Truth XI: Principles of Seed

Don: The first principle of seed derives directly from a passage in Genesis 1, which I will take from the KJV because it contains a critical piece of information concerning seed as it is seen throughout the scriptures.

Indeed, scripture is replete with the metaphor of seed as the Word of god, the Truth of god; both in a natural form as in the parables of Matthew 13, but also in spiritual form. Paul, especially in the Epistles, uses seed as a very rich concept concerning our spiritual nature, our being in Christ and Christ being in us and so on.

But the first use of seed as a metaphor is in Genesis 1:11:

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

The notion of “seed within itself” is a key aspect we need to examine in order to understand what Jesus was trying to teach. We have noted that each seed propagates only its own kind, its own species. An apple seed never produces an orange. And we have noted that ultimately seed begets more seed. Under optimal circumstances, given good soil as referenced in the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13, more seed will be harvested than was sown. For seeds to grow, they must be transformed (Matthew 4). Jesus said the seed needs to die; not in its totality, not in its potential, but it needs to die as a seed if it is to progress and be transformed. Transformation is made possible through soil, water, heat, and light.

We have examined these metaphorical principles of seed from the perspective of the soil, the recipient of the seed—of god’s word. The next parable in Matthew 13:24-30—the Wheat and the Tares—looks at seed from a different perspective:

Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. [The parable now introduces a new concept about seed: The concept that seed can be bad as well as good. In the parable of the sower, all the seed was good seed.] But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. [Something happens in this field, which we can assume is like the field described in the parable of the sower: It is a good field, where seed will tend to grow. But there is some lack of attention that allowed the field to become contaminated with bad seed.] But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. [The bad tares can be taken to mean weed such as Darnell weed that looks very similar to and is easily mistaken for wheat, at least until harvest time, when the distinction becomes clear as it is consumed along with the real wheat.] The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ [The passage does not say so explicitly, but it is presumed that the slaves who told the master about the contamination are the same ones who had slept during the contamination. They feel a sense of responsibility for their negligence.] And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ [The master immediately recognizes that the contamination came from outside, not from within his own fiefdom.] The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ [Here, the slaves who felt responsible for allowing the contamination seek to rectify their mistake and restore the field to its former state.] But he said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

A little later in Matthew (13:36-43), Jesus explains the parable as follows:

Then He left the crowds and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.” [Notice that although they had been granted the ability to know, they still needed Jesus to explain it to them.] And He said, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

The enterprise of separating the tares from the wheat, the discrimination between the good and the evil, is not left to mortals. It is a divine enterprise.

The metaphor of seed stretches all the way from Genesis to Revelation, where the Tree of Life straddles the River of Life and produces fruit in its season; fruit which of course contains the seed of the Tree of Life.

What is Jesus trying to tell us in this parable?

David: It seems the moral is that we mortals cannot tell good from evil. The parable farmer’s mortal helpers thought that to not weed out the tares would damage the crop of wheat. But since we ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, we do—like god—know good and evil and presumably therefore are able to distinguish between them. So here’s another biblical inconsistency: One part (Genesis) says (or seems to) that we can tell good from evil; while another part (the parable of the wheat and tares) says (or seems to) that we can’t. It is confusing.

Pastor Ariel: The slaves, the reapers, are angels. A tension in our faith community is that we sometimes ask why there is strife, contention, and division. Among Jesus’ own disciples, there was a “tare,” but nobody could tell until it sprouted and revealed its true nature. Jesus is presenting the reality that what IS is a mix of genuine people who walk with the Lord, and false people who only pretend to be part of god’s kingdom.

Kiran: We are used to thinking that evil is redeemable. Yet this blessing is not extended to the tares. It seems they were, are, and always will be evil. On the other hand, the wheat—which was planted by god, remember—was, is, and always will be good. On a mortal farm, weeds choke wheat; but on god’s farm, it seems they don’t.

So, according to god, it is not a good idea for us to try to root out the evil people from this world, because we are likely to hurt good people as well. If we leave things alone, good people will be good people, and bad people will be bad people. Wheat will be wheat, and tares will be tares.

Chris: Verse 26 says that the tares were only identifiable upon maturation. So maybe, while we can judge between good and evil, our human nature tends to judge too soon. God does not rush to judgment. He waits. Ultimately, he knows. I don’t know if I or anyone else will be good 30 years from now, but god knows.

It seems though, that we are predestined to be good or evil. This is a perplexing thought.

Pastor Ariel: The parables are not designed to teach the entire spectrum of salvation; just parts of it. Matthew 12:33-37:

Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

So yes, there is no transformation of tares into wheat or vice versa. But in another parable, Jesus talks about making a tree good or bad. Maybe this is not so much a matter of transformation, but of perspective: Jesus is giving us the perspective of heaven, which encourages us to let god be be the judge, and to allow time to take its course. Ultimately, we may be surprised to learn who is good and who is evil.

Jay: We need to be careful in making this a parable about the goodness or not of people. I think it is about the very concepts of “goodness” and “evil.” Goodness is goodness. Evil is evil. Period. We were given access to god’s knowledge of good and evil at the Fall, but we are not good at understanding and using it.

God did not want us to be able to access the knowledge. He wanted us, rather, to surrender our will to him, in which case we would not have to worry about distinguishing good from evil. We chose not to surrender to his will; we chose knowledge of good and evil instead, but we can’t handle it. We do not have god’s perspective, his omniscience, his omnipresence. Without such divine attributes, we are bound to make errors of judgment. Sometime judgment is clear and immutable, as in cases of murder, rape, and so on. But some things change with the passage of time. Some minor goods and evils might mutate over time, but when we delve into the gray area between good and evil we are lost and we stumble.

I think that is what this parable is about. There is good and there is evil. But it is a divine task to distinguish between them. If we meddle, it will be to the detriment of good.

Pastor Ariel: In the parable, god restrains the angels from weeding until the very end, because even they have limitations: They cannot see the motives and intents inside people’s hearts; they can only observe people’s behavior. Angels are not fallen beings, therefore they did not acquire the knowledge of good and evil that Adam and Eve acquired by eating the forbidden fruit. The moment god told them that the Tree of Knowledge would bring death to them if they ate its fruit, he not only made them not only aware of the existence of good and evil, but also made them aware of the distinction between good and evil, but after eating the fruit “Adam knew his wife and she conceived.” The angels, lacking this experiential knowledge, must wait to see the outcome of the harvest—the seed—before they can distinguish between the good seed of the wheat and the bad seed of the tares.

Chuck: The lack of vigilance, of mindfulness, of awareness in the parable’s farm laborers is reflected back in Genesis: It opened a window for the enemy to divert man’s attention away from his total dependence on god, and away from the total peace, harmony and absence of needs and wants man experienced in heaven.

A focus diverted, through a lapse in vigilance, away from the spirit and towards the flesh instead, opens the window for the bad seed to be planted.

The parable’s bigger theme is that god’s ways are not our ways. Our way is to focus on finding and rooting out tares, and maybe even converting them somehow into wheat. But Genesis teaches us that we need to focus on ourselves in order to maintain self-vigilance; we need to remain focused on god, to trust him and surrender to his will. This way leaves no room for the devil, no room for earthly desires to creep in.

Like all scriptural similes, the parable of the wheat and the tares helps make the truth about god accessible at some level to humans by putting the truth in a form we can understand and provoking contemplation and discovery. Parables help us in our spiritual journey by pointing us back toward our dependence upon, trust in, and openness to god.

When we reflect that god created us in “his image and likeness” we always think of a physical image and likeness. I wonder if the meaning of that piece of scripture is really that he created us in his spiritual image and likeness. By focusing on maintaining our spiritual image and likeness to god, then we will always be headed in the right direction—that is, toward god—in our individual spiritual journeys.

Robin: The parable starts by talking about the kingdom of heaven. So that implies the farmer is a king. The king tells his workers that they have to wait until the End Time to harvest. The parable talks about slaves. Slaves are different from servants. Slaves have no choice but to work, whereas servants have a choice. So in this parable, the slaves might be humans, and the servants are angels.

Chris: Perhaps this could be read like a history lesson. When the seed was sown it was good, just as at the beginning of Creation. But it turned bad, and people wanted to rectify it. But god said to wait. What happened to this field is just what is happening to the whole history of the kingdom, of the universe.

Sylvester: I see myself as a hybrid crop, with some good and some bad in me. And I see the farming process as dynamic, not static. The crop has a role; it has to wage a constant battle to stay alive.

Pastor Ariel: The prior parable deals with good seed falling among the weeds and thorns and stony ground. So indeed it does have to struggle.

Kiran: Adam lost the original kingdom. Along comes Jesus, with his own kingdom, as he told Pilate. Perhaps in the parable he is talking about his church, in the beginning sense of his disciples and followers. The seed represents this early flock, which—if left in peace—would grow to become a great multitude. But it is not left in peace: Bad people try to destroy it. But good people and bad people look alike, and there is trouble if we try to weed out from the church people we think are bad. Some fundamentalist religions and sects seek to abolish others and seek to insert themselves into government so they can have more power to do so. But the parable is telling us that this is not the way.

Jay: I would add to that: The kingdom of god is not about eradicating evil; it is about producing more good. The more one tries to organize god’s kingdom, or his church, the more one restricts one’s options. Organized religion can be a good thing—it can help bring us closer to god. The parable tells us that church should not be in the business of eradicating evil (not just getting rid of evil people, but eliminating evil itself) to make the world a better place. Its business is just the production of more good fruit, more good seed, so that goodness expands and multiplies. If the church focuses on rooting out evil it is more likely to damage the good fruit.

Kiran: If, as Sylvester suggests, I as an individual am the field, then I have good seed and bad seed in me. Most of the time I focus on getting rid of what is bad within me, when I should be focusing on multiplying what is good within me.

Robin: The people are the harvest. The servants are angels. The king is god. The servants cannot be people. Jesus is explaining how god views his kingdom.

Does this mean there is predestination? If the tares are the devil and his evil angels, this does not suggest predestination, but if people have no choice in whether they are wheat or tare, then they are predestined.

Sylvester: To stretch the parable even further: God said to wait until the end to harvest. There is no other way to harvest than to wait until the harvest time, and it is only then that god’s harvesters—his angels—can tell wheat from tare. That suggests to me that there is no predestination. I think defining the field as people is a mistake, because it leads to stretching the parable in these ways. I prefer the definition of the field as representing the concepts of good and evil, not as representing good people and bad people. The whole bible is premised on the idea that tares can be changed into wheat—that evil people can be saved; so to read the parable in such a way as to suggest predestination to be good or evil runs counter to the very essence of the bible.

Candace: A seed is a seed until there is intervention; in this case, going into the ground—into the kingdom of heaven. The seed is then affected by environmental factors, as noted in the parable of the sower and the seed. The seed sown in this parable is good seed. But then, in the parable of the wheat and the tares, another factor is introduced: Bad seed.

All the plants—good and bad—in the field get the same nutrients, sunshine, and water. Some people of my age see hypocrisy in churches that denounce people who choose another way to lead their earthly and spiritual lives. It is not our place to judge them.

Chuck: In the beginning was the Word, the spirit of God. Seed is a great simile for the Word. It is entirely self-contained, all-inclusive, but to be fulfilled it must first grow and multiply. In a similar manner the Word, like the seed is whole, complete…The Word is One. The Word is the eternal presence, the “I am” and the Word made flesh through Jesus Christ is the way, the map for our spiritual journey back to our original Oneness with the spirit of God. So I wonder if Jesus’ statement that “In my father’s house are many dwelling places and I go to prepare a place for you” is a reference to our journey back to that Oneness with the spirit of god through our relationship with his Word…through our relationship with Jesus. As with the cycle of the seed, in order for the Word, the spirit of God to cycle back to completeness, to “One-ness”…it must first grow and multiply.

Don: Jesus gives one more parable about seed: The Mustard Seed. We will examine that next week. We certainly do not want to over-stretch these metaphors, but at the same time we do not want to under-stretch and miss out on some profound understanding.

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