GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 4:19
Oh For a Weed Eater
As I write, it is early March in northeast Georgia, and the grass, which has been dormant for the last few months, is showing signs of life, beginning to get green. Soon it will be time to start up the ol’ mower and begin cutting the grass, a chore that usually takes the better part of a day. Once that’s complete, the weeds around the edge need to be trimmed. In 1972, George Ballas attached fishing line to a can and mounted it on a rotary mower, leading to the development of the string trimmer. Later, Ballas founded the Weed Eater Company, and the name, “Weed Eater,” became the generic name for string trimmers of all brands. I’ll use a weed eater to chop out the weeds.
As Jesus explained the meaning of the parable of the farmer sowing seeds, he said the soil that received the seed represented different types of hearers. The hard-packed soil of the path represented hearers in whom the seed doesn’t take root; the stony soil represented hearers in whom the seed takes root but doesn’t last long. Then Jesus said, “And others are those being sown among the thorns; these are those hearing the word, and the cares of the age, and the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” (Mark 4:18-19) In these hearers, the seed takes root and grows, but weeds grow with it. The seed, which Jesus said represents the Word, the Gospel, continues to grow along with the weeds, but the weeds steal the nutrients away from the seed, overgrow the seed stalks, blocking out the life-giving sunlight, and entwine the seed stalks so that they become unfruitful. Jesus named three broad categories of “weeds” in these hearers, but this is probably not an exhaustive list of weeds in some hearers that choke out the Word. Oh, if there were only a spiritual “weed eater” to chop out these suppressing, blocking, and stifling weeds.
Jesus did not say the weeds destroyed the stalks of grain produced by the seed, only that they made them unfruitful. The stalks are still there, but the weeds have overgrown the stalks—they still look like seed stalks, they still take up space, they still draw nutrients, but the seed stalks produce no fruit. It’s a sad picture.
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