Jesus used a number of images that represent the tension between good and evil. He was saying that the world is a mixture of different things, and unless we learn how to see deeply, we will not know which is which, and we won’t notice that God allows both good and bad to grow in the same field (Matthew 13:24-30).
When Jesus was asked if we should pull out the weeds, Jesus said to “let them both grow together until the harvest” (Matthew 13:30). Then, at the end of time, God will decide what is wheat and what is a weed. Jesus was saying it is none of our business to figure it out.
We are all a mixture of weeds and wheat and we always will be. We are simultaneously saints and sinners. Acknowledging both the wheat and weeds in us keeps us from thinking too highly of ourselves and from dismissing ourselves as terrible.
Accepting the weeds does not mean, “it’s okay to be ignorant and evil.” It means we have some real wisdom about ourselves, that none of us is perfect.
It takes uncommon humility to carry both the dark and the light side of things. The only true perfection available to humans is the honest acceptance of our imperfections. Only God in us can love imperfect and broken things.
Learning how to love is quite simply learning to accept our messy reality. If we love anyone, then we have learned to accept them despite their faults. We see things we would like to change in our partner, our children, our self. By the Largeness of God within us, we are able to trust that the good is deeper than the bad, and usually well hidden. This is probably why so many of Jesus’ parables are about hiddenness, seeking, and finding.
Matthew 13:28-30 “‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.’”
