Getting Rid of Evil?

DAILY BYTE

It is our human tendency to want to root out evil. To live separate from it, to destroy it. Scholars writing about the Gospel of Matthew say that those writing and reading this were probably grappling with the same problem we are – how do we live as pure, faithful people of God when there is evil all around us?

Perhaps we should shut ourselves away, avoiding confronting evil. Perhaps we should ban evil things and people, or exterminate them. If we return to the parable for this week in Matthew 13, this is what the slaves wanted to do. They ask the master if they should go gather up the weeds! This seems like the logical thing to do. I spent most of my childhood weeding gardens, and if you have ever gardened or farmed, you know that if you don’t pay attention, plants get choked by weeds, and they cannot grow properly.

The specific weed that the Gospel is talking about is not just any weed – it is a weed that is known for choking off the roots of plants around it. And not only that, but if it is harvested along with the grain there is a danger that it will poison the flour. So, the slaves give the sensible response! Get rid of it. With glee we skip to the end of the parable and find that those nasty, choking weeds will justly be burned!

We use this as a gospel call, a holy war, a justification for our judgment of who should be saved and who should be damned. When we hear about ‘evil’ people, we say, now there’s someone who is beyond hope, someone who deserves a fate of burning in hell, and then we pick up the parable for today, we skim it and start rejoicing inside because it says there’s wheat, and then there are weeds. The wheat will get gathered up, and the weeds will be burned. In the end, some people will get what they deserve, and so we think we are justified in our contempt of them. Our hatred of weedy people becomes righteous.

The Gospel of Matthew interprets this parable just a few verses later, talking about those weeds being thrown into the furnace of fire with weeping and gnashing of teeth. Good gracious. Thank goodness I’m saved and not like those people because facing the fiery pits is really not what I hope for or expect when I die...

But, if we try to let the parables speak for themselves, there is an issue with the interpretation in Matthew. Because before the burning fire, the landowner allows the weeds to grow amongst the wheat. He allows the good to live with the bad, waiting for a time when the reapers would come and harvest.

The gospel parable seems to call us to something more complex than being easily satisfied that some people will be saved and some will be burned based on whether, or not, they’re evil.

How are good and evil coexisting in your life right now? How are you growing through it?

FOCUS READING

Matthew 13:26-29a (NRSV)

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...’