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“IT’S TIME TO GO, JOHN”

In the world of politics, it’s become a cardinal rule: you get rid of your problems quick. If you have to fire someone, you fire them the same day, go through the flames and get it over with. If someone on your staff has to walk the plank, you give them five minutes to get out there and start walking.

Back during the presidency of George Bush the Elder — or “41,” as the family now calls him, as opposed to “43” — the White House chief of staff was an abrasive man named John Sununu. If you’ve watched CNN’s Crossfire in recent years, you’ve seen him “on the right,” still duking it out with the pinkos and liberals on the other side of the aisle. But in dealings with Congress, Mr. John Sununu was just a wipe-out. He was turning people off, even loyalists and friends. He made enemies unnecessarily. There was a mini-scandal, you might recall, where Sununu was enjoying the perk of having Air Force planes take him all around the country on personal jaunts. The media had a field day with that one, of course, and a cartoonist captured the moment with a picture of Sununu in the cockpit of a huge B-1 bomber. “There! Right there’s Disney World! Set ‘er down!” And the pilot says with resignation, “Yes, sir, Mr. Sununu.”

Well, that kind of headline wasn’t helping the Republicans one little bit. And finally somebody had to go in to see the Chief of Staff and suggest that he shouldn’t be chief of staff any longer. Interestingly, as the story has it, it was young George W. Bush, the President’s son and family “consiglieri,” who had to bear the tough news. Robert Bryce, a reporter for the Austin Chronicle, describes the younger Bush as a “loyalty Doberman” whose role it was to make sure staff members were fully on board. “The abrasive Sununu, George W. believed, simply didn’t have his father’s best interests at heart.” And so, with a little help from Boyden Gray, Bush, Jr. told Sununu: “John, it’s time to go.”

We’ve just begun to study another very intriguing political story which only predates this one by about two thousand years. But in Matthew chapter 13, Jesus was telling the crowd a whole string of parables, and after telling one about a man who planted seed in four kinds of soil, with varying results, did a Part Two with His “sowing of seed” motif and got to our featured parable of the week, revolving around the question of “When should the bad guys be fired?”

Here’s the story, word for word, from the New International Version:

“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.”

So here we are. There’s a field full of wheat — that would be nice people, good people, loyal members of the cabinet. And then, all at once, the hired farm hands begin to spot weeds here and there. Imposters and enemies and bad people. In the updated parable we shared yesterday, moving from fields and weeds to the high-tech world of aviation and Internet computer viruses, the owner of Sky High Airlines came to realize that there were some disaffected workers on his team. People who were right there in his company, getting a paycheck and going to the office Christmas party, but devoted to destroying everything from within.

Now, let’s pick up Jesus’ story in verse 27.

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’”

So that’s the question of the week. What do we do with the bad people? Should Sununu be fired? Should the rebels in God’s world be gathered up in a bundle and burned?

We were interested to discover some tidbits of information about this story from the great Bible students who have really delved into this Matthew parable. In the New International Version text notes, they make this observation about the “weeds” or tares Jesus was describing.

“Probably darnel, which looks very much like wheat while it is young, but can later be distinguished.”

So there was an element of reality to this story. In fact, Dr. Richard T. France, who did the Matthew portion of the excellent Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, tells us that this kind of thing — a bad guy sneaking in at midnight to plant weeds in with the wheat and soybeans — was common in Israel. Notice:

“To sow darnel among wheat as an act of revenge was punishable in Roman law, which suggests that the parable depicts a real-life situation. A light infestation of darnel could be tackled by careful weeding, but mistakes would easily be made. In the case of a heavy infestation the stronger roots of the darnel would be tangled with those of the wheat, making selective weeding impossible.”

You know, any time we’re tempted to say about the Bible, “Oh, man, it’s just a bunch of dusty old stories about cows and fish and coveting your neighbor’s donkey; it’s not relevant here in the 21st century,” remember that people who were listening there in person could relate. They probably were saying, “Hey, I just read a story like that in the Jerusalem Post! A guy was arrested by three Roman soldiers for doing that exact thing — planting weeds in somebody’s wheat field.” Friend, these were marvelous sermon illustrations in Jesus’ day, and we need to be smart enough to sift away the chaff, so to speak, and still find the powerful truths Jesus has for us here on this very modern Tuesday.

Anyway, noticing, as Dr. France just did, how in the early stages of growth, the darnel and the wheat are indistinguishable from each other, and also how their roots are so intertwined, how does Christ finish up His story? Here’s verse 29 and following, where the servants ask the master, “Shall we pull up those weeds?”

“‘No,’ [the owner] answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

You know, there are several interesting lessons we can learn from this “short story” told by Jesus, and one of the main ones might surprise you. Because this story isn’t even happening on one of the playing fields we think it’s happening on. More about that tomorrow. But here in our closing moments, before we turn off our own Rototiller and our Weed-eater for today, let’s just notice two important points.

First of all, there’s an enemy in this tale. When everyone notices the weeds in the garden, and the servants complain, “Hey, who did this?”, the owner gives them a poignant answer. “An enemy hath done this.” I can tell you, there have been times when I stood at funerals, and we all had tears in our eyes and grief in our heart. And I said to those seated there with me, “An enemy hath done this. A villain named Lucifer came in here at midnight, and sowed these seeds of sorrow. Look at the cemeteries dotting the landscape; see all the sickness and death and destruction everywhere you point your camera. Without any doubt, an enemy hath done this.”

And there’s one more thing Jesus tells us the enemy has done. He’s caused the hearts of men and women to rebel against heaven. There are people out there in the field who are opposed to heaven’s government; their hearts have turned against God . . . and it’s the enemy of this world who came in at midnight and did that. I like how the Message paraphrase puts it:

“That night, while his hired men were asleep, his enemy sowed thistles all through the wheat and slipped away before dawn.”

I know we have to sleep sometimes, but let me tell you: I want to stay awake all I can — spiritually awake, that is — and not let Lucifer do his midnight work. Sometimes we don’t pay attention, and Satan comes in and poisons the minds of our young people with drugs and discouragement. He hardens a fragile new Christian’s heart because of the hypocrisy they see in us old-timers. And really, that’s one reason why radio programs like this one exist: to keep shining the light of God’s generous truth on the soul-winning field, and keep the devil from getting in there with his seeds of destruction.

But the second lesson is this: The Owner of the field isn’t going to lose. No, He doesn’t uproot the weeds just yet. The time isn’t right just yet. At this fragile moment, when people are still deciding, still thinking, still choosing their side in the great war, and while all the roots are so tangled up, the Owner patiently waits. But in the end of the story, the good harvest comes in and the Owner triumphs over Lucifer and his stealth campaign. If you’re discouraged because the world seems to be going to hell, and all the bad people are living in lazy luxury, be patient. Because the good Owner, the loving and strong Master of the manor, is about to make His move.