The Weeds, the Treasure, and the Man Who Would Not Forgive

He spent one whole afternoon telling stories. So many people had come down to the water to hear him that there was nowhere left on the beach to stand, so he got into a fishing boat and pushed out a few feet from the shore and sat down in it, and the crowd stood along the edge of the lake with the water almost at their feet, and listened. He had already told them about the man who went out to scatter seed. He did not stop there. He told them story after story, one after another, and nearly every one of them began the same way: the kingdom of the heavens is like this. None of them explained itself. You had to carry it home and turn it over in your head, sometimes for years.

This is the one he told next, and it is about a farmer with an enemy. “The kingdom of the heavens is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But in the night, while everybody in the house was asleep, an enemy of his came out to that field and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and went away again, and nobody saw him do it. And when the young wheat came up and began to make its heads of grain, the weeds came up too, standing there right through the middle of it. So the workers came to the master of the house and said to him, ‘Sir, was it not good seed you sowed in your field? Where have all these weeds come from?’ And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ And the workers said to him, ‘Do you want us to go out and pull them up, then?’ But he said, ‘No. If you pull up the weeds now, you will pull up the wheat along with them, because down under the ground the roots are all wound around each other. Let the two of them grow side by side until the harvest. And when the harvest comes I will say to the reapers: gather the weeds first, and tie them in bundles to be burned — and then gather the wheat into my barn.’” The farmers listening knew exactly which weed he meant. There is one that grows in that country that looks so much like young wheat that nobody alive can tell them apart until the ears come out at the top, and by then the roots have grown together under the soil. And sowing a field of it in another man’s wheat, at night, out of spite, was a thing people really did.

When the afternoon was over he sent the crowds away and went indoors, and his followers came and found him there and said, “Explain the story of the weeds in the field to us.” And he did — which he hardly ever did. Most of his stories he told and left standing. This one he took apart for them, piece by piece. “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world. The good seed is the sons of the kingdom, and the weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the Accuser. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are messengers. So, just as the weeds are gathered up and burned in the fire, that is how it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his messengers, and they will gather out of his kingdom everything that trips people up, and everybody who does what is wrong, and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there is weeping and grinding of teeth. And then the ones who did right will shine out like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anybody who has ears hear.” When the workers wanted to go straight out and start pulling, the master of the house did not say never. He said not yet.

There were three more short ones that afternoon, and they came quickly, one after another, like three knocks on a door. “The kingdom of the heavens is like treasure hidden in a field. A man found it — and he buried it again, and went off full of joy, and sold everything he owned, and bought that field. Again: the kingdom of the heavens is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. And when he found one pearl worth more than all the others put together, he went away and sold everything he had, and bought it.” One of those two men was not looking for anything at all. He was working in somebody else’s field, and his spade hit it. The other one had spent his whole life looking, and knew a good pearl the moment he saw one. And when they found it they did exactly the same thing: sold the lot, argued with nobody about the price, and were glad.

And the third one he told to a beach full of fishermen, who had been hauling nets up that same shore since they were boys. “Again: the kingdom of the heavens is like a great net let down into the sea, that gathers up every kind of fish there is. And when it was full they dragged it up onto the sand, and sat down, and put the good ones into buckets, and threw the bad ones away. That is how it will be at the end of the age. The messengers will go out and separate the wicked from the right-living, and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there is weeping and grinding of teeth.” Then he looked at his followers and said, “Have you understood all of this?” And they said, “Yes.” And he said to them, “Then every teacher of the law who has been made a learner of the kingdom of the heavens is like the master of a house, who brings things out of his storeroom — new things and old ones.”

Some time after that, on another day and in another house, his followers got into an argument among themselves about which of them was the greatest. He stood a child in the middle of them, where they could all see it, and then he said something about little ones that they were not expecting. “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that in the heavens their messengers are always looking at the face of my Father in the heavens.” And then he asked them a question. “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders off, will he not leave the ninety-nine up on the hills and go out after the one that has wandered? And if he happens to find it — I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that never wandered anywhere at all. That is how it is. It is not what your Father in the heavens wants, that even one of these little ones should be lost.” He said that standing next to a child, in a room full of grown men who had just been arguing about which of them was the most important.

Peter had been thinking about something else. He came over and said, “Lord, how many times can my brother do something wrong to me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Seven was a generous offer, and Peter knew it. The teachers of that time said three times was enough; after three you had done your part. Peter had more than doubled it. Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times. I say seventy times seven.” Which is four hundred and ninety. It is very hard to keep a tally that long and still be keeping a tally.

And then he told him a story, and the whole story turns on two amounts of money. The man in it owes the king ten thousand talents. A talent was about what an ordinary working man might earn in twenty years. Ten thousand talents is two hundred thousand years of work. It is not a debt at all, really; it is a mountain, and a man may as well be told to carry it home on his back. The other amount, later on, is a hundred denarii. A denarius was one day’s pay. So it is about four months’ work — a real debt, a serious one, and a man could pay it back. “The kingdom of the heavens is like a king who decided to settle up with his servants. And when he began, they brought in a man who owed him ten thousand talents. He had no way of paying it, none at all, so the king gave the order that he should be sold — and his wife, and his children, and everything he owned — and the money handed over. So the servant fell down on his knees in front of him and begged him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he said, ‘and I will pay you back every bit of it.’ And the master of that servant was moved right through with pity for him. And he let him go — and let the whole debt go with him. But that same servant walked out of there and found one of the other servants, who owed him a hundred denarii. And he grabbed hold of him and began to throttle him. ‘Pay me what you owe,’ he said. So his fellow servant fell down on his knees and begged him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he said, ‘and I will pay you back.’ But he would not have it. He went off and had the man thrown into prison until he should pay what he owed. And when the other servants saw what had happened they were sick about it, and they went to their master and told him the whole thing. Then his master sent for him. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said. ‘I let you off that whole enormous debt, because you begged me to. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant, in the same way I had mercy on you?’ And his master was angry, and handed him over to the jailers, until he should pay back everything he owed. That is what my heavenly Father will do to you, if each one of you does not forgive his brother from his heart.” The second man in that story says the same words as the first man, almost exactly: be patient with me and I will pay you back. He had said them himself that morning, on his own knees, to the king. The only difference between the two is that the second man could actually have done it.

There was one more story about the kingdom, told later, on the road going south. A denarius was a day’s pay for a working man, and a working man in that country lived on it a day at a time. If you stood in the marketplace from morning to evening and nobody hired you, your family did not eat that night. “Many who are first will be last, and the last first. For the kingdom of the heavens is like the master of a house, who went out first thing in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed with them on a denarius for the day, and sent them off into the vineyard. And going out again about nine in the morning, he saw others standing about in the marketplace with nothing to do, and he said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard as well, and whatever is right, I will give you.’ And off they went. He went out again about noon, and again about three in the afternoon, and did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found still more of them standing there, and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day with nothing to do?’ They said to him, ‘Because nobody has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to the man who kept his accounts, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages — beginning with the last ones and working back to the first.’ So the men who had come at five o’clock came up, and each of them was given a denarius. And when the first men came up, they thought they would be getting more. And each of them was given a denarius as well. And when they had taken it, they started grumbling at the master of the house. ‘These last ones did one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal with us — and we carried the whole weight of the day, and the burning heat of it.’ But he answered one of them. ‘Friend,’ he said, ‘I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me on a denarius? Take what is yours and go. I want to give this last man the same as I gave you. Am I not allowed to do what I like with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’”