Keith E. JonesJuly 20, 2008 Genesis 28.10-22; Matthew 13.24-30Weed with Care
1. Last time I visited this gospel scripture was 9 years ago, I took it at face value. It says to be careful how you weed so mostly leave it to God. Well, if I left my home garden for God to weed, you would see nothing else. So as I have been working in my garden, I have been thinking what was going on in Matthew’s story and started to do a bit of detective work. Certainly, the Parable of the Weeds or of the Wheat and Tares is another Kingdom parable, which segues nicely from last week's Parable of the Sower. That is, God does plant seed and yes, it is all good seed. But heaven knows that God has enemies just look at the news at 11! So should we pull up the weeds Lord?"
2.
We want to know. But maybe we can get some insights from God’s
relationship with Jacob. If you or I had to judge “weedy” Jacob, we
would find him wanting. He cheats his brother, lies to his father and
has to run for his life, but God sees something special about him! Go
figure! Maybe there’s hope for us. Everybody knows about Jacob’s dream
ladder. It is easy to get caught up in that imagery and miss other
important points. For example, there are the repetitions in God’s
speech of the covenants made previously with Abraham and Isaac, then,
God says, "Remember, I am with you. I will protect you wherever you go."
God watched his back when he later encountered his angry brother Esau.
Will not God protect us esp. in Jesus Christ? That is good news.
3.
God doesn’t weed us out. God welcomes us! God is “with
us...wherever we go.” Do we feel it, think and respond as Jacob did?
"Surely the LORD is present in this place, and I did not know it!" Jacob
was so keenly sensitive to God's presence that he was “shaken” and
exclaimed, "How awesome is this place! You mean First Church & Old
Saybrook is none other than the abode of God?" God is “wherever
you go” just as Psalm 139 says. When Jacob went to sleep, he thought he
was just camping out under the stars. When he woke up, he found he was
in a holy place. Without knowing it, he had camped out at the same
place where twice Abraham had set up an altar to worship God. Bethel
was a place where Jacob & family would return to worship the one, true
God.
4.
We hope that in some sense it our Church is a holy place. We
pray that this is a beginning place for the Kingdom of God, a place of
God’s welcome. If Jacob the shyster is “worthy” of carrying the
blessing of God, it shows us that our rules for "deserving" are not
God’s. Thus, we can carry God’s blessing,too.
5.
Yes, welcoming is hard. It takes an open and positive attitude.
Things like grudges are like the weeds that crowd out the word. Didn't
Jesus say (in Matt. 18:15ff) if we had a disagreement, we should leave
our gift at the altar, go to the person, and seek resolution, before
returning to worship? And we can’t be grouchy with God either for not
answering our prayers as we would wish. Like Jacob we may seek to
scheme & bargain with God. We will be faithful, we say until we get
through our immediate troubles. Like Jacob we don’t suddenly change
overnight. After all, haven’t we seen weeds and wheat within
ourselves? Sounds a lot like Paul, “the good that I would do, I do
not!”
6.
Yet we are always itching to pull weeds. The parable says be
careful. God seems to say, "My enemies will always be there, but they
need not effect you. The Kingdom is within us and beyond us. You don't
need to be concerned very much with the weeds in the garden. Just worry
about the good seed that I planted. Help me with that harvest. Let go.
I'll take care of my enemies.” So what garden is that?
7.
Jesus is talking about the land of Israel that he was first sent
to save. He is speaking of the end of time, which he expected was going
to happen shortly after his resurrection. Matthew tacks on an
explanation that he says is from Jesus, but sounds more like Matthew.
It focuses on the church since the end of time had not come. Scholars
say that the explanation is Matthew’s, because it misinterprets & uses
words and phrases that were not in use in Jesus’ time. The parable has
been refocused so that the point of this story is the prohibition
against human attempts to purify the Church by rooting out heretics. St.
Paul likewise forbids "pronouncing judgment before the time" (1 Cor.
4.5). So again, we independent-minded Congregationalists should be
careful. 8. Sometimes it’s challenging to explain to children some of these parables, so I don’t envy Rae’s task. Take the story of the Good Samaritan. A Sunday school teacher was telling her class the story, in which a man was beaten, robbed and left for dead. She described the situation in vivid detail so her students would catch the drama. Then, she asked the class, "If you saw a person lying on the roadside, all wounded and bleeding, what would you do? A thoughtful & honest little girl broke the silence. "I think I'd throw up!"
9.
Anyway, we don’t want to be judgmental. Who but God has 100%
discernment? In Israel there is a weed called darnel that is known as
“false wheat.” It is harvested with the grain and used as a heating
fuel is a land where wood is scarce. But I wonder if non-judgment is
the end of the story.
10.
Let’ remember that Matthew is the discipline manual of the New
Testament. What do I mean? It is in Matthew Ch. 16 that Peter receives
the Keys to the Kingdom to build Christ’s church bind and lose on
earth. Our Roman friends quote that passage. And Matthew Ch. 18,
starting at vs. 15 sounds like court proceedings and ends with “for
where two or three are gathered in my name I am there among them.” So
here comes the judge. That’s where we at FCC obtain our mandate to
rule by the vote of the congregation. So we can ask FCC people to be
involved or committed in tangible ways as they are “able.”
11.
That’s not always easy to figure out. Two children where talking
after Sunday School class while waiting for services to begin in the
sanctuary. "The teacher told us that we are all brothers and sisters,"
one of the children lamented. "I don't know what she meant." "Well,"
said the other child, "Everyone who attends our church are our brothers
and sisters in Christ. Everyone who attends other churches are our
brothers and sisters in Christ." The first child looked even more
puzzled. "What about the people who only come to church
once-in-awhile?" "We'll they're sort of like our cousins in Christ."
12.
Again, Psalm 139 reminds us that God truly knows us, yet God
loves us. God just wants us to face up to facts: our thoughts and ways
are not so pure and righteous as we would wish and pretend. God is
looking for honesty with ourselves and integrity: a humble walk.
Second, the corrective to our ‘wicked ways’ is the call in the Psalm for
the Spirit's guidance; not for everlasting punishment, but for grace.
13.
So honesty with ourselves and our God is the best corrective
against going out and casually weeding our community or our
congregation. God deals with us and uses us with our hesitant faith,
just as we are just as He did with Jacob. For in light of it all --
Jacob is still chosen by God despite and in spite of himself, if only
because he had a capacity for awe and for recognizing God and
worshipping. That Jacob will be less than perfect doesn't seem to
matter. 14. This Parable calls us to be compassionate. If God forgives the weeds in our life, then we must surely come to look at each other and the weeds in others’ lives differently. There's the story about the church school class where the teacher asked, "If all the bad people were painted red, and all the good people were painted green, what color would you be?" A wise child exclaimed, "Striped!" Finally, this Parable really calls for us to trust. Can we really trust God to deal with the weeds in our lives and in the lives of others with firmness and grace? For the Christian the answer is an emphatic yes!
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