The Wheat and the Weeds: Matthew 13

Transcription

1 The Wheat and the Weeds: Matthew 13 Stories are powerful tools to convey history, to teach, and to entertain. Stories carry moral lessons, persuasive arguments for a point of view and social coercion or change. We all tell many stories every day and every faith tradition has its stories. Pagan stories, Jewish stories, Hindu stories, Buddhist stories, Indigenous people stories, Muslim stories and yes, Christian stories. This summer I d like to explore some of those stories and lessons we might learn from them. We ll begin this month with stories Jesus told. Not the stories about Jesus but the stories, at least as recorded in the gospels, that Jesus told. In August I want to explore stories in the Buddhist tradition. Then in September we ll have a variety of stories. I d like to work with some of the stories Jesus told that may be less familiar or at least a different view than we might have heard before. You should be used to my tendency to go where no Unity minister has gone before. So we ll begin in chapter 13 of Matthew, verse 24. There are a number of stories or parables about sowing seeds. Here is the one I chose: He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, "Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?' He answered, "An enemy has done this.' The slaves said to him, "Then do you want us to go and gather them?' But he replied, "No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.' " Now before I begin interpreting and talking about this, we have to read a little further on. Jesus tells a couple more stories then something interesting happens down at verse 36. Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, 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 1

2 the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen! So by Jesus explanation, he tells us the stories are not literal, they are metaphorical. This is fascinating because Unity s whole approach to the Bible is to read it as a metaphysical text; as a book with deeper meanings. Now we understand that the gospels, including Matthew, were written many years after Jesus lived. So they are based on recollections and they are biased by the author and his agenda or intended audience. There are more places in the gospels in which the disciples come back to Jesus later and say, Huh? We didn t quite get that story. Putting all that aside, this is not a parable I have ever heard a Unity minister speak on. Maybe it is the devil, the furnace of fire and the gnashing of teeth. How positive thinking does that sound? So, of course, I am intrigued about what I can learn here. This is all about seeds, so what does the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary say about seeds? They are the creative idea inherent in the Word. The seed that is the word of God is the real man, not the external thinking personality that has consciousness of separation but the internal Spirit center. When Jesus begins to explain his own story he says, The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, Let s start there. Jesus is talking about himself as the Son of Man but we interpret Jesus as representing our Christ Consciousness, our true nature, the internal Spirit center from Charles Fillmores definition of seed. The good seed are those thoughts and ideas arising from our Christ consciousness or from being centered in our spiritual nature. The weeds are those thoughts and ideas that arise from the external thinking personality that has consciousness of separation. How do those weeds get in there? 2

3 The beginning verse reads while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat. Most people sleep at night, so I looked up darkness. The Revealing Word says, The ignorance of the sense man; the absence of Truth (light) in consciousness. Undeveloped capacity. I am compelled to tell you this is inconsistent with how Fillmore defines sleep in the Revealing Word but I reserve the right to bring my own understanding to interpretation and I encourage you to do the same. So we all lapse into sense consciousness, not because we are bad people but because we still have more undeveloped capacity to grow into. Now when Jesus explains this story he says the weeds sown by the enemy were sown by the devil. Fillmore says the Devil is a state of consciousness adverse to the divine good. The devils we encounter are fear, anger, jealousy and other similar negative traits, and they are in ourselves. There is no devil out there! A part of us wants to have something outside ourselves to blame for our own error thoughts. Another part of us knows it is our own thinking and disowns the parts of ourselves that fall into negativity. It is our shadow self. The part we like to hide or ignore or bury. We will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid looking at our shadow self, calling the devil the devil within us and going about bringing it into the light of compassion and love. In the definition of darkness, Fillmore says it comes from a lack of love. When we are in fear, anger and jealousy, we don t love God or ourselves. So here s what I have so far in the story: When we are centered in our Christ consciousness, we create the divine good that is our true nature. When we lapse into sense consciousness, a belief in separation and those negative traits, we create that which is adverse to our own divine good. What about the end; the time of angels and the clearing out and the burning and gnashing of teeth? Yikes! Can we just skip this part? No! It s the process so let s just go there. The disciples talk and write about the end because they thought it was pretty soon. Frankly, they hoped it was pretty soon. They were a little upset that this Messiah that they had waited for turned out to be a teacher and a wayshower but NOT a RESCUER! For me, one of the lessons Unity teaches that makes it the least popular is that there is no rescue from ourselves except by 3

4 ourselves. There are lots of paths, lots of practices and an entire Universe of energy and wisdom available, but none of it works unless we utilize it. Is the end the end of an individual s life or the end of the world? I don t think so. The end of an age, for me, is a turning point. It is the point at which I become aware of new insights that radically change how I live. Angels are messengers from God or the awakenings and new wisdom revealed and sent when we are ready for the turning point. So why can t we just sort stuff out along the way? Why do we have to wait until the end to divide the wheat from the weeds? My sense about the uprooting the wheat with the weeds is that until we reach a point of maturity, we can t discern which thoughts are contributing to which experiences. We can t always tell the weeds from the wheat as seedlings and until we have established, mature spiritual practices and see the fruit or wheat of that, we may be throwing out ideas and practices that are actually helpful. When will it be the end? When the angels and insights arrive. Jesus says, they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire. Fillmore says this of fire: It symbolizes cleansing and purification. Material Fire is the symbol; and the fire of Spirit is the reality. The whole Universe is alive with a divine, living, spiritual energy that consumes all the dross of sense and materiality. It is a fire that burns eternally. Because this is true, some have assumed that disobedient, sinful persons are to live forever in everlasting torment. But if the fire is eternal, the dross is not, and when error is consumed the burning stops. The fire consumes only when it meets anything unlike itself. In purified man it is manifested as his eternal life. I love the imagery of The whole Universe is alive with a divine, living, spiritual energy. This aliveness is what I step into when I am ready to transform my life and allow the sense consciousness, the sense of separation to be purified. I choose this! It is not what happens TO me but what happens through me when I am ready. What about the weeping and gnashing of teeth? Oh that. Let me ask you a question. When change and transformation comes, how many of us go willingly? Even when we identify changes in habits and thinking that are for our highest good, how many of us let our attachments to the old ways go 4

5 without a little weeping and gnashing of teeth? It is being human. It is becoming more of our spiritual self. One of my favorite country songs is about going through hell. And it says, When you re going through hell, keep on moving; don t slow down, walk right through it. When we are going through the purification of transformation, just keep going. It can be a time of depression, a time in rehab, a physical healing or a time of spiritual wilderness. It is a process that leads to more light in our consciousness and more of our divine good manifesting. And don t be afraid to reach out to your spiritual community for support as you walk through it. Not only is Spirit available, God expressing as each of us is available. When we talk about more light, we find ourselves in the last sentences of Jesus explanation. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Our Christ light shines so brightly it is like the sun. That is the magnificence that is our true nature. The Wheat and the Weeds was a story the disciples didn t understand right away and one we may avoid. Not everyone is at the point of having ears to hear. But this is the lesson for me: When we are centered in our Christ consciousness, we create the divine good that is our true nature. When we lapse into sense consciousness, a belief in separation and those negative traits, we create that which is adverse to our own divine good. Yet, we all reach turning points in our lives; we receive insights and revelations that will transform us. We step into the purifying energy that is alive in our Universe at all times and willingly or unwillingly, the weight of that which is unlike our true nature is released. The magnificence of our Christ light is liberated and we appear as we were created to be: the Light of the World. Jesus was a story teller, a teacher, and a model for how to practice what he taught. Yet it is only by personally accessing our own wisdom; making our own choices; that we can live the truth of the stories he told. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom. 5