Jesus told a parable:

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 13:24-30 – May 31, 2012)

A few verses later Matthew’s Jesus will interpret this parable, though most biblical scholarship agrees that it is Matthew (or some later editor) doing the interpreting not Jeus, that the interpretation is “nondominical” (as may be the parable itself). According to that interpretation, the enemy is supposed to be the devil, that the wheat that grows from good seed are all the people who’ve heard the gospel and responded appropriately, that the weeds that sprout from the bad seed are all the people who’ve followed the devil instead, and that when it’s all gathered and sorted (the wheat for the barn – Heaven – and the tares for the fire – Hell) it’s the last judgment. Martin Luther taught that the tares are “heretics and false teachers” who are “beautifully green and hypocritical.” But then he also said this parable teaches “that our free will amounts to nothing.” I’m not sure I buy that. ~ It seems to me that the parable in this form is a plea for inclusivity and tolerance. It’s not up to us who’s in and who’s out. The weeds depicted in this parable are probably darnels. Darnels look very much like wheat until harvest time and they cannot be told apart. Furthermore, their roots intertwine with the wheat’s roots so that they cannot be removed without significant damage to the crop. We’ve all seen what happens in a community when some group of “purists” starts trying to determine who gets to stay and who has to go. Better to let all stay and let God sort things out later than to destroy the community. ~ I remember reading some years ago that other rabbis have told a similar parable in which the mixing of wheat and weeds re-occurs over the course of several years. Finally, the owner’s steward decides to find out who the enemy is and stays up at night. When “the enemy” comes to sow the bad seed, the steward is surprised to find that it is the owner himself, sleep-walking in the darkness. This version suggests that we each sow the seeds of our own troubles, that we are each responsible for the good and often for the bad in our lives. The two versions read together underscore the reality that we frequently cannot tell the wheat from the weed, the good from the bad. Best to leave it to God to sort out!