Sermon - Matthew 13:24-30,36-43 - Pentecost 8

We're in the green season of the church, and the parables are showing it. Last week we heard the parable of the sower – about how the Word of God is spread to all sorts of different “ground”, and received or not received by various people. Some reject, some believe and then fall away, and some receive it and produce a great harvest. By the grace of God alone we count ourselves as part of that harvest, and pray the seed we spread will find more good soil. 

 
Today another agricultural parable about seeds – and this time the point is different. This time more attention is given to the weeds. Again, Jesus decodes the parable for us, he tells us who all the elements represent. And the parable helps to explain to us why things are the way they are in his kingdom. And the parable gives us hope that Christ will sort it out in the end. So let's look at it more closely... 
 
Why so many weeds? I often wonder that when mowing my lawn, or tending the garden. I understand the dandelion is an invasive species that came over from Europe – so maybe we can blame it on them. Or maybe I can look into a neighbor's yard and see the unwanted invaders creeping over into mine. It seems like every year I reach a certain point when I finally just give up and let the weeds go.  It’s too hot out these days anyway. 

But what if someone was sneaking into my yard and actually, purposefully, planting them there at night? That's the ridiculous scenario Jesus paints in his parable. It's laughable, but it's true. It's not just an accident of nature that there are weeds in my field. There's an enemy. And he's out to make my life miserable. 
 
Your life is the same. There is someone out to get you. Someone who doesn't like that you belong to Christ. Someone who can't have you, so wants to make your life bitter and painful. Oh he would uproot you and choke away your faith if he could. His misery loves company. But since he can't, he'll settle for what misery he can get for you. He is the old evil foe who seeks to do us deadly woe. 
 
I don't say this to make you paranoid. Nor did Jesus. Nor did St. Paul, when he said, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood”. No, we contend with the spiritual forces of evil. Sin, death and the devil – spreading their seeds of weeds into your life. So the pain may be physical, but the danger is spiritual. 
 
And we look around and are amazed. There's so many weeds around us. But then maybe we wonder, why doesn't God just spray the lawn? Why doesn't he just make sure all the bad people get what's coming to them? And why doesn't he get rid of all the trouble and hardship? Why doesn't he take away my bad memories? Why won't he make my boss treat me nicer? Where's that job I've been praying for? Why won't the cancer treatments work? When will I get over the death of my spouse? Why is it so hard to get out of bed each day? Why doesn't he just stop all evil right now? 
 
Life is short and full of misery. Man is like a flower of the field that comes up one day and is cut down the next. And to make it worse, there's all these weeds around and about. Yes, even in the church, in the kingdom of God. 
 
Maybe you'd think that here, at church, would be a haven from weeds. That the people here would always get along and treat our neighbors with love. But we don't. You'd think that only the true believers would hang around, get involved and run the place. But you never know. Sometimes the weeds grow right alongside the good plants. And the thing is – you can't even tell them apart! Only the farmer can. 
 
What's worse is that we all have quite a bit of weed in us. And really what is a weed, anyway, but a plant that you don't want? That which is undesirable. It's an apt metaphor for sin. There is much in us that we don't want. We do the evil we hate, and not the good we desire. Until that final day, the weeds are so close to us, they adhere to us, they are in this sinful nature that constantly struggles against the Spirit. 
 
There is much in us that God doesn't want – and can't stand. He hates sins, and will have no part of it. In the end he takes the sinners - the weeds - and throws them into the fire. 
 
But we are not cast away. Instead, he changes us. He forgives the weed out of us. He washes the sin away from us. He plants the good seed in us, the seed of his word, the seed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He waters us in Holy Baptism. He feeds us with Holy Communion. And by his Spirit he grows us and makes us fruitful. We're a changed plant. We are ready for the harvest. 
 
So the new creation begins with us, even now. Jesus Christ dies on the tree of the cross to save us from the pile of weeds to be burned. He endured the fire of God's wrath for all. And his life reclaimed is our life restored. We will never be uprooted, when we are rooted in him. We are grafted into the true vine, who always sustains us. 
 
But there are still weeds. There are those who reject Christ, and persecute his people. Troublemakers and evildoers, yes, even appearing in the midst of the church. Sons of the evil one. God will deal with them when the time is right. And yes, there are the devil and all the spiritual forces of evil. And these too will receive what is coming to them. When we feel the injustice of it all, when we wonder why the wicked prosper while the child of God suffers. Remember this parable. The farmer has a reason. 
 
In the parable, the farmer planned to separate the harvest from the weeds at the end, so as not to accidentally uproot any good plants before the proper time. And in the kingdom, our wise Lord has his reasons for dealing with evil in his way, and on his timetable. We don't know all the whys and wherefores, but we believe that God knows best. Faith trusts him to do all things better than we could. Rather than look at the weeds and despair, trust the sower to grow us and harvest us and keep us always in his possession. He has his reasons, and we have his promise to make it right, at the right time. Trust the farmer. Don't worry about the weeds. In Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. 

Sermon - Pentecost 7 - Matthew 13:1-9; 18-23

Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.  Those are four things, four verbs we pray for in the collect today.  Four things we want to do, ought to do, need to do with God’s holy word.  Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest. 

If we just read it – as any other book, well that won’t benefit us much.  We can mark it – take special note of it – recognize the Bible is different than other books, as many do, but still know little to nothing of its contents.  And we can even learn it, learn about it, commit parts of it to memory, or even get a PhD in biblical studies and still be an unbeliever (and I could even name some names here).  Indeed, the devil himself knows Scripture better than all of us.  He’s learned it. 

But to inwardly digest.  To take it fully in.  To make it a part of yourself.  This is something that only happens by faith.  This is a gift of God.  This is the mystery of why some receive the word and believe it – and others turn away, fall away, or reject it entirely. 

The collect might well be echoing Jesus’ fourfold explanation in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 13, the Parable of the Sower.   

Like most of Jesus’ parables, these earthly stories with a heavenly meaning invite us to ponder a short story or example of something from everyday life.  But something about these stories is usually a little “off” and therein lies the hook, the hint of deeper meaning.  The clue that Jesus is teaching us something about his kingdom. 

In this case it begins with a man who went out to sow seed.  Farming – growing food – is a common human experience and activity, though mostly done now by corporations on a large scale.  But still, we know the process even from an early age when our gradeschool teacher has us sprout a bean in a wet paper towel.  You start with seeds.  Common enough.  But already at the outset this farmer is a little bit “off”.  He’s acting irrationally, we might say.  Or I like how the hymn puts it, “the sower sows, his reckless love” 

He doesn’t seem to care where the seed lands.  Here, there, everywhere.  It’s chaotic and disorderly, or so it seems.  Is he really concerned about the harvest at all?  Doesn’t he know that seeds need good soil to grow well?  Does he care that he’s wasting all this seed?  It certainly doesn’t seem like he cares.  “Oh, what of that? And what of that?” 

But as a schoolchild might guess, and as Jesus clearly explains to his disciples later, this is no ordinary sower.  This is the Lord.  And the seed is, of course, his word.  So it may seem that he lacks wisdom and sense by sending forth his word in such a manner.  But we dare not question the wisdom of the one who created all things, including seed and soil, sun and sky, you and me.  We dare not presume to judge the one who sends forth his word, even his own son, the living word.  For he tells us that word will always accomplish the purpose for which he sends it.  Hm. 

Some falls on the path and is snatched by birds.  Jesus says this is the evil one who snatches the Word of God away so that some get little change to even hear it. 

Some falls on rocky soil, and springs up quickly, but then they quickly wither and fall away.  Spiritual ADD. Their faith has no depth or grounding.  Easy come, easy go.  On to the next thing. 

Then there are those who are choked out by the weeds and thorns – the cares and concerns of the world.  The worries of life.  The deceitfulness of wealth.  Really anything in life that competes with or crowds out the Word of God. 

And then, of course, some seed falls on the good soil.  This is the one who hears and understands the word, the one who produces a crop.  These are the believers, the faithful, the true Christians. 

And so we might be tempted to stop here and feel a little good about ourselves.  For after all, we’re the Christians.  We’re the good soil, right?  I mean, here we are at church, reading, marking, learning and inwardly digesting.  We hear the word and sing and pray and believe it. 

But don’t the cares and worries of the world sometimes get the best of us?  Doesn’t the devil sometimes snatch the word away from us, or us away from the word?  Don’t the worries of life and the deceitfulness of riches put stumbling blocks in our path, and stumble nonetheless? 

The truth is, within each of us, there are all four kinds of soil.  Just as there is an Old Adam and a New Adam, a sinner and a saint.  And the parable is not meant to confirm us in our self-righteousness, or make us feel assured in our own worthiness as “good soil.” 

Rather, we might draw two conclusions.   

First, that the fact that some hear the word and end up not believing, or that they believe and then fall away, should not surprise us.  God knows what he’s doing.  While it remains somewhat of a mystery exactly why some respond to the word in faith and others do not – it should not come as a shock, for Jesus tells us this is how it is.  We ought not despair of the power of the word, or think that God is too weak or foolish to accomplish his purposes without our help.  We see in the sower’s approach a very free, maybe even reckless love, a liberal casting of the Gospel far and and wide, with no respect to persons, young, old, rich, poor, high and lowly.  And yet, it’s true, not all will believe.  We’re not universalists in the Christian church. 

But we might also conclude that this liberal and free casting of the Gospel is good news for you and me.   

It’s like this:  Because he loves so freely, I know that I am loved by Christ.  Because Christ’s word is for all, I know that it is for me.  Because Jesus died for the sins of the world, and I am a sinner in the world, I know that his blood effects my salvation, his death takes the sting out of my death, and his resurrection means I too will rise on the last day. 

The hymn says it well: 

The sower sows; his reckless love 

Scatters abroad the goodly seed, 

Intent alone that all may have 

The wholesome loaves that all men need. 

Jesus Christ is that wholesome bread from heaven, that bread of life, that all men need.  He gives his body and blood for the sins of the world, and even now, even here, also, scatters and distributes these blessings to his whole church in the sacrament of his altar.  Here, grace abounds.  Here, sins are forgiven.  Here, faith is strengthened and nourished. Here a harvest increases, a hundred fold or more.  “Ah, what of that, Lord, what of that!”