I guess I have a little different “take” on this whole thing.
We are ALL a combination of weeds and wheat. Each of us had great good in us, along with seeds of evil planted by the evil one. It is that combination that makes us who we are, though of course we always hopefully try our best to nurture the wheat without nurturing the weeds.
The problem comes when outside “workers” decide to try to uproot the weeds of others. This is very much related to the idea of trying to remove the splinter from someone else’s eye without first removing the plank from our own. In trying to uproot another’s “weeds” we fail, in part because we don’t know how those weeds are connected to another’s wheat, and in part because we don’t know how God is using one’s weeds in their transformation.
Scott Hahn tells us that God’s “punishment” for our sins is to let us wallow in them until we cry out in pain that we’ve had enough. As such, it is as much our “weeds” as our wheat that brings us to God. It is finding our own weakness and sinfulness that brings us to the realization that we are unable to “do it” on our own and that we are totally at the mercy of God.
When another tries to uproot our weeds, they are likely to just put us on the defensive. Or they may get us to repress that shadow side of us, which is always a recipe for having it reappear and do great damage at some later time.
The other negative to this is that often it is our weeds that bring us to our greatest wheat. It was the consequences of my own great self-centeredness that brought me to compassion for those in true need. And perhaps even more, a compassion for the plight of others trapped in that sin of selfishness. Had someone uprooted that weed too early though, the learning process would not have been completed and my own conversion–which is ongoing–would have been stunted. It was a sin I needed to stew in for some time until it was ready to digest.
Yes, the truly evil ones will be separated at the final judgment. But to me the real meaning of the parable is that our own sinful tendencies are the weeds that will be separated out and burned away by the fire of God’s love when our time comes.
While we should certainly do our best to not give in to those sinful tendencies, we need to depend on God to provide the help. Similarly we need to help others to do the same rather than having the presumption to believe that we can discern the difference between the wheat and weeds in someone else.
As St. Augustine said (paraphrased), “love God and do as you please.” For when we love God we will trust and depend on Him to work in us, turning us to sheep rather than goats. When we truly love God we will become more like Him, and our actions will come to reflect that. We will still fail, but eventually even the weeds will bring us to greater good as we recognize them for what they are. Because of this, the great good is to work hard to help bring others to a love of God rather than thinking we can stamp out their sin.
Only God can do that.
Peace,
