Can weeds turn to wheat or goats to sheep?

[bpbasilphx]

Only Jesus knows which is which. That’s why Matthew 7:1 says, “Judge not…”

 

[Pier]

This past weekend we were told during the homily, that we should:

a) Concentrate on weeding the weeds (sins) from our own lives.

b) We are to pray for everyone, without judgemental gossip or purposefully making anyone else’s life miserable. And of course people can change! That’s what hope is all about.

c) Jesus will sort it out in the end.

 

[Dtmccameron]

Lolium temulentum, according to Wikipedia (very accurate resource, I know )

“It usually grows in the same production zones as wheat and is considered a weed. The similarity between these two plants is so extensive that in some regions cockle is referred to as “false wheat.” It bears a close resemblance to wheat until the ear appears. The ears on the real wheat are so heavy that it makes the entire plant droop downward, but the “false wheat”, whose ears are light, stands up straight.”

Now, the workers clearly knew there were weeds amongst the wheat (Despite the fact that the two are similar. Hey, they’re plants aren’t they? But let’s not discount the experience of these long suffering farmers), but for the sake of the wheat, they were not uprooted. One could imagine that some of the wheat might be choked to death by the weeds, and would have perished one way or the other, I don’t know.

But I see in this a similarity to Abraham’s pleading with God for the two cities.

“For the sake of ten I will not destroy the cities.”?

Further, I thought this bit was a little neat,

“The ears on the real wheat are so heavy that it makes the entire plant droop downward, but the “false wheat”, whose ears are light, stands up straight.”

Might one picture that the faithful bow before their master in humility, yet the prideful stand tall and puffed up? Unrepentant, refusing to aknowledge their sins?

So, I really don’t think the parable had anything at all to do with discerning right from wrong, and evil from good. I think it had much more to do with God’s mercy and patience. Woe to the weeds when the time for harvest is come, then I say, for,

“in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.”

Now I might just be a tad bit rural, but the analogy for God’s kingdom (What was said? A home with many rooms?) to a barn works very well for me:shrug:

 

[Beautiful]

I guess I have a little different “take” on this whole thing.

We are ALL a combination of weeds and wheat. .

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.

Nice reply ncjohn.
May I add that it hurts right smack dab in the middle of the heart when someone mistakes my wheat for weeds - and then tugs away! Ouch.
Simply - we aren’t made to make the final assessment on who is wheat and weeds. Only God is able to make the final judgement.

 

[ncjohn]

Nice reply ncjohn.
May I add that it hurts right smack dab in the middle of the heart when someone mistakes my wheat for weeds - and then tugs away! Ouch.
Simply - we aren’t made to make the final assessment on who is wheat and weeds. Only God is able to make the final judgement.

I agree Beautiful. It is another thing I see often around here; those who are rebuked and condemned because some “righteous” person doesn’t feel that the state of the person’s journey measures up. It is times like those I take great comfort in this passage from Chapter 34 in Ezekiel:

7 Therefore, shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:
8 As I live, says the Lord GOD, because my sheep have been given over to pillage, and because my sheep have become food for every wild beast, for lack of a shepherd; because my shepherds did not look after my sheep, but pastured themselves and did not pasture my sheep;
9 because of this, shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:
10 Thus says the Lord GOD: I swear I am coming against these shepherds. I will claim my sheep from them and put a stop to their shepherding my sheep so that they may no longer pasture themselves. I will save my sheep, that they may no longer be food for their mouths.
11 For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will look after and tend my sheep.
12 As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark.
13 I will lead them out from among the peoples and gather them from the foreign lands; I will bring them back to their own country and pasture them upon the mountains of Israel (in the land’s ravines and all its inhabited places).
14 In good pastures will I pasture them, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing ground. There they shall lie down on good grazing ground, and in rich pastures shall they be pastured on the mountains of Israel.
15 I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest, says the Lord GOD.
16 The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal (but the sleek and the strong I will destroy), shepherding them rightly.
17 As for you, my sheep, says the Lord GOD, I will judge between one sheep and another, between rams and goats.
18 Was it not enough for you to graze on the best pasture, that you had to trample the rest of your pastures with your feet? Was it not enough for you to drink the clearest water, that you had to foul the remainder with your feet?
19 Thus my sheep had to graze on what your feet had trampled and drink what your feet had fouled.
20 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Now will I judge between the fat and the lean sheep.
21 Because you push with side and shoulder, and butt all the weak sheep with your horns until you have driven them out,
22 I will save my sheep so that they may no longer be despoiled, and I will judge between one sheep and another.

“Because you push with side and shoulder, and butt all the weak sheep with your horns until you have driven them out…”

It’s hard to imagine how many have been driven from the Church, and maybe even from God, by those whose judgments destroyed hope in them and perverted the name and image of God. I suffered that myself for many years until coming across a group who truly modeled the love of God and loving brought me to a “safe” pasture.

It truly is sad that so many self-appointed harvesters ignore God’s request to let HIM do the weeding.

 

[distracted]

Only Jesus knows which is which. That’s why Matthew 7:1 says, “Judge not…”

yeah but… “By their fruits you will know them…”

 

[ncjohn]

yeah but… “By their fruits you will know them…”

Are all of your fruits good, distracted? Are all of them bad?

All of us are a mixture of good and evil, and the evil we do does not necessarily make us an evil person.

To think that we can judge someone an evil person by observing specific fruits is to indulge in a dangerous game, since we can then in no way not expect others to do the same with us.

I know I produce many fruits that are less than perfect, and have had stages in my life when my fruits were primarily rotted. Through meeting people who had experienced the mercy of God and were able to show such mercy to me, however, I was able to start a journey of conversion that continues to this day.

In the end, we’re all on a journey and none of us has arrived yet, and while we’re on that journey we always have the possibility of coming across the love letter from God that will change our direction. So yes, weeds do turn to wheat and goats to sheep; I am a living example of that. But sometimes that doesn’t happen, simply because the “righteous” condemn the “goat” and create a self-fulfilling prophecy. I was also in that boat for far too long, giving up hope because some managed to convince me I was hopeless.

Jesus basically laid out the answer to “by their fruits you shall know them.” “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” I think we’d all be better off to err on the side of mercy in following his example.

Peace,

 

[distracted]

I know I produce many fruits that are less than perfect, and have had stages in my life when my fruits were primarily rotted. Through meeting people who had experienced the mercy of God and were able to show such mercy to me, however, I was able to start a journey of conversion that continues to this day.

,

this is not the way i feel the passage should be interpreted. It says that a good tree will not produce bad fruit and vice versa… did i ever say that i am perfect?

A bad “fruit” would tend to indicate something sinful and malevolent… not just mistakes… & imperfections…

 

[ncjohn]

this is not the way i feel the passage should be interpreted. It says that a good tree will not produce bad fruit and vice versa… did i ever say that i am perfect?

A bad “fruit” would tend to indicate something sinful and malevolent… not just mistakes… & imperfections…

I can tell you that this particular “good tree” produced some pretty bad fruit, under most anyone’s definition. There are no perfect people and the best of people are capable of incredible evil. I’m not addressing just mistakes and imperfections either.

Take for example the priests involved in the abuse crisis. Do you think they were all “evil”? Or were they flawed human beings, good in many ways, who did some unspeakable things? Are they incapable of repenting for what they did?

As to whether you ever said you were perfect, I’m not sure what I might have said that prompted that question. I asked you the rhetorical questions only to point out that all of us produce bad fruit at times, myself definitely included, no matter how good our intentions.

And each time we do we can call out to God “If you wish, you can make me clean.” And He’ll answer “I wish it; be made clean.”

peace,

Peace,

 

[brigid12]

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,

The timing of your post is amazing since just 10 minutes ago I’d insighted where mortal sin(s) that He’d allowed me to do a number of years ago ended up not only developing a strong love for the Sacraments (confession and the Eucharist esp.) in me, but bringing me into the Church/converting.

Yes John, I love those children’s books or movies where the adults get as much from them as the children and see the Gospels as being like that, such that a person, as they age and mature, see ever new things in Scripture (like peeling an onion). I think that’s one of the reasons I like reading them so much, even tho’ I’ve read much of it countless times. Actually, that’s probably also the reason that the Gospel of John is my favorite in many ways since it is so conducive to doing that.

I also want to express my appreciation for your post Dave. You were able to be so succinct in your comment about His limitlessness and tying that in to the weeds and wheat parable.

 

[ncjohn]

The timing of your post is amazing since just 10 minutes ago I’d insighted where mortal sin(s) that He’d allowed me to do a number of years ago ended up not only developing a strong love for the Sacraments (confession and the Eucharist esp.) in me, but bringing me into the Church/converting.

I’m often amazed brigid at how God uses things to touch people in ways I would never expect. Sometimes I write things with a feeling that I’m supposed to be “delivering a letter” to someone from God. And at times that does seem to be the case. Other times though I just feel called and try to turn my keyboard over to whatever He is wanting me to write, without having much of any feeling about what it is supposed to accomplish. On those occasions I often sit in amazement at the gift He was sending to someone I never would have thought of.

And seeing that is a great gift to me, often at times when I needed that very encouragement and affirmation.

Peace be with you brigid!

 

[Beautiful]

St. Padre Pio has a word about the weeds and wheat -

“Have you observed a field of wheat at the time of harvest? Some ears stand up above others that are bent. If you take the former in your hand, you will find that they are empty; the others, the humbler ones, are full of ripe grain. From this you will learn that vanity means emptiness.”

-St. Padre Pio

 

[marymol]

’ Lead All souls to heaven , esp. those most in need of Thy mercy ’ is the Fatima prayer …

’ Have mercy on us and the whole world ’ - may be the timeless prayer of The Church , now most often heard in the Divine Mercy chaplet …

While we cannot be either presumptuous or despairing and have to work out salvation with fear and trembling, what comes to mind is also the incident with the Gerasene demoniac… …once the legion left him , he was a wheat !

Similarly , we often read about ’ personality disorders’ …multiple personality and so on …many might have a root in unresolved anger / forgiveness areas …

Could these be the real ‘children’ that were planted by the enemy in the ’ world ’ of one’s life / soul …when the person and those who were to take care of him were 'asleep ’ ( and interesting how St.Paul talks about not letting the sun set on our anger and giving the devil a foothold !)

And too , we have been told of the graces from true repentance … ( as already mentioned by by posters )

almost as at the moment of reckoning by the ‘slaves’ , about the troublesome presence of the weeds …asking for guidance …accepting same in faith …may be even more vigilance and care for the wheat …The Mother and all the rest of the household , angels and saints , watching all this hard work , helping out with a smile …

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us !

 

[peary]

i am wondering if one should strictly interpret these passages
about the wheat and the weeds (today’s readings [Sunday, July 20, 2008]) or what? Are the weeds those who have made their “eternal” or virtually eternal … decision against Christ… or are they just those who… with a little help, might convert or what?

(I acknowledge that even the Church may not have a definite answer on this… as She doesn’t claim to have an absolute interpretation on every single scirpture…)

They all exist side by side and will be thrashed and separated at the end.

 

[distracted]

I can tell you that this particular “good tree” produced some pretty bad fruit, under most anyone’s definition. There are no perfect people and the best of people are capable of incredible evil. I’m not addressing just mistakes and imperfections either.

Take for example the priests involved in the abuse crisis. Do you think they were all “evil”? Or were they flawed human beings, good in many ways, who did some unspeakable things? Are they incapable of repenting for what they did?

As to whether you ever said you were perfect, I’m not sure what I might have said that prompted that question. I asked you the rhetorical questions only to point out that all of us produce bad fruit at times, myself definitely included, no matter how good our intentions.

And each time we do we can call out to God “If you wish, you can make me clean.” And He’ll answer “I wish it; be made clean.”

peace,

Peace,

i don’t see what this has to do with the meanin of that passage about good and bad fruit…

some people follow good… some follow the devil… I don’t buy it that a good priest molests a child just because he… well, What?? had a bad day?? Give me a freaking break.

 

[distracted]

’ incident with the Gerasene demoniac… …once the legion left him , he was a wheat !

you could be right… but i feel that a weed is someone who continuously and whole-heartedly rejects truth and goodness (Jesus)… Otherwise, why would Jesus imply that they wouldn’t change?? I mean… he says to leave them growing together… True, he doesn’t say one way or the other whether they change or could change… or not… I don’t know… i am just trying to understand…

 

[marymol]

’ Lead All souls to heaven , esp. those most in need of Thy mercy ’ is the Fatima prayer …

’ Have mercy on us and the whole world ’ - may be the timeless prayer of The Church , now most often heard in the Divine Mercy chaplet …

QUOTE]

While concern for the presence of weeds in ourselves or others can help to free us from lukewarmness , our Lord’s words asking us not to judge ( as to who might be all weed ) - should they not also free us and keep hope in us - to keep at the above prayers and all else , to produce good wheat in our own and hopefully in other lives too !

Peace !

 

[ncjohn]

i don’t see what this has to do with the meanin of that passage about good and bad fruit…

some people follow good… some follow the devil… I don’t buy it that a good priest molests a child just because he… well, What?? had a bad day?? Give me a freaking break.

I’m sorry…I thought this was a discussion thread about your question. I wasn’t aware it was limited to agreeing with a set point of view.

I’ll depart so as to not sow discord or provoke any thought on the subject.

 

[InLight247]

i don’t see what this has to do with the meanin of that passage about good and bad fruit…

some people follow good… some follow the devil… I don’t buy it that a good priest molests a child just because he… well, What?? had a bad day?? Give me a freaking break.

I think ncjohn was saying that no matter how rotten that priest is, there is still some goodness in him, even his behavior is outrageous, he still could repent and turn himself from a goat to a sheep.

With God’s abundant grace, all is possible. No?

 

[ncjohn]

I think ncjohn was saying that no matter how rotten that priest is, there is still some goodness in him, even his behavior is outrageous, he still could repent and turn himself from a goat to a sheep.

With God’s abundant grace, all is possible. No?

Yes, InLight, that pretty well sums it up.

Regardless though, I want to apologize to distracted for getting a little “snippy” in my previous post. That was uncalled for on my part.

Peace,