Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43

Reader One:  Jesus told another parable:  Think of the realm of God as a farm, with a farmer who sowed good seed to grow wheat. 

All:  Yum!  To bake bread with. 

Reader One:  Yes, but while everyone was asleep, an enemy came and sowed cockle – a kind of repulsive, offensive weed --  among the wheat. 

Bakers:  Oh no!  What happened then? 

Gardeners:  Well, when the wheat grew up, the cockle came up too, and it was UGLY. The farmer’s helpers came to her and asked her why she had planted it. She said:  An enemy did this. Let us leave it until harvest time. Then I will tell the harvesters to gather up the cockle first, bind it into bundles and throw it into the fire to burn. We’ll put the wheat in the barn. 

Bakers:  Good!  Burn the cockle and bake the bread. 

Inquiring Minds (All):  But what does this mean for us? 

Celebrant:  The farmer is God and the farm is the world. The good wheat represents the children of God and the cockle represents bad people. The enemy is the devil. The harvest is the end of the world, and the harvesters are the angels. 

Reader One:  So this means that at the end of the world, God will send angels to separate out the good people from the bad people, and there shall be 

Bad People:  Weeping and gnashing of teeth 

Good People:  And the just shall shine like sun in the realm of God. Good for us! 

Celebrant:  Not so fast. 

From Wisdom 12: 13-19 

Wise People:  God does not give judgment unjustly, and our God of absolute power is gracious. God has taught the people to be just and humane, and to be of good hope, because in judging, God gives a place for repentance and change.

From the Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1865

Reader Two:  …Let us judge not, that we may not be judged. The Almighty has his own purposes…as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. 

All:  Amen

FYI 

kok'-'-l (King James Version margin "stinking weeds," the Revised Version, margin "noisome weeds"; bo'shah, from Hebrew root ba'ash, "to stink"; batos): "Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley" (Job 31:40). On account of the meaning of the Hebrew root we should expect that the reference was rather to repulsive, offensive weeds than to the pretty corn cockle. It is very possible that no particular plant is here intended, though the common Palestinian "stinking" arums have been suggested by Hooker.