Advent is a season of waiting, and the parable of the wheat and the weeds (Tares) speaks directly into that waiting.
Jesus tells of a field where wheat and weeds are growing alongside each other.
The servants want to pull the weeds out straight away, but the farmer says no — wait until the harvest, when the separation can be made without harming the wheat.
Later, Jesus explains the symbolic meaning of the parable’s different components:
- The field represents the world today;
- The good seeds are the people of the new kingdom;
- The weeds are the people shaped by destructive forces;
- The adversary is the deceiver;
- The harvest is the end of the age;
- and, the harvesters are God’s angels.
This might sound quite stark, but it is also deeply hopeful, and it reminds us that life is tangled.
Because God allows light and shadow to grow side by side, but we often long for Him to act quickly, to clear away what is harmful.
Yet Advent teaches us patience.
God’s delay is not neglect but mercy, giving time for His kingdom to grow, for repentance to happen, and for hope to take root.
Advent looks back to Christ’s first coming into this world in humility, and forward to His return in glory.
The harvest is the new age that Christ will bring about when He returns — is an age in which angels gather, and the righteous shine like the sun.
Until then, we live in the tension of the field, between the old age that is passing and the new age that is to come.
Our calling is to nurture the wheat and trust God with the weeds.
Reflection
The moral lesson to take away from this parable is that God does have a plan for this world and He is working to accomplish it.
However, it is unfolding over time, His time.
This means we need to develop patience, a difficult thing for many of us.
God, of course, could bring the new age in today, but He desires that all have the opportunity to turn to Him.
I recently heard someone on the radio, in a conversation about philosophy, say: “We are all wounded animals.”
This struck me, as I reflected on how the times we live in are not perfect, and neither are we – none of us is perfect.
We are indeed all wounded, to varying degrees, wounded by the destructive forces of the world.
Yet Christ’s good grace and teachings will heal our wounds.
As we gradually work on developing patience and acceptance.
