In the Time of Harvest

MAUDE J. SULLIVAN

For the student of Christian Science who is struggling bravely to discern the allness of God in the midst of aggressive attacks of evil, there is a wonderful lesson in the parable told by Jesus as he sat in the ship talking to the multitude upon the shore. He likened the kingdom of heaven to the man who sowed good seed in his field. Then followed the narrative of the enemy coming and sowing tares with the wheat, and of his servants' astonished query as to the origin of the tares. There is the simple answer, "An enemy hath done this," and in reply to their request to be allowed to gather up the tares and destroy them he said: "Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn."

How similar is the experience of the student striving to attain the kingdom of heaven on earth. He has sown good seed in his field, but suddenly he is confronted with an abundant growth of tares (evil beliefs) which threaten to uproot the tender plants of fruitful demonstration. Whence come these tares? It is the old question of the servants. Shall he go and gather them up? Shall he lay hold of his companions in the field and say: "Here are tares. This man's dishonesty is hindering my demonstration of the truth; yonder is a brother who is trying to dominate me; there is one whose pride and self-will will ruin my harvest; I must gather up these noxious beliefs and hold them up to the gaze of the world in order that my field may be clean"?

Wise indeed was that householder of old. His thought was not centered upon the immediate annihilation of the tares; it was entirely for the growth and safeguarding of the wheat beside them. He knew that sun and rain and fertile earth would nourish the growing grain and give the elements necessary to sustain it until the time of maturity, even though by its side grew to their own sure ripening the offending tares; while if ruthless hands uprooted the tares in earlier growth, the tender spreading roots of the grain might be irremediably injured. Human will in the student would impel an immediate gathering of all things that offend, regardless of possible injury to the tender growing thought that requires, perhaps, to remain undisturbed in order to fulfill its promise. On page 111 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy says, "Leaving the seed of Truth to its own vitality, it propagates: the tares cannot hinder it."

A word of condemnation, though to human sense merited, may well be left unspoken when we survey the field before us, stretching, it may be, through the distance to the kingdom of heaven. Like the servants of old we may see many tares growing side by side with the golden grain. It matters not who placed them there; their presence reveals the attack of the enemy. Let us remain undisturbed while both grow together until the harvest, remembering our Leader's statement in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 535): "The seed of Truth and the seed of error, of belief and of understanding,—yea, the seed of Spirit and the seed of matter,—are the wheat and tares which time will separate, the one to be burned, the other to be garnered into heavenly places."

There is surely a harvest coming when all evil will be rightly dealt with and the golden grain will be ready to be garnered. The reaper of the parable knows the difference between them. In the time of harvest they will be separated; the tares will be gathered first and bound in order to be burned, and there will remain nothing in the field which is offensive, while the wheat will be gathered and placed safely in the barn. It never harms the wheat to grow side by side with the offensive neighbor. The most that neighbor can do is to draw from its environment what it chooses to develop itself to its own undoing, and the developing of the dreaded tares can only make the precious wheat the more desired and the more beautiful by contrast.

It is the business of the wheat to reach out for nourishment and to develop in spite of its surroundings, never fearing that any injury can come to it; its duty is just to grow, confident of an abundant supply of rain and sunshine. So, also, it is the business of the student to grow and develop, perhaps in the very place where error seems rampant, not making it his business to "gather up" the surrounding beliefs, but, instead, just to grow and attain his own perfection, remembering the injunction found in the parable, "Let both grow together until the harvest." In the time of harvest nothing can make the wheat look like tares, nor the tares look like wheat: they will have attained their inevitable growth, revealed for what they are, when the tares will be consumed and the wheat garnered.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

The Activity of the Christ

September 21, 1918

Contents

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit