2023.07.23 | Weeds In the Wheat
“Weeds In the Wheat”
The Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Senior Minister & Executive Director
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Eighth Sunday of Pentecost
Sunday, July 23, 2023
Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43
Shocking, but true--your Senior Minister placed 3rd in the Northeast Iowa Future Farmers of America (FFA) Weed ID competition in the spring of 1978. Over 100 FFA members from all over Northeast Iowa participated in that event. The competition was hosted by the Manchester Chapter of the FFA, and held on a farm just outside of the city limits, which was owned by a family whose son was a member of that chapter.
This third place finish may not be my most notable accomplishment in life, but at the time it was a very meaningful win for me. Here’s why: my classmate Jan Mumm and I, who were registered for this competition, were never meant to be attending the event, much less competing in this contest.
Girls weren’t supposed to enroll in ag classes or join FFA--at least not prior to the passage of Title 9 in 1972, in many people’s minds. And, even though the year of this Weed ID competition was 1978, it took most educational institutions more than a hot minute to implement Title 9 practices. As an example, Jan and I were the first two girls in the 100 year history of Reinbeck High School to enroll in Vocational Agriculture classes and the first two to join our local FFA chapter. Laws were passed and Educational Codes were changed in 1972, but attitudes about the inclusion of girls in so-called “boy’s activities” were slow to evolve.
The 11 boys in Voc Ag I treated us decently, but Jan and I were the talk of the town among adults that year. Some went so far as to opine that our involvement in these so-called “boys activities” were further evidence of the breakdown of traditional gender roles and the devolution of American society. (Yes, we were very powerful teenagers.)
A few people, like our PE teacher and high school English teacher, told Jan and me that they were proud of us for pursuing our interests and challenging traditional norms. But most people in our community, by contrast, expected us to fail or drop out by Christmas. Why? Because Jan and I were “weeds among the wheat.”
Nevertheless, we persisted. There we were at--two ninth grade girls--attending a regional FFA competition, and competing against other high schoolers from all over Northeast Iowa — 99.9% of whom were boys, most of whom were older than us, and most of whom were from much larger farming operations than our families ran.
Jan and I weren’t supposed to be at that competition--much less placing in the top 10, and there I was, taking third place as a freshmen. And, that news made the front page of the Reinbeck Courier, and our detractors had to live with it.
II
Weed ID. How many of you can believe you are sitting in church learning about Weed ID today? Not many.
I suppose that these kinds of competitions seem silly to urban people, but they do have a practical purpose. It’s important for farmers to know the difference between the plants they’re intending to raise and the plants that would otherwise rob them of a bountiful harvest.
Regardless of whether we have grown up in rural, urban, or suburban environments, most of us have received some training about Weed ID, metaphorically, if not literally speaking.
Think for a moment: who were the people I was taught to think of as “weeds” when I was growing up? Who was I taught to think of as “wheat”? What was I taught about who was acceptable and who was not?
How was I taught to respond to the mixing of the acceptable and unacceptable? Was I taught to pull the weeds from the wheat, or let them grow together and leave the sorting to the harvester?
In Matthew, chapter 13, verses 24-30 and 36-43, the Pharisees were clearly taught to be Weed IDers and Weed Pullers, and they taught these practices to others. They taught strict adherence to kosher laws and other priestly codes which governed social behavior and religious practices, because they believed that if the Jews strictly adhered to these laws, their nation would get right with God, and God would reward them by expelling their foreign occupiers, the Romans, and all would be well.
As a consequence of this belief, the Pharisees were the first-century equivalent of “the morality police.” They were the blue-ribbon “Weed IDers.” By golly, they knew the difference between a weed and a stalk of wheat, and they were more than happy to label the two, and pull the weeds out of the wheat fields.
There was just one problem with this practice, and Jesus knew what it was. Wheat has never been a row crop. It is not planted in rows with clear paths between them, where weeders can walk and easily pull the weeds without disturbing the wheat. To the contrary, wheat is planted in a broadcast manner, like grass seed. A planter, in biblical days, would have gathered a handful of seed, held the seeds loosely, and scattered them evenly across the ground in front and around them.
In modern times, this hand work is done using a broadcast planter attached to a wagon full of seed which performs the same task, just faster, and more consistently.
Imagine now, that you are standing at the edge of a wheat field, or on the sidewalk at the edge of a lawn. Imagine seeing weeds in the middle of this newly-planted area.
Imagine what would happen if you walked into the field and pulled out the weeds after the seeds had taken root.
Chances are that you would do more damage than good to the wheat as you crushed more and more seedlings as you moved toward the weeds, and uprooted both the weeds and the wheat, whose roots were intertwined.
III
Farmer Jesus knew the risks associated with pulling weeds from a wheat field. This is why he advised first century Weed IDers and Weed Pullers to let the wheat and the weeds grow together, and leave the separating of the two to the Harvester (namely God) at harvest time.
Jesus knew better than the Pharisees did. He knew that horrific results can come from self-righteous, self-serving weed-IDing and weed-pulling behavior, and so do we. Some notable examples from in US history that come to mind including the following:
The Massachusetts Bay Colony Witch Trials (1692-1693)
The disproportionate number of BIPOC who have been incarcerated (since 1785)
The Native American Trail of Tears (1830-1850)
The detention of asylum seekers, refugees, and economic migrants (since 1890)
The establishment & maintenance of remote Leper Colonies (since 1917)
Police raids on LGBT-owned businesses (since 1933), and
The internment of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during WWII
No doubt you can name other examples.
If we’re really honest with ourselves, we know that each of us has the capacity to point fingers--to otherize--to ID weeds and pull them out, just like the Pharisees. This is why Jesus shared the Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat, and why he invited our ancestors in the faith to give up their weed IDing and weed pulling jobs, and leave the separation of the weeds and the wheat to the Divine Harvester.
IV
The guidance that Jesus offered in the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds still holds true, whether we’re talking about how we treat people who seem or act differently from us, or we’re talking about sound agricultural practices in the first or the twenty-first centuries.
Consider, for example, a modern conservation tillage practice called “low-till farming.” Farmers who take this approach to crop farming leave the soil undisturbed in their fields between harvesting and planting. Rather than plowing under and breaking up the soil as they once did, conservation farmers plant their crops using a heavier model planter than the conventional type that most farmers use. The low-till planter “drills” seeds into the rougher soil.
Weeds are controlled with cover crops (like alfalfa or the remains of last year’s stalks) so that smaller amounts of herbicide are needed to control weeds and pests than are required with more conventional farming practices.
Other advantages of low-till farming practices include retaining higher moisture content in the soil, preventing soil erosion from water runoff, and creating a better environment for desirable insects (like earthworms) to thrive--all of which result in higher yields and preserve the long-term fertility of the farmland and viability of the family farm.
These positive results not only produce a higher yield for farmers. They are good for everyone whose food supply and wellbeing are dependent upon farmers’ stewardship of the land and other God-given resources that have been entrusted to them.
V
I’ll close today with a quote from American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, who in response to the question, “What is a Weed?” wrote: “A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”
Like Jesus, Emerson knew a few things about weeds that the Pharisees did not know. Ralph Waldo Emerson knew, like modern day organic gardener Jason Ackers, that so-called weeds offer support for other plants. Put a plant in soil with weeds and the roots intermingle. Weeds often have deep roots that run down paths where the other plant’s roots have died and rotted in the soil. They, in effect, help other plans develop their root systems and find needed water and nutrients deeper in the soil where they’ve been planted.
Legumes such as clover produce nitrogen which is a natural fertilizer that enriches the soil and that can be planted in alternating years with crops like corn that consume nitrogen from the earth.
In addition, clover (when it’s blooming) and dandelions (my mother’s nemesis) attract bumblebees, which gather pollen from their flowers and convert the pollen into honey.
Weeds can also provide camouflage that attracts insects, and keeps these “picnickers” from ravaging the primary crop in the field.
Interestingly, Jason Ackers recommends planting weeds around the perimeter of a kitchen garden for just this purpose. My Grandma Thomsen used to plant marigolds around her kitchen garden to keep the rabbits out, because apparently rabbits don’t like the smell of marigolds. But who knew that weeds could keep the bad bugs out, too?
Probably Jesus.
According to Ackers, dandelions, yarrow, nettle, and kudzu also have the capacity to heal some human ailments when harvested, prepared, and ingested in the right proportions.
So the next time you are trying to decide whether to go to the beach or weed your garden--or better yet, the next time you encounter someone who is SO SURE they know the difference between the weeds and the wheat--remember Jesus’ Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. Let the plants grow together, and leave the sorting out to God, whose grace and mercy are boundless. Amen.