CYBERCOLUMN:
Grass and weeds, wheat and tares
___By John Duncan
___I’m sitting here under the old oak tree, watching the Texas heat bake my yard to a yellow crisp. I sit here drinking Mountain Dew and relaxing, having just finished mowing the yard. I breathe the heat. I feel the dust and yearn for dry roots to drink down rain.
___I ponder the yard, but the weeds baffle my brain. Why does my yard die under the sun that dehydrates it? And why do weeds grow strong in places where grass should grow? Why, when I wish for grass to blossom in fields of green, does yellow crisp appear? And why do the weeds I detest crawl slowly across the yard, choking down the dust and shading my yard patches of an ugly green?

___ Weeds, weeds, I hate weeds
___ I hate weeds is one of my creeds.

___Jesus told me this day would come (Matthew 13:24-30). Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a man who sowed seed in his field. Jesus’ parable stated that while men were asleep, the sower’s enemy clandestinely slipped into the field and sowed tares among the wheat. Soon the wheat and the tares grew together. Weeds greeted the wheat.
___ A slave of the landowner noticed the wheat and tares in the field. He reported to his master: "Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?"
___ The landowner announced, "An enemy has done this!"
___ The slaves then asked the landowner, "Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?"
___The landowner replied: "No, do not gather the tares lest you root up the wheat also. Let both grow together until the harvest when wheat will be gathered into my barn and then the tares can be burned up."
___ Jesus told me this day would come. He knew a man would sit under an oak tree and ponder weeds in the grass; tares in the wheat.
___Jesus knew, too, that in the church weeds would grow among the wheat; unbelievers would grow among believers. And so I sit here waiting for the harvest. I keep sowing the good-news seed believing it will take root. I watch for the enemy slipping into the field at midnight. And I wonder, if you think the Texas heat is hot. …
___If all this weed and grass, tares and wheat discussion confuses you, then hear Saint Augustine. He spoke of God in his "Confessions," when he said, "You are most hidden from us and yet the most present among us, the most beautiful and yet the most strong, ever enduring and yet we cannot comprehend you."
___ Yellow crisp and weeds among the grass I cannot understand. The ways of God I do not always understand. Still, I look to the beauty of God and to his strength on this hot day.
___ Suddenly, I decide to water my yard. I realize that some things in life I cannot control, like weeds growing where grass longs to grow, like tares among wheat in the church. And, as a pastor, I determine to pour water into the souls of saints with His Word. I hear the echo of Gerard Manley Hopkins in my ear, "Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain."
___Boy, this Mountain Dew sure is good! I love Texas in the summer!

___ John Duncan is pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, and the writer of numerous articles in various journals and magazines




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