This Sunday’s Gospel is from Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.

It’s the familiar parable of the weeds whereby an evil one sows weed seeds into a field of wheat. The farmer decides not to try and uproot the weeds immediately for risk of disturbing the tender wheat plants. Instead, both are allowed to grow to maturity and then be separated at the harvest. This is a parable of the eschaton—the end of all things. How would we live differently if we knew Christ would return in a fortnight? How do we ‘spread the word’ today and are we urgent about that? What is our posture toward evil—which Reinhold Niebuhr said was the only Christian doctrine that could be empirically verified?