Through the eyes of Jesus;
The Parable of the Wheat and tares
Matthew 13:24 – 30, 36 – 43
February 13, 2011

“I don’t go to church because it is full of hypocrites!” Sound familiar? People today are quick to give not only this reason but tons of others similar to this one on why they do not or will not attend church.

The second of the parables that Jesus tells us in Matthew 13 deals with this subject and gives us a basis on where this attitude comes from and He also deals with the final outcome for people that maintain this attitude.

Jesus does not come right out in this particular parable and use the word hypocrite as he does in other passages like Matthew 23:23 – 29. In those seven verses Jesus uses the word hypocrite four times. In each of these descriptors he is calling out the false imitators or actors for that is really what they are. In fact that is what the word hypocrite means,

hyp•o•crite \ˈhi-pə-ˌkrit\ noun
[Middle English ypocrite, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin hypocrita, from Greek hypokritēs actor, hypocrite, from hypokrinesthai] 13th century
1    : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2    : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

In essence a hypocrite is one who tries to imitate something while in reality is something else.

So instead of coming out and using the word hypocrite in this parable He uses another term of imitation that being in a farming community especially in the raising of grain people would understand quite well and that is “Tare”. Now the word “Tare” is not a specific plant but refers more to a family of plants known as “vetches” or “Darnel”
The family of vetches is plants that are an intertwining kind of plant such as the Crown Vetch, Hairy Vetch or Milk Vetch, while Darnel is of the rye grass family. In either case the tare is an undesirable element.
As we move into this parable we need to set the stage for this parable for in some ways this parable seems to parallel the first parable. The first parable gives us a very detailed picture of a certain field and now this parable takes a different look at the field.
In the first parable the sower can be anybody from the landowner to a hired hand as they are only described as “A sower” (Matthew 13:3) as we discussed previously, but this parable does not open with such ambiguity.

Remember that the audience has not changed from the last parable to this one. Jesus starts this parable with “The kingdom of Heaven is like;” It is this descriptor that is so important to understand as you not only read this parable but the next five, for Matthew is the only one that uses the descriptor

“The Kingdom of Heaven” is not only used to describe Jesus Christ, (see Matthew 3:2 & 4:17) but all that belongs to Him (Matthew 5:3, 10). So in verse 24 we have “The kingdom of heaven” is not only Jesus Christ, but the field.

FIELD
The question that needs to next be addressed is who or what is the field.
Unless you read this entire parable and find where Jesus answers this in verse 38 and calls the field the world, you will be like some commentators over the years that have said that the field is the church or Christendom. For it shows the imperfection that is found within the church and because of this imperfection has led to a zeal for the purification in the church. Now this is not to say that the church does not contain imperfection for it does, but the field or in the next parable “The kingdom of Heaven is not the church but the physical world in which we are living.

The good seed that is being planted in this parable is the seed of human habitation in this world, while the seed that was being planted in the first parable was the seed of hope in those people that had been planted in this world. So all people became sowers in the first parable

Unlike the first parable where there was only a single sower, Jesus introduces a second sower in this parable. The first sower is the householder and this is important to remember as we go through the rest of the parables and the second one is his enemy.

In this parable, Jesus introduces the second sower of seed as his enemy. Before we go far afield, I want to stop and discuss “while men slept”.  This terminology we cannot take to mean a lack of watchfulness on the part of the servants that will be mentioned in the upcoming verses and therefore be blamed for the acts that were done during the night.

Honest men plant fields during the daylight hours and thus when nighttime comes they sleep. What Jesus is emphasizing here is the way in which Satan will do his work. Evil is always sown secretly under the cloaking of darkness, thus to say that the workers are at fault is to place the blame where is does not belong.
Ephesian 6:12
12 For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.
We have so far discussed that the sower in this parable is Jesus Christ and that He is the owner of the field in which He is planting. Since Jesus is the owner of the field, the field in this parable is the world. The seed in this parable unlike the last one is not the seed of hope but the seed of humanity in this world of which He is the owner of. And we have also talked about the deceptive nature or way in which Satan spreads his seed.

I want to take a few minutes here looking at what Jesus calls tares.
Tares, unlike wheat have never been a marketable product. They are also not what we would necessarily call a noxious or obviously poisonous plant, in fact when a tare such as the darnel plant first sprouts it is so much like the wheat plant that you cannot tell them apart. Or if the tare is more like the vetch type of plant it becomes entangled and thus part of the plant as it grows.

What kind of tares is Jesus concerned about Satan planting in the church?
Tare of Pride.
1pride \ˈprīd\ noun
[Middle English, from Old English prȳde, from prūd proud — more at proud] before 12th century
1    : the quality or state of being proud: as
a : inordinate self-esteem : conceit
b : a reasonable or justifiable self-respect

Paul in his first letter to Timothy warns of this when it comes to church leadership.
1 Tim 2:3
6 not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.

Tare of worldly wisdom.
James 1:16 - 18
16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Tare of Procrastination
pro•cras•ti•nate \prə-ˈkras-tə-ˌnāt, prō-\ verb
-nat•ed; -nat•ing [Latin procrastinatus, past participle of procrastinare, from pro- forward + crastinus of tomorrow, from cras tomorrow] verb transitive 1588 : to put off intentionally and habitually verb intransitive : to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done synonym see delay — pro•cras•ti•na•tion \-ˌkras-tə-ˈnā-shən\ noun — pro•cras•ti•na•tor \-ˈkras-tə-ˌnā-tər\ noun

James 1:8, 12
8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
This here is just three of the many tares that are out there. On the surface when these things first start to sprout in an individual can seem harmless at first. I mean take Pride, there is nothing wrong with being proud of what you have been able to accomplish until pride turns into arrogance. Worldly wisdom when a person first gains some there is nothing wrong with that either, look at Solomon, the wisest man of the world, at first it was of great benefit, but it became a great sin problem later on. Then there is procrastination. We are all told to weigh the evidences before making a final judgment, but we can’t just keep putting the decision off.
Luke 14:25 - 34
The Cost of Being a Disciple
25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus. He turned to them and said, 26 “If people come to me and are not ready to abandon their fathers, mothers, wives, children, brothers, and sisters, as well as their own lives, they cannot be my disciples. 27 So those who do not carry their crosses and follow me cannot be my disciples.
28 “Suppose you want to build a tower. You would first sit down and figure out what it costs. Then you would see if you have enough money to finish it. 29 Otherwise, if you lay a foundation and can’t finish the building, everyone who watches will make fun of you. 30 They’ll say, ‘This person started to build but couldn’t finish the job.’
31 “Or suppose a king is going to war against another king. He would first sit down and think things through. Can he and his 10,000 soldiers fight against a king with 20,000 soldiers? 32 If he can’t, he’ll send ambassadors to ask for terms of peace while the other king is still far away. 33 In the same way, none of you can be my disciples unless you give up everything.
34 “Salt is good. But if salt loses its taste, how will you restore its flavor? 35 It’s not any good for the ground or for the manure pile. People throw it away. “Let the person who has ears listen!”

What should we do with the tares?
This is exactly the question that the servants have in verse 28 of this the parable that Jesus told. “Do you want us to go and gather them up?
In Jesus’s response you can almost anticipate that He knew they had already forgotten what he had mentioned earlier in.
Matthew 7:3 – 5
          “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. 3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Jesus’ response to the question kind of takes us by surprise, when He says to let them be. As much as we would like to see the church perfect that would in effect diminish the effect of the church.

For it is only in and by the workings of Christ in and through His church that miracles can take place. In the normal realm of things, a tare will always be a tare, meaning a vetch or a darnel will always be a vetch or a darnel in a normal field, but the church is not supposed to be like a normal field.

For those that are proclaiming to be a Christian, none of us are the perfect wheat kernel that we will one day be, we are all in that transformation stage from a useless tare to something more.

That is why Jesus says in Matthew 13: 41
41 The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness
We are not the reapers, but the angels. It is not our responsibility to be the judge and jury. As a kernel of wheat it is simply our responsibility to love those we come in contact with and God will take care of the rest.

Why is this so important to understand?
Matthew 13:42
42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Those that do the separating are the ones that will do the casting of the condemned into the fire for a final and permanent separation. How many of you here today could do that to one you have grown up with and become close to. I know that I do not want to have to be responsible for that and I am sure that you don’t either.

Let us not get ahead of the harvest schedule, but I also challenge those that are not in the transformation stage to not put off until tomorrow.