Göttinger Predigten

Choose your language:

Startseite

Aktuelle Predigten

Archiv

Besondere Gelegenheiten

Suche

Links

Konzeption

Unsere Autoren weltweit

Kontakt
ISSN 2195-3171

5. Sunday after Pentecost , 07/17/2011

Sermon on Matthew 13:24-43, by Samuel D. Zumwalt

²⁴He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, ²⁵but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. ²⁶So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. ²⁷And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?' ²⁸He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' ²⁹But he said, 'No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. ³⁰Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'" ³¹He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. ³²It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." ³³He told them another parable. "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened." ³⁴ All these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable. ³⁵This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: "I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world." ³⁶Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to 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 is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, ³⁹and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. ⁴⁰Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, ⁴² and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

GOD'S KINGDOM COMES SURPRISINGLY

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The surprise is not that evil is real or even that we are not immune to it. The surprise is what God does about evil.

Now, frankly speaking, coming of age is about progressively shedding our naiveté. Godly parents can warn their children incessantly about evil...usually with stories about all the terrible things they have seen. But we cannot learn what evil is in more than an academic sense until we have been attacked and afflicted by it.

A childhood friend's parents decided, when their biological children were well into their teens, to adopt a little boy who, along with his siblings, had been taken by the state from a mother who was a prostitute. My friend said, "At seven, he has already seen more and knows more than I do!" Her point was clear. We certainly knew from Sunday school what a prostitute was. Her little brother knew a prostitute and had experienced firsthand what her life was like. And, the point that escaped us then was, he also knew who her customers were! Did we know any of the men who visited his mother? Did we go to church with any of them? Were any of our classmates the children of those men?

Tom Clancy's new book, "Against All Enemies," explores the link between Islamic terrorists and a Mexican drug cartel. In Clancy's novel, the leader of the most powerful and violent drug cartel, unknown to the world and even to his own son, is the richest man in Mexico. His public face is that of a hugely successful businessman philanthropically giving back to the country that has made him wealthy. But privately he ruthlessly and relentlessly rules a kingdom that is only made possible by destroying lives with illegal drugs. Like the children of convicted criminal masterminds, his own son must slowly come face to face with the truth about how he got his privileged lifestyle.

The surprise is not that evil is real, but it is often a surprise to us as we are coming of age that those we love are not immune to it. And it is often a bigger surprise to discover just how willing we ourselves are to making compromises with evil. This, too, is part of the loss of our naiveté. No one wakes up one day and decides to do something obviously wrong much less something monstrous. On a larger scale, I doubt that Bernie Madoff decided as a small child that he would grow up to swindle people out of billions of dollars and, along the way, wreck many lives. I doubt that, as a small child, Hitler or Stalin decided that they would try to rule the world, and, along the way, seduce many followers into killing millions of people. I doubt that Mohammed set out to create a religion that would sanction selling people into slavery and be embraced by people who, in the name of God, would do unspeakable acts of terror as a religious duty.

And on a much more uncomfortable scale, I doubt that any man or woman woke up this morning and decided to be a bigot, an adulterer, a drug dealer, a thief, or even a murderer. Doubtless the bad seed was sown through evil done by a parent or someone influential. Perhaps it was a repeated warping of an impressionable mind through stories told by an adult, by acts of evil done to a child, or even by exposing a child to something as insidious as pornography. Perhaps the child was taught more by lifestyle than by what was said. Perhaps the child learned by example or by firsthand experience how not to be empathetic with the vulnerable, the wounded, or the weak. No, someone did not just wake up this morning and decide to do evil. There was a progressive shedding of naiveté and a progress embracing of what ought never to be done to others and to oneself.

Has the Church that bears Christ's name been implicated in the spreading of evil? We know too well our most shameful moments on the grand scale. But how many of our so-called lesser evils have been a significant part of spreading the bad seed to these little ones? Several years ago it dawned on me that the first remark God may well say to each of us pastors when we stand to give an account of our lives is: "You said what!?" Of course, that was a reflection on James' admonition: "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers (or sisters), for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness" (3:1). Today, the Lord Jesus says, God alone will judge evil - the grand evil done by others and the lesser known evil done by us! God alone will do evil in.

So, then, if we are not to try to eradicate the evil we discern (literally to pull it up by the roots) for fear of doing greater damage, then what?

WHAT GOD DOES?

As we have lost our naiveté regarding the pernicious presence and nature of evil, many of us have said we are putting together a list of whys to present to God. Are we like Woody Allen's character in his spoof of Russian literature "Love and Death," wanting to accuse God of being an underachiever?

Reading Job has never been the solution, after all God's answer to Job is: "I'm God, and you're not!" Rather, in the words of Douglas John Hall, the Bible doesn't tell us why we suffer but instead what God does about it ("God and Human Suffering).

God's Son Jesus becomes the Good Seed sown in the field of God's world. He lives a life of total obedience to His heavenly Father even unto death on a cross for the sins of the world. That's what God does about evil. God suffers in human flesh to take away the sin of the world. He lets evil do its worst, and then He kicks down the door of hell and sets the prisoners free! Thereafter, the gates of hell shall not prevail against God's holy people, who are baptized into His death and resurrection!

Baptism is how the Good Seed Jesus is sown into our lives through no effort or merit of our own. After all, monergistically speaking, what field ever prepared itself or asked the sower to sow it? The Eucharist is His faithful re-sowing of the Good Seed as we come, beggars every one of us, no longer naïve to the evil around us or the evil in us. For Christ's sake, we are forgiven and set free to be leavened by the One who brings the kingdom to us in Word and Sacrament.

Yes, we are both saints and sinners, marked with the cross of Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit and, at the same time, dwelling in mortal bodies that are prone to wander like the first parents that began this earthly rebellion. For this reason, Luther says our whole life is lived under God's call to repentance. The wages of sin is still death. We live under God's judgment that also progressively dispossesses us of the foolish idea that evil is something we can by our own efforts eradicate!

KIDS OF THE KINGDOM

Back in the early 90s, I loved serving St. Matthew's in Waco TX. When we started a midweek afterschool program for elementary kids, we held a naming contest. The winner by popular acclaim was the one who suggested naming the program after one of their favorite songs: "Kids of the Kingdom...that's what we are." The chorus was: "We love Jesus!" And the kids sang it out at the top of their lungs. It was precious to hear.

Having had Jesus the Good Seed sown into our lives through the washing of Holy Baptism, we can never ever be completely hoodwinked by the wicked old thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10). Yes, he won't quit trying to sew bad seed in our hearts and minds. Yes, he won't stop trying to dishearten us when evil is done to us or when we discover again that we haven't plumbed the depths of our naiveté. It does break our heart when somebody we admire fails miserably to practice what he or she preaches. It does break our heart when we discover the truth about ourselves that we, too, are not the people God created us to be...and we often willingly are led into temptation. But, as Jesus clearly warns, discipline meted out by all too willing judges can miss the point that the judges themselves stand under the same judgment!

Jesus is God's answer to the unholy trio - sin, death, and Satan. And so the Kids of the Kingdom (that's what we are) turn again and again with empty hands to the only One who can do something about the evil in us and others. As someone once wrote, grace is getting what we don't deserve, and mercy is not getting what we do deserve. We love Jesus, because, for His sake, God forgives us sinners who do the very evil that God hates. We love Jesus, because, when we breathe our last, God will cover all the baptized with the white robe of Christ's righteousness (why many churches cover a casket or urn with a white pall and even sprinkle the vessel with water in remembrance of Baptism).

In the interim, Kids of the Kingdom are called to remember Paul's many pastoral admonitions...like not willfully joining Christ's members to sinful acts...for it is now no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us. When we fail, as we repeatedly do, we confess our sin and ask for what we do not deserve - the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. All of which God does, because He loves us more than His own life.

In the interim, Kids of the Kingdom can immerse ourselves in Word and Sacrament, in accountable friendships (for instance, the Society of the Holy Trinity) where we can be strengthened in our new life in Christ and where we can encourage one another to "yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin."

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.