Wheat and Weed

My dread turned to anger.

When a volunteer wants to talk in private, it is rarely good news.

So when one of our youth volunteers asked if we could talk, I immediately felt a sense of dread. The silence that surrounded us as we walked to my office only deepened that feeling.

She told me that several of the youth, including her own son, had come to her with concerns about one of the new kids in the youth group. The boy had a bad reputation at school. They said that if he was allowed to keep coming, they would stop attending. Then she told me that I had to tell him that he was no longer welcome.

I was angry.

In just one year, our youth group had grown from only two students to more than sixty each week. What made that growth especially exciting was that most of the new kids had never grown up in church. Several had never even stepped inside a church building before. Sharing the love of Jesus with young people who had never heard about God's grace had become the brightest part of an otherwise difficult season of ministry.

Some of the church kids believed his presence would damage the youth group's reputation, and several even threatened to boycott the youth group if he was allowed to return. The volunteer feared that one "bad kid" could ruin the entire ministry, and she wanted him removed.

This Sunday we will read Jesus' parable of the wheat and the weeds. A farmer discovers weeds growing among his wheat, and when his workers ask whether they should pull them out, he tells them to leave them alone. In trying to remove the weeds, they might accidentally uproot the wheat as well. The separation, he says, will come at the harvest.

I listened carefully to the volunteer and acknowledged her concerns. But I also made it clear that every young person would always be welcome. Then I spoke with the church kids about what it means to create a community where everyone has a place.

Some of the church kids carried out their threat and stayed away from the youth group for a while.

The new kid came for only a few more weeks. Then he stopped coming.

Later I learned why. Some of the church kids had approached him at school and told him that he was not welcome at their youth group.

I was angry.

The truth is, we rarely know who is wheat and who is weed. We do not see people as God sees them. We do not know what God is doing in someone's heart or what they may become through the power of grace.

As the church, let us choose to extend God's welcome to everyone. Let us offer grace and trust God to do the work that only God can do.

Pastor Sunny