Contributing Writer
Pastor Shawn Hannon
Hope Lutheran Church, Arcade, NY
There’s a game we play with the older youth at our church called Mafia. If the title has you already a little perplexed, buckle up. It gets worse. It is a social game played in a circle. All of the players are “residents” of a town, and a couple of them are members of the “mafia.” Each round of the game consists of a night and a day. During the night, the mafia members strike and remove someone from the game. During the following day the remaining members of the town try to figure out whodunit. If the townspeople uncover the mafia, they win. If, however, the mafia kills all the townspeople first, they win.
I was thinking about that game recently in light of a parable we read at church. It was the parable of the wheat and the weeds. Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like someone who sowed good seed in his field, but, while he was sleeping, an enemy came and sowed in some weeds. When the field hands discover the weeds among the wheat they have one thought: We have to take care of this problem. They immediately think they have to get out there and start ripping out the weeds. And we should note, they want to do that because they think that would be helpful. But the householder reminds them that could have a devastating impact on the field itself and on the wheat plants they hope will continue to grow. The householder says, “We will sort it out at the harvest. For now, just let the plants grow.”
That brings me back to the game I mentioned above. The goal of the game is to identify and rip out the weeds—in this case mafia member. But the thing I did not mention about the game is that while playing it is fun, every time you play the game the town ends up absolutely in shambles. You do not know who will win each game, but one thing is clear: the town will lose.
When we hear about wheat and weeds our first thought is which am I? Our second is to start identifying everyone else. Then we take that information and think we need to weed out God’s field so that only the righteous are left—you know, like a game of ‘mafia.’
But as we already discovered, nobody really wins a game of mafia, and the householder already warned us when we attempt the same things in the field, all the plants suffer.
The lesson of the wheat and the weeds is to resist the temptation to think it is our job to weeds God’s field. Even more, it may be inviting us to stop judging one another in the first place. Jesus reminds us that is God’s job and he doesn’t need our help. Too often when we do help, even with the best intentions, we end up doing more damage than good.
Our job is to live and grow, as we leave the sorting to God.
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