Extraction

Matthew 13:24-30

My dad would be happy to know that I quote him frequently. One of his daddyism is "never force mechanical things". The funny thing is this is usually my first impulse. If it doesn't work, I push harder. And not just with mechanical things--I do it with cooking: "Hmmm, this dish doesn't taste right, let me add some more garlic and oh a little more garlic". I do it with relationships, "You're upset with me. Well, let me just talk a little more to you."

Jesus warned against us our willingness to force things in the church. He does this by telling a story. He talks about how a farmer went out and sowed seed, but then the farmer's enemy came by and sowed weeds. When the crop started to sprout, the servants noticed the weeds. Their first reaction was, "Hey, lets go out there and pull out those weeds." The farmer held them back, "No, wait until the harvest." If you pull up the weeds now, you might damage the wheat."

The interesting thing about this parable is that it is not the weeds that the farmer is concerned about but the wheat. There are spiritual dangers in allowing the wheat and the weeds to grow together. In fact, the weeds could even interfere with the growth of the wheat, but the greater danger is in forcibly extracting the weeds.