“The gift of grace is nothing short of new creation, creation not merely out of nothing but out of anti-creation, out of death itself… grace is a vibrant plant that will take over the soil and produce a life giving harvest.” — NT Wright

At creation God brought the world from nothing. Stars and planets form, waters rush then recede, land rises, life begins. But the problem of sin polluted the soil. The harvest of creation became death.

God’s response to creation’s demise was not to destroy it (Genesis teaches that floods don’t work). Instead God set out to bring creation back to life. So Jesus was planted in soil and in three days grace sprang forth. Grace that overcomes death. We NOW live in the reality of this grace.

Jesus explained our new reality with the parable of the weeds. Good seed is sown, but an enemy sows weeds among the wheat. Servants want to tear out the weeds, but the owner refuses, “you will hurt the wheat”. So both wheat and weeds are left to grow together.

Now what is the meaning? God is the owner. The servants are the church. Wheat and weeds are righteousness and evil. The church’s role is not to remove evil. When we pull up the weeds, we also pull up the wheat. Meaning, when we get rid of evil, we also toss out our righteousness (worse, often in the effort to pull out evil, we sow other evil!). So the church is called by God to focus on the wheat. We plant righteousness. Again and again.

The church is not blind to evil. The servants see the weeds! And we show each to the owner — we pray for the weeds’ demise. We ask that each evil shrivels. Yet our actions are not to attack the evil. We don’t answer hate with hate (or judgment or violence or exclusion). Instead we bring the response of Jesus to every situation.

This is not naive. Instead the church puts our trust in the power of Jesus. His death and resurrection unleashed the power of grace. We believe that the resurrection has defeated death. So we strive to follow the path of Jesus. In Jesus, we know that righteousness, roots deepening and stalks rising, will take over the soil. Evil will wither. In grace even heathens will become servants of the harvest. A harvest that bears heaven’s salvation.

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” — Galatians 6:9