Generosity, Not Judgement

​Hi there! I'm Rev. Sam LaDue, pastor of University Lutheran Church (UniLu) in Palo Alto, a small, queer-affirming, Stanford-adjacent congregation that takes the Gospel seriously and itself not so seriously. This week we landed in the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds, and a question that turned out to have more teeth than I expected: what is the difference between working for justice and appointing ourselves God's final judge? It starts with two women working for peace in the middle of enormous conflict, and ends somewhere none of us quite gets to be comfortable.

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based on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, for Proper 11, Year A

The Rule That Started It
A couple of years ago, I heard an interview with two women, one Muslim and one Jewish, both working for peace in Israel and Palestine, amid borders that are sites of grief, memory, danger, and a whole lot of contested questions about rightness and wrongness. At one point in the conversation, they turned to justice. And one of the women said something that really stuck with me:

"We must always be working for more justice. More equity.
More goodness and peace. But never attempt to enact
​God's justice. It will always result in destruction."

Work toward goodness. But don't try to enact God's judgment. I think that isn't too far from what we received in today's parable.

The Efficient Solution Nobody Gets to Try
A field, planted with good seeds. Some enemy comes in the night and scatters weeds among the wheat. The plants begin to grow, the workers notice what's happened, and they want to do what seems like the entirely reasonable thing: fix it. Get the weeds out before they ruin the wheat. And there are layers on that impulse worth naming:

Protect what we've worked for. Make our work easier. Weeds slow everything down. Use resources only for the right plants, the deserving ones. Weeds will benefit from everything we're pouring into the wheat, and they haven't earned that.

{Smirk.}

This is logic that sounds a lot like market efficiency, doesn't it? The field owner has a different idea: let the weeds grow. Tend all of it.

Why? Because if you go ripping out weeds, you'll destroy the wheat too.

That's practically wise, yes. Protect the crop. But notice what the workers are actually being asked to do: continue tending a field where they no longer get to decide who receives the conditions for growth. They don't get to reserve nourishment only for what they've already deemed useful.

And let's be clear: this owner is not going for neutrality. "Let them grow" is not permission to abandon the vulnerable, ignore harm, or wait passively for someone else (read: God) to show up and handle it. There is still work to do in this field. The difference is between continuing to work toward good fruit and appointing ourselves the final judges of what is and isn't wheat.

Because here's the brutal part: we aren't always right about what we think we're seeing. Sometimes, we are very wrong. Sometimes, our weed is someone else's wheat.

The Plant That Looked Just Like the Other Plant Gets To Grow
Scholars believe the weeds Jesus is referring to in this parable were darnel, a plant that looks almost identical to wheat when it's young. And the challenge with darnel isn't just visual. Its roots can become entangled with whatever is growing around it. Pull one, you pull the other.

That desire to fix a problem the moment you spot it isn't unreasonable. In our modern world, we actually applaud it. Not wasting time on blame, quickly identifying paths to solutions. That's admirable. It keeps us productive. It keeps the market moving.

But this landowner says: no. Pulling up the weeds is not the way to handle this. Because you might pull up the wheat. You might destroy something that is still in the process of becoming.

You might look at a person in one moment of their life and decide that that moment tells you everything about them. You'd be wrong. The seemingly good may turn out not good at all. And the seemingly hopeless may turn out utterly beautiful.

That's what I find most remarkable about this parable. We are being told that rather than swinging down with swift judgment as fast as possible, we get to grow. We get to keep growing. We are not frozen into a singular moment or place in time.

God does not look at the worst we have done, the cruelest we have been, the moments when fear took the wheel, and declare that nothing new can ever grow here. We get to continue becoming. And in turn, we are expected to extend that same grace well beyond ourselves.

(And yes, I know. Exerting judgment all over ourselves is an excellent warm-up for doing the very same to others.)

What the Christian Church Has Done With Judgement
The Christian church has caused enormous harm every time it has ruled itself and the world with overly heavy judgment, imagining itself capable of sorting these fields. We've named some people wheat. Some people weeds.

We've tried to uproot queer folks and their bodies. So thoroughly. So violently, that now we find ourselves scrambling to say "actually, this is okay." Which is, when you sit with it, a deeply strange thing to have to say. If anything, the 180 we owe isn't "we've decided this is acceptable now." The 180 we owe is a simple, clear and plain: "We were wrong from the beginning. Very, very, very wrong."

We've tried to uproot Indigenous practices. Disabled bodies. Neurodivergent thinking patterns. A whole host of religious differences and theological disagreements. Again and again, laying down our judgments in clever costumes we call things like "justice," "communal wellbeing," "God's will." "fairness."

Claiming to defend God's field has resulted in the destruction of living wheat so many times. And so Jesus gives us a rule of thumb that echoes that interview I heard years ago: work for what is good. Protect people from harm. Tell the truth about injustice. But do not mistake your judgment for God's justice.

The Uncomfortable Question For All Of Us
​I could tie this up here. A gentle close: leave room for your neighbor's growth, even when you'd rather not count them as a neighbor. Because the field still belongs to God, and thank goodness, God is not finished growing anything just yet.

But, as scholar Amy-Jill Levine will gladly remind us, one of the hallmarks of a Jesus parable is that it's supposed to leave every single one of us a little uncomfortable. And in this case, here's one aspect of what we're being asked to sit with:

Look at how generous this field owner is. Resources are not being withheld from the weeds. Whatever their final status may turn out to be, the workers are not permitted to use their own judgment to decide who receives what's needed for growth. Both weeds and wheat will be allowed to grow. The field owner trusts that in the end, things will be sorted as necessary. As things stand now, all receive care.

That command to let the field grow is not permission to sit comfortably by while people suffer. It is, however, a reminder to pay very close attention to what it is we think we're doing, and what we might be camouflaging as we go about it.

So if that's the case:
Where are you and I prepared to uproot, or to refuse the conditions for growth, in the name of righteousness? In the name of judgment dressed up as justice? In the name of our more modern word, *fairness*?

Fairness by whose standards, when the field owner says: we all get to grow?

with joy,
Rev. Sam

These sermons come from a living community. Come find out what happens when people who are curious about God (or not sure they believe in God) show up in the same room together. Learn more about campus ministry or Sunday worship. Everyone is welcome Sunday mornings (10 am) at University Lutheran Church in Palo Alto—students, skeptics, people who haven't set foot in a church in years and aren't sure why they're reading this.  Students also gather Wednesday evenings during the academic year at 6 pm, same openness applies.