St. Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43
July 23, 2017
Pentecost 7/ Proper 11A
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~
We can send spacecraft beyond the limits of our solar system. We can tinker with and rearrange DNA. We can make powerful computers that you wear on your wrist. But we cannot eradicate weeds. And when it comes to weeds, there’s a great variety: You’ve got your classic dandelions, your Canadian Thistle, chickweed and ragweed. And then there’s clover and crab grass, and you’d better hope that
Weeds are pernicious and insidious—a perennial problem. There are no vegetable gardens with only vegetables—no flower gardens with only flowers—no amber waves of grain with only grain. The weeds are always there too. And they’re sneaky, those weeds. If we walked over to my garden this morning, you’d find that the weeds are thriving right next to the romaine—right beside the beets. They’ve cleverly confined themselves just inside the tomato cages. There, in closest proximity to my most productive produce, are weeds. And I can’t whack those weeds without also risking damage to the precious plants next to them. And so I have learned to live with those weeds. I tolerate them so as not to damage the nearby vegetables.
In today’s Holy Gospel Jesus spins out a parable based on the perennial problem of weeds. In this parable, “all the world is God’s own field.” And in this field the Son of Man goes about sowing His good seed. But this very same field—the very same furrows—are tainted, defiled, and contaminated by a weed-sowing enemy. This enemy is the devil, and he’s bold and brazen in his ability to sow weeds in God’s good field.
The first point of the parable is this: wherever the good seed of God’s Word is preached and planted, right there the devil is lurking in the shadows, waiting to work over the very same soil with a noxious array of bad seed. Always, without fail, right alongside the Word of God something else—something undesirable—is also growing up. The seeds of sin and unbelief are being mixed and mingled and planted right alongside the good, faith-producing seed of God’s Word.
Do you realize what this means? It means that even right here and right now—among those who offer here their worship and praise—the devil is also hard at work. You are delusional if you think the demonic enemies of God only scatter their seeds in bars and brothels and adult bookstores. Oh, no. They would much rather sow their sinful mayhem in the fertile soil between pulpit and pew, nave and narthex, balcony and baptismal font, in stately seminaries and in synodical conventions. Whenever and wherever the good seed of God’s Word is being sown, there you can be sure the enemy is sowing his seed too.
This is why the Scriptures teach us that while the church is made up of all those who believe in Jesus Christ, yet on this side of heaven, there are always hypocrites and evil persons sprinkled in among the saints (AC VIII). Martin Luther saw this sad truth at work throughout the whole history of the church. Wherever the pure gospel was preached and sown, there the devil raised up wicked men to oppose it. Luther laid out his evidence for this in a sermon based on this very parable. He said, “Angels become devils. One of the apostles betrayed Christ. Christians become heretics. Out of the OT people of God came the wicked men who nailed Christ to the cross. So it happens still [today]” (Day by Day, p.83). What happens? Weeds happen. Wherever God’s garden grows, the devil is also cultivating a crop of corruption.
Now, so far in this parable, there aren’t many surprises. Our own experience bears out the truth that there’s always an orchestrated opposition to God’s good work in this world. But the surprise of this parable—the thing that shocks the gardener in me—is that God tolerates the weeds—for now. When the indignant servants in the parable ask permission to pull up the weeds, the Master says, “No—No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest.”
The weeds in God’s field will not be pulled. No herbicides will be applied. The weeds are tolerated for now. They are allowed to grow until the harvest. What kind of gardener—what kind of farmer—could ever have such a high degree of weed tolerance? Why does God permit the ungodly and the wicked to grow and thrive right next to and among the righteous? Why is the Garden of our God NOT neatly manicured, but littered and blighted with weeds?
Beloved in the Lord, this is how God’s garden grows: It grows with the devil’s weeds and the Savior’s fruitful vines intermingled and tangled up. And sometimes, you can’t tell what’s what or who’s who. If nothing else, this shows our God’s incredible patience for sinners—that He wants all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Unlike some other religions of the world which have no toleration—which teach and preach hatred and death to the infidels—your God is patient, not wanting anyone to perish—but for all to come to repentance and faith.
Jesus Christ Himself is the reason for God’s weed-friendly ways. For in Jesus alone there is power to transform the world of weeds into the most fruitful branches of the living vine. In Jesus, what is the vilest weed today could be the saintliest child of God tomorrow. Because Jesus Christ has died for all—no exceptions. In Him, God was reconciling the whole world of weeds to Himself, not counting our sins against us. Instead, the Savior bore those sins in His body on the cross. Jesus, the sinless Son of God, became like a giant weed Himself, carrying the sins of the entire weed-infested world. And God the Father cut down that sin-bearing weed. He was put to death for our trespasses and was raised again for our justification. He was put to death and raised again so that sinners and unbelievers and the worst of all weeds might have the opportunity for repentance and faith—the opportunity one day to shine like the sun in the Father’s glorious kingdom.
This just leaves one question: What should we do with the weeds for now? What should we do about the people who by all appearances have separated themselves from Jesus and His church—or are actively working against Jesus and His church? It’s clear that God tolerates them. It’s clear that it’s not our job to consign some to hell and others to heaven. God and His angels will handle that at the end of the age. Nor is it right for us to condone their sin in any way. For now, God simply calls us to throw the doors of the church wide open, to give all men and women the chance to hear the Word of the Gospel and take it to heart—to speak the truth in love. Because in hearing that Word is the power to transform the worst of weeds into living branches of the true vine, Jesus Christ.
Before you leave here today, I want you to think of the weeds in your life—the people you know who for all intents and purposes are not growing in the grace of Jesus Christ—people who manifest a spirit that is not the Holy Spirit. There are certainly weeds among your co-workers, among your friends, among your family. The message of the Scriptures concerning these souls is not just a message of toleration, but of love. God calls us not just to live with the weeds—not only to tolerate them—but also to love them. The great writer Dostoevsky said this about love: “to love a person means to see him as God intended him to be.” Don’t see the weeds for what they are today; see them as what God intends them to be—see them for what they can be in Christ. In the garden of our God, there is not one living soul for whom we cannot hope and pray. There is not one soul in whom the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot do miraculous, life-changing things. We ourselves can testify to that.
Today you and I—we’re growing in the garden of our gracious God. The seed of His Word has taken root in you. You’ve been watered in the gentle splash of Holy Baptism. There are weeds all around. But the day will come when there will be a separation—when those who reject God’s free grace in Jesus Christ will be cast into eternal fire, and when those covered in the righteousness of Christ will shine like the sun in the Father’s eternal kingdom. Regarding that final separation, the German theologian Helmut Thielicke wrote this: “The last judgment is full of surprises. The separation of the sheep and the goats, of wheat and weeds will be made in a way completely different from that which we permit ourselves to imagine. For God is more merciful than we are, [God is] more strict than we are, and [God is] more knowing than we are. And, in every case, God is greater than our hearts” (p.82). He who has ears, let him hear.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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