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“Wheat and Weeds”
Matthew 13:24-30
July 20, 2008
Jesus put before them another parable: The Kingdom of heaven could be compared to a farmer who sowed good seed in the field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, the weeds appeared as well. And the farmhands came to the farmer said, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did all of these weeds come from? The farmer answered, “An enemy has done this.’ The farmhands said, ‘Well, do you want us to go and dig them up?’ But the farmer replied, ‘No. For in digging up the weeds you would uproot the wheat as well. No, Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the harvesters, ‘Go. Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!
Something Small and Simple
This week marks the one year anniversary of my family’s move from the slow desert town of Florence, AZ to a hoppin’ Midwestern town called Beulah, about which I knew virtually nothing at the time. One full year. Time does fly when you’re having fun. I remember Kyle and I preaching our first service that first Sunday in August 07. In fact—talk about a coincidence-- I preached the GA text which Eldon just read of Jacob and his ladder. I won’t ask how many remember that sermon from 12 months ago!
Our moving van hadn’t arrived yet and so we were wearing one of about four outfits we had, camping out at the condo we would rent, and hoping that that first week might be slow. We thought we might stay out of dodge. Little did we know! The sanctuary was filled, and people were buzzing around like bees, telling us about the hosts of activities and concerts and fundraisers in which everyone was involved. Someone said: Shelaine, you just wait till next year when you do a whole summer. Then you’ll really know what tired is. We’re about halfway through the summer now, and I think she may just have a point.
To recap, just over the last few weeks, just here at St. Andrews, we’ve had: 2 weddings, a pontoon party, a kayak party, a cookbook project, major roof repairs, a Concert on the Hill, our first Open Forum, a Celtic Spirituality event, a Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan, and now we’re cranking up for our Celebrate Mission next week, the beginning of the ‘08 Stewardship Campaign, and plans to host a peacemaker from Romania! Fairly impressive.
But here’s something else I’ve observed about MI folks. Raise your hand if this summer you will have hosted family members in your house…will be hosted by family…or will have taken a trip with family. We’re a pretty mobile congregation. And it’s wonderful.
And it’s exhausting.
At the same time, many of us have friends undergoing surgery, hearing difficult diagnoses. Others attended the funeral last week for a well-known police officer. And for the 2nd time in just five months, when we heard the shocking news of Ronnie Lewis’s unexpected death, our St. Andrews family lost a beloved founding member.
It’s no wonder that when I watch people in committee meetings, their eyes are a bit droopy. When I talk on the phone, I hear yawns. And for me, as I rush about between church and home and our renovation which many of you have visited, I must be dragging. Someone asked me last week, “Shelaine, is that a gray streak or is that paint in your hair?” I checked…and I think it was both! And all that is to say that many of us are feeling a bit tired.
In my pre-summer sermon planning I had bold hopes for us this morning with Matthew 13. Believe it or not, we were going to take on the very existence of evil-and we were going to tackle it this morning. Boy, it was going to be profound. Gonna knock our socks off!
But now that we’re all here together, I’m not sure we want our socks knocked off. Perhaps more than profound, what we weary summer warriors could use is something simple. Something small, and solid, on which to hang during this wild roller-coaster of a season.
And as I re-read our text, as if God knew better than I, something simple is just what Jesus gives us. Something simple, like the men and women to whom Jesus first told this simple strange story. A story which went something like this…
Once upon a time there was a farmer, Jesus says and the peoples’ ears perk up. Many of them were farmers too. There was a farmer who sowed good seed in the field. But while everyone was asleep, an enemy snuck in and sowed weeds. And when the time came for the wheat to grow, up popped weeds all over the place. Not just clustered here and there, but in and through and everywhere!
And I can see the crowd listening to Jesus, wondering what the farmer was going to do to that low-down scoundrel who would dare ruin his neighbor’s crops! So the farmhands come up to the farmer: Didn’t you plant good wheat here? We thought so! So where did all these Weeds come from? And the farmer, as if he’d known all along, said, An enemy has done this. An enemy?
Here’s where the story gets really interesting for those listening in. See, they lived in a culture where families passed down friendships and tribal enemies from generation to generation, just as they passed down family land. Farmers were quite particular in how they treated the land. For one, they wanted to get the biggest harvest they could; they wanted to prosper. But secondly, for the sake of their children’s prosperity, they had to maintain the family’s reputation as good farmers. So an enemy sneaking into your field with weeds was hardly a harmless prank. It was an attack on your children’s very livelihood!
Well, Jesus goes on. The farmhands think a minute and reply to the farmer. Do you want us to go dig up all those ugly weeds out there? Want us to clean up this field till it’s only good wheat again? Surly that’s what the farmer would want. Any gardener knows you’ve got to stay on top of the weeds or they’ll get out of hand! The men and women standing around knew that too, which is why their eyes bulged when they heard the rest of the story.
For the farmer looked at the farmhands and said simply but clearly: No. Let the wheat and the weeds grow there together, for in digging up the weeds you will dig up my wheat as well. No, leave them there until harvest comes, when I will tell the reapers to go and collect and bind all the weeds into bundles for the burning, and all the good wheat that is left, blowing free in the breeze at last, will be taken to my own barn. And that’s all Jesus said. That’s the end of the story!
And I wonder what those simple people listening in thought. The farmer in the story was nothing like the farmers they knew. Bypassing weeds and ignoring enemies was a logic they thought, at best, dubious. They knew quickly this story wasn’t just any old story about any old farmer. But what was it about?
Weeds and Wheat
Well, I’d like to suggest that there’s no one right answer for that question. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus eventually sits down with the crowd again to explain what he thinks it means, which is quite a profound eschatological lesson.
But Jesus doesn’t offer those ideas until later. The crowd hears this wonderful wheat and weeds story and, for the time being, they’re left alone to figure it out on their own. So I decided to join them this week, to walk in their shoes, to watch with them for signs of wheat or weeds on the horizon.
And I’ll tell you the truth. There was no need for me to search them out. Over and over again I found myself simply surrounded! I’ll share two stories.
I recently had the honor of presiding at a wedding here with a young couple I had grown to really care for. Both bright eyed, open hearted, faithful people who, when they looked at one another, were simply convinced that together anything was possible. And when I stood here with them, in his tux and her long flowing gown, and heard them speak their solemn vows with tears in their eyes and shaking with joy, I thought my heart would just burst at such wondrous good wheat. What flowing fields of possibility, of beauty, hope. If ever two people deserved happiness, surely it was these. I watched them walk out holding hands, their first steps as husband and wife, and I imagined two stalks of wheat blowing in the wind together.
Less than an hour later, as I signed the wedding certificates with them, they shared that just a few days prior they had lost the house he’d been working on for years, to the bank in foreclosure. Now were facing serious financial repercussions. Only married a few minutes, there were already challenges lying ahead.
And like the farmhands in the story, I felt like scratching my head and saying, “Where then did all these weeds come from?” Wheat and weeds--not here and there--but in and through and everywhere.
Last Sunday was one of the best Sundays I’ve experienced thus far at St. Andrews. Gathering together outside for the Kirkin’ was awesome: the wind whipping about; the tent full of visitors; old friends; Ernie’s bagpipe lesson; the tartans brought forward; the blessing of families; the harp and pipes and drums. It was so good, like some magnificent field of golden wheat shining in the sun.
Yet from my seat up front, even as I watched the congregation, my eyes kept rising to Ronnie’ blue house, up on her lovely hill. And I’ll tell you, even as the children laughed and squealed, I could hear her voice whispering. And even as the bagpipes thundered and filled us with joy, so many of our hearts were grieving.
And like the farmhands we wondered, “Where did all these weeds come from?” Weeds and wheat--not here and there-- but in and through and everywhere, growing together in this garden of life.
And those are just two small stories I noticed lately, no more important than the stories you hold in your heart and minds this morning, stories of wheat and weeds all wound up together in your life, your church, your children, your community.
It’s rarely just one, is it? Rarely just good or just bad, just joy or sorrow, just trust or worry, rarely just wheat alone or weeds. Life, it seems, is a bit more mixed up than that.
Four Words To Hang On
And certainly so during these exciting exhausting months of MI summer, when we find ourselves thrown into the mixed-up garden of traveling, hosting, volunteering, playing, weddings, funerals, Kirkings and everything in-between. Perhaps we do need something simple and small to cling to till this roller coaster slows down.
So here it is, in four simple words: God is with us.
Today and yesterday and for every single tomorrow: you are not alone. Even as the Kingdom dawns around us, this mortal life is still a mixed bag. Good days and bad, busy days and slow, and mostly days all mixed up with weeds and wheat. And the good news is that is that the Farmer who planted this garden to begin with, the God who loves us too much to ever uproot us, has been with us through it all!
Through the days of wheat which fill us with joy and hope, God is with us.
Through the days tangled with weeds which leave us empty and anxious, God is with us.
On the days we baptize infants and celebrate new wedding vows, God is with us.
On the days we gather to scatter the ashes of our beloved friends, God is with us.
And though this story is simple, the promises of God are profound. For God promises that one day
—when God’s kingdom has come, and God is finally all in all, God the Farmer promises that those weeds, those insidious strangling weeds will finally be dug up for good. And sin and evil and death itself will finally be bound in bundles, and used as the fuel that keeps us warm as we gather in God’s presence together.
I end with the words of the Heidelberg Catechism, which was discussed at length at our ‘08 General Assembly, and used as our Affirmation of Faith today. Wherever we’re standing in the garden right now, whether in the midst of golden wheat, or tripping on the snagging weeds of life, or probably a little of both, may we hear these 16th c. words anew.
What is your only comfort in life and in death?
That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—
not to myself but to my faithful savior, Jesus Christ,
who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins
and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil;
that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven,
no one hair can fall from my head;
indeed that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation.
Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life,
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. Amen.
Copyright 2008 Rev. Shelaine R. Bird