Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. Honestly? I kinda hate this parable. So we'll see what we can do.All of us have this sense of justice in our bones; we know right and wrong, and when something's wrong, we want to rush to make it right. We want the bad guys to get what they deserve and we want the good guys to win.So when Jesus tells this parable, it feels pretty unsettling. The weeds grow with the wheat. The servants say, "Should we pull the weeds?!" And Jesus says, "No, let them grow together." AHHHHHHH! That sucks.We realize that this is a story about humanity. Goodness and evil are all tangled up together. Why doesn't God just fix it? Then we ask the deeper question, if we're honest enough and mature enough. Why doesn't God fix us? The field isn't just out there, it's also in us. We're a mixture of love and fear. Generosity and greed. Etc, etc...maybe the place for us to start is by tending our own interior field."Should we pull the weeds?" Yeah, that resonates with me; it mirrors my own heart, and maybe it mirrors yours, too. I can get all worked up about the weeds. Sometimes my own weeds, but more often than not, it's the weeds in other peoples' lives. "Jesus, trust me, I know good and evil, let me pull the weeds." Jesus says, "No. Wait." I hate that he says this. He's insisting on humility and patience and restraint when it comes to patrolling the borders of the field that ultimately belongs to him. The point isn't that Jesus will go easy on the weeds. Apparently, there will be a separation and burning and plenty of weeping and gnashing of teeth; how that works out? Yeah, we have no clue.I think Jesus is trying to tell us that we can't police the field without damaging some wheat. So the question this brings us to is this: where do we want to spend our energy? Burning things down, or growing healthy and strong? Maybe the challenge is to grow healthy and strong, which is hard enough. Maybe it's to become less interested in labeling people and more interested in loving them. Maybe it's to become less interested in deciding who is worthy and more interested in making room for grace.Speaker: Aaron VisScripture: Matthew https://www.bible.com/events/49642325