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Pentecost 10, 07/20/2008
Sermon on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, by Luke Bouman
Matthew 13:24He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; 25but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. 26So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 27And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?' 28He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.' The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?' 29But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 30Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'" ...36Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field." 37He answered, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; 38the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, 39and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, 42and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!
More Seeds and Sowers
How often we look, we children of God, at the parables of Jesus and see ourselves. That is, we see the selves that we want to be, that we wish we could be. We look at the parable of the Sower (last week) and we see ourselves as the good soil. We look at today's story of the wheat and the weeds and we see ourselves as the wheat. We shine up our halos and dust off our wings, ready to put them on as we are gathered into the safety and security of God's barn. We are ready for the kingdom. We see what we want as we look in the mirror.
But our eyes deceive us. Recently I was talking to a photographer and a graphic artist. I needed to consult with them about a picture that I wanted to have taken, a picture which showed something brilliant in the reflection of a window. It was a good idea, so I thought. But the photographer was more cautious. "Our eyes lie but the camera doesn't," he said. "Here," he continued as he showed me the pictures on the laptop computer. And, sure enough, he was right. The reflection was there, but so was a lot of stuff inside the window that I didn't see when my eyes were focused on the reflection alone.
So it is with my life. I see myself as "wheat" and indeterminate others as "weeds". I see what I want to see. My eyes deceive me. But it is easy, in my own little world as in the larger culture around me to see things this way. We point fingers so easily. We look on the outside and locate evil there. We fight the war on terror by lashing out at others rather than looking inside our own hearts and actions for signs of evil within. We paint those others black and ourselves white. We get about the business of suing others rather than taking responsibility for our own ineptness when something goes wrong. We see the world in black and white, and rarely in gray.
That's why I am afraid of what I will see when I first read this parable of Jesus. I am tempted to see only the surface, and so paint myself white and others black. Where is evil located? It is with an enemy that is far away and who has sown evil into my life in the form of the weeds that are others around me. My job, if you can call it a job, is to endure this present evil and bear my good wheat until such time as I am harvested into heaven while the weeds, the pernicious weeds around me, are cut down and burned for the useless life-sapping tares that they are. Good wheat, in this view of things, is in me, or in my group, or in my church or denomination, while the weeds are "out there." But what happens if I get an unfiltered look? What happens if my eyes see all that is there and not just what I want to see? My illusion of a worldview comes crashing down.
Wheat AND Weeds
What I see is that I am indeed wheat, but I am also weed. I am both, at the same time. Martin Luther, the reformer, had a way of understanding this. In Latin he said that we are "simul justus et peccator", at one and the same time both sinner and righteous. Others in a variety of disciplines have tried to capture this thought. The psychologist, Jung, talked about our personality having a "shadow" side which we must somehow learn to recognize and befriend. However you want to express it, this thought leaves us unable to escape the truth: we cannot locate "evil" as outside. We must see the "weeds" of this parable as something that is a part of us.
While on the one hand, this kind of honesty is good, on the other hand it brings up the same sort of questions for us as it did for the people of Jesus' day. Where does this evil come from? I don't want it to be a part of me, but I don't seem to be able to get rid of it. How could a good and gracious God allow such a thing to happen? And what is God going to do about it? These questions are addressed in this parable and in what follows in Matthew's Gospel, at least in part. The surprising answers are so far from our expectations that we might miss them, even when Jesus explains the parable. Only when we take the focus off of ourselves, wheat, weeds or combination, and look at what God is about will we find the answer.
Weeds That Resemble Wheat
As with last week's lesson of the extravagant sower who spreads seed everywhere, so we will discover some things about our situation if we look at the circumstances at work here, especially in who is active and who is passive in the story. The field does not choose the seed. Nor does the seed choose whether it is wheat or weeds. In fact, it is hard to tell the weeds and wheat apart and that is part of the problem. The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible identifies the word used for "weeds" here as zizonia. This is a type of weed that is often confused with wheat because it looks just like wheat as it grows. Only at the harvest time could you tell the difference.
We are so confident that we can identify "unrighteousness" in ourselves and others. This parable ought to sober us a bit. It is possible that what we think is "good" can turn out to be "evil." Only the angels seem to be able to sort it all out, and then only at the end of the age. After reading the passage I have come to understand that I may not be the best judge of what is "good" or "evil" either in myself or in others. So much even for the filtered sight I find in the mirror.
What then can we say? Does all "kingdom behavior" have to wait for the end of the age to be known? Surely Jesus does not suggest that we can't know and participate in the reign of God at least in part in the here and now, does he? For clues about this we turn back to the parable, but this time with an eye on the sower.
The Invested Sower
Just as in last week's lesson, when we look at the sower we discover some surprises. Last week we learned about the extravagant and even wasteful actions of a sower who spreads the seed (love, grace, the word) everywhere, even places where growth is unlikely. This week we learn of a sower who is committed, completely invested in his seed (his children) and their growth and future. The picture of God's reign is surprising.
Many a farmer, upon discovering the abundance of weeds sown in the field with the wheat, might have just plowed the whole mess under. Why bother to go through the trouble of raising weeds with the wheat, especially if the weeds and wheat look so much alike. Why not thwart the "enemy" and just start over. The answer is simple. John's Gospel puts it this way, "God so loved the world...." This God does not create out of whim or for productivity alone. Our God creates out of love and for love.
God loves us and will not see us destroyed simply because the goodness of creation has been overrun with evil. But God's way of addressing this is where the true surprise lies. God not only loves the world, God's creation. God enters. God enters the field, now not simply as sower, not only as lover, but also as part of the grain. God becomes wheat with us and for us, enduring the pain and suffering of the weeds. God doesn't stop there. God also endures the harvest. God goes through death with us in Jesus, and experiences the wrenching pain of sin, of weediness, even though God does not sow the weeds, in order to demonstrate what will happen to us at the harvest. We will not end, but we will be transformed.
Rehearsing Transformation
What stands between us and the end of our weed selves is nothing short of death and resurrection. God in Christ has promised that death will not be the end, or even a punishment for us. God has promised that it is a gateway to new life in God's reign. Some Christians insist that it is our job to separate ourselves from the "weeds" and create out of our separateness a "kingdom of righteousness" here on earth. As nice as this sounds, it doesn't quite square with Jesus' parable. We do not create the Kingdom, nor do we do the separation. We live in hope because we catch glimpses of God's reign, but it isn't the same thing as bringing it forth. We live in anticipation of that reign where we can, but it isn't the same as casting off our weedy nature. Only death and resurrection can get us to the end of this story.
But our anticipation, our glimpse of the future of God, already established, not yet fully real, is part of our experience of baptism. Again quoting Luther, "Baptism is a daily drowning to sin and rising to new life." Baptism is not, as some have assumed, an event that bring us into final righteousness. Baptism is an initiation into a family where we learn and grow and see life as we will some day live it. Baptism is the dress rehearsal for the transformation that is the harvest at the end of today's parable. Baptism leads us to glimpse what God is up to and experience God's love in such a way that we no longer live self-justifying lives that point fingers at others, and are free to live honestly as both wheat and weed. Baptism allows us not only to hope in the future, but also to live more faithfully in the present.
Thus we see in this parable, not only how sin, how evil are alive and well in the world and in us, but also the surprising and surpassing love and grace of God, who joins our weedy existence and transforms it by Jesus' very presence among us. This surprising God, this surprising kingdom, the surprising harvest, we meet with joy as those who are set free from bondage to live anew.