You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
It is weed season in the northern hemisphere – hot, humid weather, storm-fed downpours. Everywhere we look, in our yards and gardens, on city streets, there are weeds to be pulled.
It is weed season in Jesus’ parable too – an unnamed enemy has sown weeds in the wheat field in the dead of night. The servants propose to pull them up. The field’s owner has a different plan: “The servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' But he replied, 'No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'”
I had a friend who said, “Weeds are a social designation.” Meaning, there is nothing innately wrong with many of the plants we deem weeds – except that they are not what we planted, not what we envisioned in our beautiful gardens. She may have glossed over the fact that undesired plants take nourishment and water and sunlight from plants with more fruitfulness – but she has a point. Who are we to decide what’s in and what’s out… or, more importantly, who’s in and who’s out, who’s wheat and who’s weed? Jesus’ story implies that it is not our call.
Yet, if we are to co-exist, what are we to do with people who manifest themselves as quite obviously weed-like – net takers, abusers, manipulators, terrorizers? The parable doesn’t tell us – parables are limited. In this one, the weeds and wheat are inanimate, rooted, fixed. There is no provision for their choices or for them to interact with one another. No parable was meant to tell the whole story.
So then, what is to be our position toward weeds? How might we help transform weeds – or accept them? We start by remembering that we share a common nature with all people, that even the worst possess innate humanity which is worthy of honour even if their behaviour and presentation to the world is not. Somewhere in the most disagreeable person, be they a neighbor or a world leader, is a child of a mother and father, a hurt and broken child worthy of our prayers, worthy of asking God to bless and heal and forgive. Sometimes we ask God to forgive someone before we are ready to do so for ourselves.
We can ask the Spirit to tell us if we’re being called to more interaction with a given “weed” than just praying for God to bless and heal her. Are we invited to be in relationship with him? To listen, to help?
Today, bring to mind some person or group you’ve deemed a “weed” in your garden. As you pray for them, bringing them to mind and envisioning them bathed in God-light, you might also imagine them transformed from weed to glorious bloom, from pinched of face to relaxed and smiling, from mean to nurturing. It is a way of giving specificity to our prayers.
Above all, we remember Paul’s word that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph 6:12)
The weeds are not the enemy, and the wheat is not in charge. Thanks be to God!
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Showing posts with label evil and good; Jesus; God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evil and good; Jesus; God. Show all posts
7-14-26 - The Spoiler
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Who is this enemy in Jesus’ parable, this spoiler who came by night “while everyone was asleep” and sowed weeds among the wheat? We don’t have to look very far for an answer – Jesus provides it in his “key” to the parable: “…the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil.”
Many modern Christians profess not to believe in the devil, though Episcopalians renounce him at every baptism. Such people allow for the concept of evil, but balk at the idea of evil personified, an entity we can name.
Jesus had no such hang-ups. He regularly did battle with the devil – directly, in his temptations in the wilderness; indirectly, releasing people from the power of demons; and cosmically, in his whole mission of redemption and resurrection. He referred to the devil by names such as Satan (“accuser”) and Beelzebub, and depicted him as the source of evil that seeks to thwart the good designs of God.
The devil is mentioned throughout the Bible, though little discussed. He shows up in the preamble to the Book of Job – probably a later addition to the narrative. A fallen angel who aspired to a throne above God’s is discussed in Isaiah 14:12-20: “How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!” That is how the name Lucifer, or “light-bearer,” comes into our vocabulary. Jesus and New Testament authors spoke of this enemy, this tempter, author of lies, accuser, who has considerable power but is not equal to the power of God.
So why does God allow him any power at all? Was the sower in the parable also asleep? Why does he not accept the servants' offer to root out the weeds among the wheat?
The answer given in Jesus’ story is that trying to do so would destroy both the weeds and the wheat – and God is not in the destruction game. Scripture suggests that is the province of the evil one, who seeks to “corrupt and destroy the creatures of God,” as the Episcopal Church’s baptismal liturgy puts it.
Is Jesus suggesting that we just have to live with evil as a part of life? I believe he is saying something much more complex: that the fight is not ours, but God’s, and God will deal with it in the final judgment, as well as in our day-to-day lives. We don’t have to fight the devil or combat evil. We need to invite the power of heaven to fight on our behalf, to stand with the Spirit against the wiles of the evil one. James tells us, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) Resist, not fight.
Today I suggest we pray through Ephesians 6:10-20, mentally putting on the armor of light as Paul lays it out. This is a good spiritual tool to be practiced in. Our best strategy against the devil is not fear or fighting, but becoming ever more firmly rooted in God.
Our goal is to be the healthiest wheat we can be, and to strengthen our defensive weapons and armor of light. Lucifer is not the bearer of light – we are, we who carry the Light of the World within us. When we let it shine, the power of darkness doesn’t have a chance.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Who is this enemy in Jesus’ parable, this spoiler who came by night “while everyone was asleep” and sowed weeds among the wheat? We don’t have to look very far for an answer – Jesus provides it in his “key” to the parable: “…the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil.”
Many modern Christians profess not to believe in the devil, though Episcopalians renounce him at every baptism. Such people allow for the concept of evil, but balk at the idea of evil personified, an entity we can name.
Jesus had no such hang-ups. He regularly did battle with the devil – directly, in his temptations in the wilderness; indirectly, releasing people from the power of demons; and cosmically, in his whole mission of redemption and resurrection. He referred to the devil by names such as Satan (“accuser”) and Beelzebub, and depicted him as the source of evil that seeks to thwart the good designs of God.
The devil is mentioned throughout the Bible, though little discussed. He shows up in the preamble to the Book of Job – probably a later addition to the narrative. A fallen angel who aspired to a throne above God’s is discussed in Isaiah 14:12-20: “How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!” That is how the name Lucifer, or “light-bearer,” comes into our vocabulary. Jesus and New Testament authors spoke of this enemy, this tempter, author of lies, accuser, who has considerable power but is not equal to the power of God.
So why does God allow him any power at all? Was the sower in the parable also asleep? Why does he not accept the servants' offer to root out the weeds among the wheat?
The answer given in Jesus’ story is that trying to do so would destroy both the weeds and the wheat – and God is not in the destruction game. Scripture suggests that is the province of the evil one, who seeks to “corrupt and destroy the creatures of God,” as the Episcopal Church’s baptismal liturgy puts it.
Is Jesus suggesting that we just have to live with evil as a part of life? I believe he is saying something much more complex: that the fight is not ours, but God’s, and God will deal with it in the final judgment, as well as in our day-to-day lives. We don’t have to fight the devil or combat evil. We need to invite the power of heaven to fight on our behalf, to stand with the Spirit against the wiles of the evil one. James tells us, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) Resist, not fight.
Today I suggest we pray through Ephesians 6:10-20, mentally putting on the armor of light as Paul lays it out. This is a good spiritual tool to be practiced in. Our best strategy against the devil is not fear or fighting, but becoming ever more firmly rooted in God.
Our goal is to be the healthiest wheat we can be, and to strengthen our defensive weapons and armor of light. Lucifer is not the bearer of light – we are, we who carry the Light of the World within us. When we let it shine, the power of darkness doesn’t have a chance.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
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