Monday, August 8

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READ: Matthew 13:24-30

“‘No,’ he said. ‘When you pull up the weeds, you might also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At harvest time I’ll tell the reapers: Gather the weeds first and tie them in bundles to burn them, but collect the wheat in my barn.’” Matthew 13:29–30 (CSB)

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I was once told by a Christian businessman that he never fired his staff – he prayed them out. His rationale made sense to me at the time. Quoting this parable from Matthew 13 he said, “Thom if we remove the weeds from the organization then we are likely going to lose some of the good wheat as well. It is better to let God do the removing.”

Sounds great right?

Nope.

First, he was taking a parable about the Kingdom of God and applied it to his staff. That’s a reach.

Second, consider what he was saying – the enemy (that’s SATAN!) had been planting troublemakers on your team. It seems like it would have to be a bit over the top for most situations. This parable, like many others Jesus taught, uses hyperbole to make its point.

It’s like saying your ex-boyfriend is literally the devil. No, he’s a jerk. But not the father of lies.

When we take something hyperbolic by intent and make it literal, we are over-spiritualizing. And it’s an addictive little habit.

The reason that some Christians like to over-spiritualize everything from broken windows (not kidding – but that’s a story for another day) to abusive relationships – is that it is a way to always be right. At a minimum, it shifts the blame away from themselves.

To them, over-spiritualizing is ultimately about creating plausible deniability.

For example, the leader who prays people out of his organization can legitimately say that they didn’t fire the employee. They just “left on their own.” But I have a question for you, do you really think you can pray regularly that someone would leave your church and not have it influence your behaviour towards them? It’s unlikely in my opinion.

We like to over-spiritualize things because it helps us avoid taking responsibility for a situation. It can reach far beyond mere poor leadership – it can easily become spiritual abuse.

The ironic thing to me is that a parable was used to argue this case when Jesus used parables to denounce the over-spiritualization of the religious leaders.

It is true that when a challenging person leaves the church that in the chaos good people leave as well. But we don’t have the luxury of just taking any challenging situation and using a parable as an excuse to demonstrate good leadership.

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Worship – I think the antidote for over-spiritualizing things is to get back to what spirituality is all about – simply Jesus. Shane and Shane have a great album called “Vintage” that takes me back to the “Alleluia Hymnal” of the ’90s. “Knowing You” is a great, simple reminder of what our faith is about.