False Wheat
Original sermon given on The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, July 19, 2026 written and delivered by Pastor Jeff Leininger at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.
Watch the sermon live.
“False Wheat”
Matthew 13.24-30, 36-43
False Wheat
In the name of the Living God and the Risen Christ. Amen.
Another day, another agricultural planting parable given by Jesus. Last week we had “the Sower and the Seed” as an illustration of God’s word implanted in our hearts. This week we have contrasting wheat and weeds, illustrating the children of the Kingdom of God and the children of the Evil One, growing together in this world.
I find this parable incredibly challenging, even frustrating, but not for the reasons you might think. It’s not that it’s hard to understand — like last week, Jesus pretty much lays it out there for us in his explanation given to the disciples back in the house. The story itself is also not very far afield from the realities of farming in 1st century Palestine. A landowner has servants/workers, who he puts to work planting some good seed in the soil. He’s also got enemies, apparently; or competitors, who secretly sow weeds in his fields to ruin his crops. We even have a good idea of the particular ruinous weed the enemy planted. It’s called “darnel” (technically Lolium temulentum), and it looks so much like wheat when it sprouts that it’s nicknamed “false wheat”. But later when the heads form, you can tell the difference. Darnel or “false wheat” also often contained a fungus which could spread by contact. You can see how disastrous this would be to a wheat crop, if you harvested them simultaneously, bundling them together. You’ve got to harvest the weeds and then the wheat separately, carefully. Darnel is really the perfect weed seed to plant if you want to ruin someone by “agricultural sabotage”. So perfectly devious and ruinous was it, that “Roman law dealt specifically with the crime of sowing darnel in a wheatfield as an act of revenge.”[1]
So, everyone in Jesus’ day would immediately understand the story; and with a couple of sermon notes we can too. That’s not what’s challenging for me about it. What’s challenging is the Landowner’s “solution” and what it means for all of us living in a world seeded with evil. We know there is evil — not only does the Bible clearly teach this, but our own experience confirms it. We know there is evil, but we can’t always sort it like we want or fix it when we want. And there’s a feeling of helplessness and frustration about this. The Landowner in the parable tells them, essentially, “Let it lie. The weeds and the wheat are going to have to grow together, right even next to each other, entangled with one another, until the final separation.” And you know, I don’t really like hearing this.
I wish that God would come down and sort it all out right now: stop the enemy, strike down the evil doers, sift it out cleanly so we can get on with the good stuff. I want him to do this with the world around me with its obvious evils: covetousness, injustice, wars and rumors of wars, destruction of the innocent, oppression of the poor, and rampant, celebrated, sexual immorality. But if I have a but an ounce of self-reflection, I also want him to sort it out within me, my own heart and tendency towards wickedness, because it’s growing entangled within me too. Like how many times do you have to pray for help, and the evil still grows within, right there next to the good you’re trying to do? Don’t you ever feel like the workers in the parable? You know that it’s all really, really wrong, but you feel like it’s beyond your ability to sort, fix or control.
If you’re at all perfectionistic or tend a bit towards OCD at all, this parable must just drive you crazy. You know there’s a problem, but you’re powerless to fix it. It’s frustrating, even infuriating to have this tangled mess right there in the field in front of you, but to be told, “Nope, just wait. Hold off. Let it lie. You can’t see everything as clearly as you think; and you can’t fix everything as quickly as you want.” “The vengeance is mine,” says the Lord, “and the timing is mine too.” Neither one is yours to distribute or control.
It might be helpful to explain what this parable is not saying. It’s not saying that we shouldn’t try to do good, to make a difference in our world, or seek to root out evil in ourselves. So many Bible passages and indeed Jesus’ own words exhort us to live lives of godliness, serve others, and work for the common good. But the parable does help clarify and redirect us to the church’s real mission. We are not going to weed out all the evil in this world. It’s always going to be here, until the final Judgement. Even if we could perceive it perfectly, judge it righteously (which we can’t), we are in the end unable to fully eradicate evil.
What the parable is doing rather is refocus or clarify our mission as workers for the Landowner. We are to preach the gospel of Jesus, who died to save souls and redeem them for eternity. We are to prepare ourselves and others for the final sorting, the last judgement, through proclaiming repentance and faith. The solution is not a temporary repair job, but redemption by Christ’ blood; not an earthly solution, but a heavenly salvation; not fixing of all evil but fixating all eyes on the cross.
Christ Jesus our savior and Lord was sent into this world to offer himself for it in forgiveness. He himself took on our flesh and blood, and in an amazing exchange received in his own body the judgement meant for us all. At the cross the full fury of death and hell and evil was unleased upon his perfect, innocent life, and yet he there endured all, that we might all be hidden in him — in his perfect righteousness, his full forgiveness, his amazing grace. The book of Acts says it so clearly: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16.31). This is how we become children of the kingdom.
In Holy Baptism then, we are implanted into all Christ has done, and all he has to give — hidden in His life, death, and resurrection. In Holy Communion he feeds us for this difficult journey of working tirelessly and waiting patiently — even amid things we can’t fully sort out and may never fully understand.
In the end, this parable is asking for a pious patience to let God deal with evil in his way, in his timing, with his judgement. That’s frustrating, but also maybe you can feel with me a sense of relief and peace. God’s going to sort this all out, not you; and that’s probably far better in the end, anyway.
We know then what we’re called to do. Work for good, as best we can, according to our various callings in life; tell people the good news about Jesus, that they can be children of his kingdom by believing in his name and clinging to his gospel of grace.
In the end this parable forces me to trust God. Both his judgment and justice upon sin and evil; and also his love and mercy for sinful, evil ones, including us.
Come soon Lord Jesus. Amen.
[1] R. T. Frank, The Gospel of Matthew, p. 525
Image Source: Linnell, John, 1792-1882. Wheat, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56692 [retrieved July 20, 2026]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Linnell_-_Wheat_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg.
