, because I literally think it’s unimaginable. And I don’t think we’re called to imagine it. I think we’re called to say, I don’t want to even think about that. I don’t want to even consider going there. I want to run to Jesus today. Like now!

Harvest for those who have not been born anew into the Kingdom, to a relationship with Jesus the King will be characterized by unimaginable suffering.

Secondly, harvest for those who have been born anew into his kingdom will be characterized by indescribable brightness. Verse 43.

“The righteous will shine like the sun. In the kingdom of their Father.”

Imagine what it’s going to be like. All the shadows of sin and sorrow, gone. Doubt, uncertainty, gone. Heart attacks, cancer, car crashes, fear, gone. Addictions, gossip, misunderstanding, loneliness, rejection, gone. Politics, gone! Religious leaders who pretend to be one thing and do another thing and cause so much damage, gone. And notice it’s an inside out transformation. “Shine like the sun.” This is not some kind of external, coercive compliance. It is an internal radiance. Where does that come from? 1 John 3:2 gives us just a glimpse.

“Beloved [loved ones] we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared;”

Got to be patient.

“but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”

The transformation begins today, slowly, incrementally, patiently but Is fully realized at harvest. So like a farmer, we wait patiently.

I’m currently reading through the Bible, and I’m in the book of Psalms right now. And I was struck by how, this week, by how much strength and courage it takes to wait. Because many of us think of waiting as you’re sitting in a dentist’s office, you know, on a couch, reading an old crinkled up People magazine. And you’re just waiting. The Bible doesn’t describe waiting that way. For example, Psalm 27:14.

“Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!”

Why does my heart need to take courage to sit on a bench and wait? Well, waiting is desire plus delay in suspense. Desire plus delay in suspense or tension. So why do we need strength and courage to do that? Because there is an enormous pressure. Just yank up the weeds! Just do something!

Abraham felt that pressure. God promised him a son. For 25 years he waited. Just sleep with Hagar and jumpstart that promise.

Saul felt that pressure. Seven days he waited, the people grumbling. Samuel was delayed. And so he offered an illicit sacrifice.

The disciples felt that pressure when they were going through Samaria, and the Samaritans wouldn’t receive Jesus right away. So they said what? “Can we call down fire and fry them?” That’s “Pull up the weeds! Let’s just get this fixed today!” Jesus, it’s like, whoa.

The Thessalonians felt a different version of this when they knew, okay, Jesus is coming. And if Jesus is coming, why would I work a job? Why would I go to school? Some of them quit their jobs. Let’s just go on a hill and sing. And Paul says, “Get a job.”

It takes strength and courage to let both grow together until the harvest.

So, in summary, a kingdom understanding of reality embraces these three things from this parable: Mutuality, Ambiguity, and Patience. It forms a kind of little MAP to help us.

Think about something you are currently facing today. And when you think about it, it might… Something that produces agitation, impatience, maybe a little frustration or discouragement. Think of something. And then ask yourself the question, how might having kingdom eyes, this MAP we just talked about, enable you to see that thing differently. I’ll give you a moment before the Lord by his Spirit to think about that, and then I’ll pray.

Thank you, Spirit, for speaking to us today. Thank you for such a feast through this parable. But we need help. We need wisdom to know how to live this out. Spirit of God, we’re asking you right now to be moving in very personal ways throughout this room, that you would show us, what does it mean in our lives today to let both grow together.

We’re asking also for help to know what it doesn’t mean. Because it does seem like through church history your people, we tend to fall off the cliff on either side. And we either try to just blend in to the world around us and compromise everything. Or we might try to be so distinct that we become isolated or arrogant, self-righteous. What does it look like to live in your kingdom within the world today? A sense of mutuality where we are really good neighbors. A sense of ambiguity where we know what we can know with confidence. But we recognize our dependence, so there is a humility about us. Help us.

And then, Father, we ask for patience. Because some of us want the right thing, but we become coercive or manipulative, angry, frustrated, impatient people. That doesn’t reflect the King. As Claire said earlier, we can’t produce that. We need your Spirit to bear your fruit as we abide in you. Thank you. Thank you. In Jesus’s name. Amen.