The Parable of The Indistinguishable Children

24¶He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field,

25but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.

26So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.

27And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’

28He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’

29But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.

30Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, "Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.""

36¶Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.”

37He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.

38The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one,

39and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.

40Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.

41The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers,

42and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

I've known this story since I was a little girl, and there was one discordant thing about it that always puzzled me. It seemed to me that Jesus got the explanation wrong! I know, that's absurd, but let me explain why I thought that, and why now I finally see he was, obviously, correct.

I always saw this as a parable that was specifically about "the church." If I had a time machine I would go back to see whether or not it was actually taught to me that way. Regardless, that's what I have always pictured when I read it. 

In my head the story was about Satan planting fake believers in the "church" (or what I thought was "the field" in the story) and God saying they should not be rooted out of the "church" until the "end," because of the possibility of accidentally uprooting some of the actual believers. 

As a result, every time I read Jesus' own interpretation of his parable, I found it jarring to see that he said the field was the world. After that jolt, however, I would just shrug and keep thinking of it as a parable about "church," without ever stopping to ponder. 

Until now. 

Let's look carefully at Jesus' interpretation.  Jesus says that he, himself, plants the true believers, his own children, those belonging to his kingdom, in the world. Then, the Devil comes after and plants his children  among them. As they grow (time passes) the Devil's children are, outwardly, virtually indistinguishable in the world from the children of Jesus.  

Jesus resists the idea of trying to remove the Devil's children before "the harvest" (or the "end of the age"), because of the potential of harming some of the true children in the process. 

The plan that Jesus has is to wait until "the end of the age", or the end of time on this old planet, and then to finally send his angels to gather up the Devil's children to be thrown into the "fiery furnace." A grim end indeed!

This is a story of Christ's kingdom specifically within the setting of the world at large. Although his people are everywhere, the world is not able to distinguish between the true and the false children. The startling thing is that this does not trouble Jesus! At least not in the sense that seems most logical, and is represented in the story by the servants who are outraged at the deception and want to immediately root it out. 

Counterintuitively, Jesus' concern was for those true children who might be harmed by the premature removal of the devil's children! What does that even mean? 

I believe it means that, along the way, some of those in the world who are on their way to belonging to the true children of Jesus are initially deceived by the devil's children. They identify themselves with them. If Jesus allowed the imposters to be uprooted too soon, there would be people caught up in that number who did not truly belong with them, and he won't allow that to happen. When the time known only to God finally arrives, all of his true children will know the truth and will be where they belong. 

This actually gives me hope and comfort. My natural fear is that the very existence of people who call themselves Christians, but who are really children of the Devil, will cause people to be confused and lost. 

The reality is that God is the one who calls and draws his own.  Salvation is not a matter left to us to discover on the strength of our own intellect. It is revealed. It is gifted. On our own, not one of us would ever figure it out. (See Romans 3:9-18, John 6:37, 39-40, 44-45, 65.)

Why do I find that fact and this parable, that is not about the "church", per se, encouraging? 

Because in this parable, there is no institution, no organization whose reputation and purity must be protected! There are simply children of the kingdom planted throughout the world who belong to Christ, and most importantly, they are basically passive. They do nothing but simply grow until the harvest!!

The only ones acting in this parable are Jesus, the Devil and, at the end, the angels.  In the end, the children of Jesus emerge unscathed, while the imposters meet their fate. The story reveals that things were always well in hand, even when they appeared to be out of control. 

In verse 43 of Matthew 13 we see that the children of Jesus are called "the righteous", not because of what they have done,  but because of what Jesus did for them, earning by his blood the right to confer that status upon them! Jesus says that his children, "will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father."

He then concludes with the admonition, "He who has ears, let him hear." As uncertain as these times may seem, we can hear and rest in the truth that, despite appearances, Jesus has all things under control.