Of Weeds and Wheat

by: Lou Lotz

Years ago I got a phone call from a man who proceeded to tell me that one of our church members had a checkered past. This is putting it mildly. After he told me the sordid story, the man asked what I was going to do about it. I said: “What do you want me to do, bar the door on Sunday mornings when I see her coming? This is a church and we want sinners to come. Do hospitals forbid sick people from coming?” As you might guess, it was not the answer he wanted to hear.

That man on the phone was a weed puller. He wanted no weeds in the wheat, no black sheep in the flock. But how do you know when to pull a weed? And how do you know what’s a weed and what’s wheat? Appearances can deceive.

Granted, sometimes we are called on to make judgments about good and evil, right and wrong. But when we start pulling weeds in the church, we run the risk of making judgments that are beyond our competence. Far better to leave the judging to God. “Do not pronounce judgment before the time,” said the apostle Paul, “before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness, and will disclose the purposes of the heart” (1 Cor. 4:5).

The Father knows weeds from wheat, and he will judge at the appointed time. The righteous he will gather and keep forever, and the wicked will be “like chaff that the wind drives away.”