God in his essence is simple. He’s clouded in mystery and we mistake the mystery for difficulty but God is not difficult… as the parables reveal.

The kingdom of God on earth may be compared to a field of wheat and weeds…

This is a very startling way to describe the kingdom of God on earth.

We think there shouldn’t be any weeds in the Church, never mind the kingdom of God!

Yet here, two thousand years ago, Christ tells us what his kingdom on earth looks like… a field of wheat and weeds.

Would you have used such an image to describe the kingdom of God? I don’t think you would. We’re very good at imposing our kingdom on God’s kingdom! It doesn’t work.

Here’s another question: If we’re willing to disassociate ourselves from the Church because of the presence of weeds then how can we possibly know anything of the kingdom of God as understood by Jesus – anything of this kingdom?

Two thousand years have come and gone and we still haven’t understood this.

He makes an interesting observation about the danger of weeding out the weeds – some of the wheat will come with it. It happens – to this day.

Most interesting though is his assertion that at harvest time it’ll be sorted.

Here Jesus indicates – as he often did – that there is ultimate justice.

This means that there is no future in a life of sin.

It means there is no such thing as ‘getting away with it’ – ‘getting away with it’ is temporary, a short reprieve, like the weeds growing with the wheat until harvest time.

It means there is no future in dishonesty, fraud, theft, murder…

It means that if you’ve been successful by immoral means then you have no future… except to put right the wrong you’ve done. You are nothing more than a weed waiting for harvest time!

As Jesus asked elsewhere; what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet lose his very soul?

What good is anything if you have nowhere to go?

Mercy is about turning weeds into wheat. It’s never about leaving weeds unchanged!

God in his essence is really very simple… if we’d only listen to the parables and stop imposing our kingdom on God’s kingdom!