{"id":4806,"date":"2025-08-11T07:40:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T11:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4806"},"modified":"2025-08-11T07:40:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T11:40:05","slug":"ana-among-the-wheat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/11\/ana-among-the-wheat\/","title":{"rendered":"ANA: “Among” the Wheat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u00a0Each weekday in the month of August, we will pursue \u201cprepositional truth\u201d by zeroing in on a single Greek preposition in a single verse, noting the theological richness so often embedded in the humble words we so often overlook.\u00a0<\/em>

Jesus is hoping we’ll\u00a0say goodbye forever to something that most of us find rather\u00a0enjoyable.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

That would be sorting out everyone around us into two categories: Good People vs.\u00a0Jerks.\u00a0

Perhaps we\u2019ll favor kinder terminology.\u00a0We might opt for Wise vs. Foolish, Cool vs. Clueless, Useful to Me vs. Don\u2019t Bother, or (more typical of church people) True Believers vs. Spiritual Pretenders. \u00a0

But Jesus makes it clear that this practice always works against our best interests.\u00a0He even tells\u00a0a parable to drive home the point.

In Matthew 13 (verses 24-30\u00a0and 36-43), he describes a\u00a0Palestinian farmer who plants seeds in his field.\u00a0He aims to grow a crop of wheat.\u00a0But when the tiny plants appear above the soil, it’s obvious somebody else has come along and sowed chaos.

Something else is growing there.\u00a0He discovers a profusion of wheat and weeds growing side by side.\u00a0And\u00a0nobody can tell them apart.\u00a0\u00a0

The weeds are \u201camong<\/u><\/strong><\/em> (ANA MESON<\/strong>) the wheat\u201d (Matthew 13:25). ANA<\/strong> is one of the rarest of New Testament prepositions. When combined with the word meson<\/u><\/em> (which we encounter in English words like \u201cmezzanine,\u201d a low floor in a hotel between the lobby and the first floor), it implies a location \u2013 \u201cright in the middle of.\u201d

Jesus is reporting a situation well known to Palestinian farmers.\u00a0Right in the middle<\/u><\/em> of the good crop are unwelcome seedlings of bearded darnel, a weed that in the early stages of growth looks exactly like wheat.\u00a0It grows at the same speed.\u00a0It reaches the same height.\u00a0Only when the heads of grain appear is it possible to tell the plants apart.

The heads of wheat are golden, while bearded darnel produces what look like little gray beards at the end of the stalks.\u00a0\u00a0

By that time, however, it’s too late to yank all the darnel out of the fields.\u00a0The roots of the good plants and the weeds have become enmeshed. “Let both grow together until the harvest,” says Jesus.\u00a0“Then you can safely separate the wheat from\u00a0the weeds.”

The problem is, who wants to wait until God\u2019s harvest \u2013 that is, his Judgment at the End of History?

Most of us assume we are exceedingly well qualified to go ahead and start the sorting process.\u00a0We know a weed when we see one.\u00a0When we’re in the presence of other people, we\u00a0can tell the good ones from the bad ones from the sneaky ones from the sad ones from the most-likely-to-succeed ones from the old-and-used-up ones – even as Jesus pleads with us, “I\u2019m asking you not to do this.\u00a0You will never<\/em> get it right.\u00a0You will actually damage the wheat by trying to eliminate the weeds. Leave the harvesting to the Lord of the Harvest.”\u00a0\u00a0

Augustine of Hippo, arguably the greatest theologian of the early Church, said that every congregation is a corpus per mixtum<\/em> \u2013 a Latin phrase that means \u201cmixed crowd.\u201d

The \u201cvisible church\u201d \u2013 that would be the totality of those who show up to have their pictures taken for the pictorial directory \u2013 always includes what theologians call the \u201cinvisible church\u201d (those who have genuine faith in Christ).

But true believers are inevitably found among<\/u><\/strong><\/em> a wide variety of other people. Those would include the guy who is there \u201cbecause she makes me get up every Sunday morning,\u201d people who haven\u2019t yet made up their minds about Jesus, and a number of men and women who are actually dead set against God\u2019s purposes but find the church to be a great place to hang out.

As you might expect, that doesn\u2019t always present a pretty picture to the watching world.

Both skeptics and authentic Christians are often turned off by the visible church \u2013 by the realities and challenges of the mixed crowd. Many skeptics have no desire to be associated with \u201call those hypocrites,\u201d while genuine Christ-followers are sometimes so offended by the frailties and failures of local congregations that they choose to stay away.

Something like one-quarter of those who self-identify as members of the \u201cinvisible church\u201d in America currently have no local church affiliation. They want no part of the visible church. \u201cI can love God and love people quite well without being among<\/u><\/strong><\/em> (ANA MESON<\/strong>) those people.\u201d

But Christianity is a team sport. There is absolutely nothing in the New Testament to suggest that followers of Jesus should go solo. Jesus says that the spiritual wheat will always be in the presence of the spiritual weeds, and vice-versa.

Why is he so passionate about this?\u00a0\u00a0

We rarely recognize God’s champions.\u00a0We may think we have the inside scoop on exactly what a growing saint looks like, but only God has eyes to see the true condition of human hearts.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

And it just so happens that God delights in using flawed, unconventional people.\u00a0

Moses identifies\u00a0himself as a stuttering coward who could never stand up to Pharaoh.\u00a0When an angel tries to recruit Gideon to save Israel, he responds, \u201cAre you kidding?\u00a0 I\u2019m the least of the least of the least when it comes to family background.\u201d\u00a0David, the warrior-king who would become\u00a0“the man after God’s own heart,” starts out as a red-haired runt\u00a0barely noticed by his own father.\u00a0Paul, the future apostle, is introduced\u00a0in the Bible\u00a0as\u00a0a hot-headed fundamentalist cheering on the lynching of Stephen, one of God’s key servants.\u00a0\u00a0

Do we really have eyes to see what God sees when he looks at other people?

Take a second look at the man who is so shy he can barely raise his voice loudly enough to introduce himself.\u00a0Check out the bored teenager whose whole life is her iPhone.\u00a0Watch the woman who crosses the Kroger parking lot crushed under the weight of providing for her family.\u00a0

Who are these people?\u00a0These are the plants growing in God’s field. We are among<\/u><\/strong><\/em> them day after day after day.

On harvest day, it may turn out\u00a0that they were\u00a0God’s greatest champions.\u00a0

When it comes to the people with whom we share our lives, God’s job is to do the sorting.\u00a0The Savior’s job is to save.

What does that leave for the rest of us?\u00a0\u00a0

Our job is to love.\u00a0<\/em>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here \u00a0Each weekday in the month of August, we will pursue \u201cprepositional truth\u201d by zeroing in on a single Greek preposition in a single verse, noting the theological richness so often embedded in the humble words we so often overlook.\u00a0 Jesus is hoping we’ll\u00a0say goodbye forever to something that most of us… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4807,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[493,8,177],"class_list":["post-4806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church","tag-judgment","tag-parables"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4808,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4806\/revisions\/4808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}