Sunday, July 23, 2023

The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

The Rev. Francene Young

In a sermon by King Duncan, the principal writer of Dynamic Preaching magazine, he shares his Murphy’s First Law of Gardening: It goes like this “When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.

And, of course, there is a corollary to that law: To distinguish flowers from weeds, simply pull up everything. What grows back is weeds.(1)

Last week the gospel lesson from Matthew was about the Sower, the seed and the different types of soil upon which the seeds fall and how the seed grows or not, based upon the type of soil it lands on. We learned that different kinds of soil produce differing levels of results.

He tells the people on the shore as he told stories in parables. Listen! A Sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up.

Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away.

Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.

Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

l left the service last week feeling relieved that 25% of the seed sown by our generous creator is likely to fall on GOOD SOIL AND MULTIPLY BY LEAPS AND BOUNDS. Amen, Hallelujah! Let Sow’s, Let God do the rest!

But wait…the parables continue and today we read the someone has come in and planted weeds among the seeds in the good soil! What? Weeds in the good soil among the good seed? What? Jesus throws us a curve ball!

Today we are confronted with the question: what do you do with the weeds?

Going back to our garden, we know, those who have ever tried to plant a flower garden, or a vegetable garden or even a plain ordinary lawn, the weeds are going to come.

So listen to Jesus’ parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

If you take this literally, this is a scary parable. The weeds are going to be thrown on a fire and burned.

But Jesus isn’t actually giving us a guide to growing good wheat, of course. He’s talking about our human behavior.

We’re told that the weeds in Jesus’ parable were a poisonous variety called “bearded darnel.” In the early stages of growth this bearded darnel so closely resembles wheat that it is not possible to distinguish one from the other. Later when it is possible to distinguish between them, the roots of the wheat and weeds are so intertwined that one could not be pulled without also tearing up the other. To rip up the weeds would also be to destroy the growth of the wheat. It is said that even Roman law prohibited the sowing of darnel among wheat of the enemy.

So the landowner was being wise when he said, “No . . . let both grow together until the harvest.” The harvesters were not allowed to try to separate the weeds from the wheat until the final harvest.

Then I wonder, what is the field or where is the field where the weeds are planted become intermingled with the wheat?

Many commentors focus on the church as the field intermixed with wheat and weed. They reflect on the conflicts within almost every church. At times, I found myself saying “When 2 or 3 are Gathered, OH MY GOD! ”

But I prefer to focus on you and me; the individuals that make up the church and our individual fields of good soil into which some weeds have sprouted.

In an article by TALITHA J. ARNOLD in Feasting on the Word, she states

“Sometimes our own lives resemble the farmer’s infested field, with weeds and wheat intertwined in our souls, hearts, and minds. The apostle Paul certainly knows it: “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Rom. 7:15).

Members of AA or Alanon acknowledge this. The First Step confesses, “We are powerless over alcohol and our lives have become unmanageable.” The Fourth Step is to “Make fearless moral inventory of ourselves,” sorting out the wheat from the weeds within. (2)

Our personal experience of the enemy’s sowing may be more subtle, as in the countless distractions we let derail us from the Word and work of God. For me those looks like endless E-mails, phone calls, and meetings can make it look as if I am working on the realm of God, but in many cases they are simply symptoms of my own divided soul. It is the struggle between knowing and doing what I ought to do; but doing something else that I ought not or that simply distracts me.

At the same time, in this parable Jesus clearly cautions against a rush to judgment. We cannot always tell initially what is a good plant and what a weed. They are two closely intertwined.

What is dangerous for us, is spending time and energy trying to figure out what other people are going to reap.

Some people, I’m sorry to say, delight in separating people into acceptable or unacceptable, worthy or unworthy, good or bad, wheat or weeds.

Now what does that mean for us? A constant theme in Jesus’ teaching is that his followers were not to pass judgment on others. But wait for the harvest. One of my weeds, is that I do not have God’s patience. Do you?

Before my grandmother died at the age of 102, we had weekly calls. She lived in a long-term facility. Needless to say she was full of wisdom and advice. Now my grandmother was no saint. That is not a judgment. It is a fact that she admitted.

During one of my last calls with her, I asked how she was doing and how she was spending her time. She said and I quote

” I spend half of my time, to myself, reflecting on my life and minding my own business and asking for God’s forgiveness. I spend the other half of the time, staying out of other people’s business. Judge lest ye be judged.”

Writer Kent Crockett tells about a married couple who pulled into a full service gas station to refuel their car. As the tank was being filled, the station attendant washed the windshield. So you know this must have been sometime ago. Anyway, when the attendant finished, the husband stuck his head out the window and said, “It’s still dirty. Wash it again.”

“Yes, sir,” the attendant replied. After he cleaned it a second time, the husband said, “Don’t you know how to wash a windshield? It’s still filthy. Now do it again!”

The attendant scrubbed the windshield a third time, carefully looking for any messy spots he might have missed. By now the husband was fuming. “I can’t believe you are so incompetent that you can’t even do a simple job like cleaning a windshield! I’m going to report you to your boss!”

Just then, his wife reached over and removed her husband’s glasses. She wiped them clean with a tissue, then put them back on his face. And it was amazing how clean the windshield was! (3)

We forget that when we judge others, we are looking through our own smudged lens. Sometimes we criticize others unfairly. We don’t know all their circumstances, or their motives. Only God, who is aware of all the facts and is able to judge people rightly.

I will close with a reframing of my grandmother’s comments during our call.

“I spend half of my time tending to my own wheat and weeds and the other half not passing judgment as you tend to yours.”

In the meantime, we are to focus on what God has called us to do which is to care for all his people and to witness to his amazing grace of as shown in Jesus Christ. AMEN!

1. Alexander Humez, Nicholas Humez and Joseph Maguire, Zero to Lazy Eight (Simon & Schuster), Reader’s Digest, Dec. 1994, p. 154. 2. Philip Yancey in What’s So Amazing About Grace? Leadership, Vol. 19, no. 3. Cited by Rev. Adrian Dieleman. http://www.trinitycrc.org/sermons/1tim2v05-06.html. 3. http://www.kentcrockett.blogspot.com/.