9th Sunday after Pentecost
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Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Rev. Gayle M. Highness
Wheat,
Weeds and What?
Yesterday
at our block party we had a magic show by
Bill
was able to fool us because what we saw with our eyes is not what our brain
told us to expect. Just one scarf went in there. How can it be that many scarves
come out in all different colors? Remember the robot on the TV sitcom, “Lost in
Space?” He was always saying, “This does not compute.”
We
are such logical, thinking persons. We want to make sense out of the world. We
are driven to find sensible answers to life’s questions. Our “inquiring minds”
want to know who, what, when, where, why and how.
That’s
what the slaves of the householder wanted to know in the parable Jesus told in
today’s gospel. All of a sudden they noticed that the master’s wheat field was
full of weeds! The weeds hadn’t been evident before – the slaves never noticed
them until the wheat had grown up and bore grain. And they were full of
questions.
“Master,”
they asked. “Did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these
weeds come from?” And we can imagine other questions: “How did they get there?
Who did this? When did it happen?”
The
master answered simply, “An enemy has done this.”
Well,
that was at least a partial explanation. But then came the next logical
question: What? “What are we going to do about this? These things don’t belong
here. Do you want us to get rid of them for you? Let’s make this right. Let’s
clean it up. We don’t want no stinkin’ weeds in with the wheat!”
But
the master replied, “No, leave them there. Let them both grow together. If you try to gather the weeds now, you would
uproot the wheat with them.”
The
slaves had the best of intentions, but the master said, “Just let it go. I will
take care of this at harvest time.”
It’s
not that they couldn’t tell the wheat from the weeds, but the two were so
intertwined, one could not be pulled, without pulling the other. And, in the
end, it wasn’t their job anyway.
It’s
like the trick
Later,
Jesus explained the parable to the disciples. The Son of Man – Jesus himself –
sowed the good seed. The devil sowed the weeds when everyone was asleep – in
secret – then he went away. The field is the whole world. The wheat that grew
from the good seed are children of the Kingdom.
The weeds are children of the evil one.
And
that’s just the way it is here on this earth. The
By
the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, God has made us children of the
Kingdom. We have received a “spirit of adoption,” Paul wrote in the reading
from Romans we heard today, “.When we cry out to God, ‘Abba, Father,’ it is the
very Spirit of God bearing witness with our Spirit that we are children of God.”
But
we’re like the polka dot hankie. Sin still clings to us. Our fruit bears
witness to the fact we are children of God, but our roots are bound up with
evil and Jesus is the only one who can save us from the fiery furnace that is
the destiny of weeds when it’s time for the harvest.
There’s
a theme of mystery and hiddenness in all these parables about the
Today’s
reading skipped some verses between the parable and its explanation. Two of
those verses, 34 and 35, read, “Jesus told the crowds all these things in
parables; without a parable he told them nothing. This was to fulfill what had
been spoken through the prophet: "I will open my mouth to speak in
parables; I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the
world."
After
Jesus explained the parable, which still actually leaves us with questions, he said,
“Let anyone with ears, listen.” Or in another translation, “He who has ears,
let him hear.”
What
do you hear in these readings today? We need to hear with our ears as children
of God – with the Spirit bearing witness within us.
Here
are some things I hear:
If
weeds represent the causes of sin and all evildoers, we certainly know that the
world is full of weeds. We see evil all
around us and we know we are capable of doing evil ourselves. We don’t like the
evil. We wonder, “Why is this here, God? It doesn’t belong. Why do bad things
happen to good people? Didn’t you create the world good? How can you allow this
evil? Should we get rid of it? Shouldn’t
we be trying to do something about it?”
And
then I hear in this text, God’s reply: “Peace, child. Patience. You are right.
The weeds are out of place in my field. They are out of place in your heart,
too. But we’re going to let them be for now. Your job here on earth is to grow
and bear grain. Let yourself be watered and fertilized by my Word and grow in grace
and wisdom.
“When
you bear fruit, the weeds will be visible for what they are by contrast. Your
fruit will be a sign of my good seed – a sign of the presence of my kingdom in
the field of the world. The evil will perish at the last. Trust me for that.
You will shine with me like the sun. All
will be well.”
Paul
writes, “We ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly
while we wait for adoption – the redemption of our bodies.” Our souls – our spirits – are saved already by
God’s grace through faith in Christ. We belong to the
But
we still dwell bodily in the world, surrounded and corrupted by sin, oppressed
by evil from within and without. We know something is wrong and we groan and
stew.
We
cannot see the Kingdom with our physical eyes and ears, but we know by the
Spirit of God within us that it is here.
So even though we suffer and we see others suffer, we live in the hope
of the resurrection when everything evil will be burned away and those who have
been made righteous by the blood of our Lord Jesus will see God face to face
and dwell with God in glory, shining like the sun.
In
the meantime, though, we wait. We trust. We are watered with the Holy Spirit as
we hear the Word of God in Scripture, as we receive the body and blood of our
Lord in Holy Communion, as we pray and as we give and receive the love of God
in fellowship with one another. And in doing all these things, we bear fruit or
grain. That’s our job.
May
the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus. Amen.