Hanlon's razor: 'never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.' In other words, don't assign enemy status to someone who just made a dumb mistake. But why would Hanlon think to say this? Something about our own insecurities leads us to see enemies where there are none - simply an error in judgment or a different point of view. (And it's common enough for Hanlon to feel the need to label it!) A child's mess, a co-worker's forgetfulness, even heavy traffic... does not make them my enemy. And so we learn to talk ourselves out of that tendency. But what happens when a real enemy does show up? How would we know the difference? In this week's parable, Jesus does not mince words. There is a real enemy, and his work is evident. Weeds have been sown among the wheat, and you can't just yank up the weeds or you'll lose the wheat too. So how do we recognize our true enemy? And how do we deal with it? Let's talk about the reality of evil in our daily lives: "An Enemy Did This" (Mt.13:24-30,36-43).
