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Location: Hattiesburg, Mississippi, United States

Sunday, July 17, 2005

9th Sunday after Pentecost 07/17/05 Text: Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43 Title: What do you expect?

07/17/05
9th Sunday after Pentecost
Text: Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43
Title: “What do you expect?”

My fellow missionaries please join me in prayer. Eternal God, pour out your Spirit upon us that we might be aware of your presence in our midst, that we might be attentive to your Word, and that we might be faithful always to your way, through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray. Amen
Last week we looked at the parable of the sower. From that parable we learned that when God sows his seed, which is the Gospel message, it might appear as if much of it is wasted. But as we discovered, that is how we too are to sow his Gospel message. We are to throw it every where, not picking out whom we give the Word to, or do not give the Word to. We are to simply follow his example by making the Word available to all we can.
For you see it is not our responsibility to make sure it is not wasted. It is God’s responsibility. Our job, or rather our response to God, is to just get the Word out there and let God do his thing, for he tells us in Isaiah 55:11 that his Word, “will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
In the parable today the seed does not represent God’s Word, but represents people. As the parable goes along we see that there are two different kinds of seed being sowen in the field. The first seed is wheat which represents the people of God. The second seed represents the unsaved, but I think it goes further than that, for Jesus tells us that the devil himself sowed those seeds.
We are told in verse 38 that the field is the world. And since congregations exist in the world, one could reasonably expect to find some weeds in the congregation.
This particular parable is quite often used to show a congregation that they are to tolerate in their midst people who are teaching wrong doctrine or living an openly sinful life, for the parable appears to say leave them alone.
That is plainly a wrong application of the Word of God, for to do so would send a wrong message to the members of the congregation, and hurt its witness in the community.
Before I go any further, I think it is important that we know what a tare is. A tare is a type of plant that looks just like a wheat plant as it grows. It is only when the head starts to develop that you can really tell the difference. The seeds are toxic and can ruin a crop. That is why the devil sowed them in the first place. His purpose in sowing the tare seeds was to ruin the crop so that it would not be worth harvesting, only fit for burning.
This parable doesn’t make any sense if you are a farmer or have ever planted a garden, or had a lawn, because you know that if you do not remove the weeds from a garden or lawn will be ruined. So we get after those weeds by either pulling or digging them out. Or if you are lazy, like me you pull out the Roundup and spray them being as careful as you can not to kill the plants you are trying to save.
To let weeds continue to grow is just plain crazy, and I think that is exactly why Jesus’ disciples had to be told the meaning of the parable. They just did not get what Jesus was trying to teach them. But, leaving weeds to grow is not all that crazy. I remember a story about a certain pastor in Minneapolis who had a real problem with his lawn. It had gotten so bad that he called ChemLawn, a company specializing in complete lawn care to come out and help him.
When they came out to give him a bid they would not touch it, for it was too weedy. Can you imagine a yard too weedy for a company that specializes in ridding yards of weeds? That is weedy. A member of his church volunteered to come over some weekend and totally remove his weedy lawn and start a new one. He almost took the offer until a retired landscaper told him, “Don’t worry so much about getting rid of the weeds as caring for the grass, for the grass will take care of the weeds.”
After a couple of years of hard work, his yard looked even better than the majority of the lawns in his neighborhood. While I do not believe that that method would work on ridding a wheat crop of weeds. I believe we can learn a valuable lesson from the pastor’s experience.
You see he and his family had to decide what was going to be their primary focus, the weeds, or the grass. They decided that instead of spending time and money on trying to get rid of the weeds, they would concentrate on growing healthy grass.
Just like the pastor’s family we should spend our time concentrating our energies on growing stronger Christians, rather than figuring out how we can rid ourselves of those who we think are weeds. You see, I believe that some of those we think are nothing but worthless weeds that could damage our congregation or community could be wheat.
For the most part we are just not capable of telling who are the wheat plants and who are the weeds. That is why Jesus took the responsibility for the harvest out of our hands whether we are talking about those in the congregation or those that we come into contact with as we go about our daily business.
I don’t know about you, but I am glad that I do not have that responsibility. It is hard enough work to work the soil, sow the seeds of his Word, and then spend the time watering and feeding the plants, so that they will grow into healthy wheat plants bearing thousands of seeds.
In an attempt to grow healthy wheat one of the biggest church movements going today, especially in the mega-churches of America, is to isolate their membership from the world. They try to provide everything that a family would need, from entertainment, sports, exercise rooms, everything but housing, and some are starting to do that.
I do not believe that Jesus intends for his wheat to live in a hothouse, isolated from the fields where there are weeds. His wheat is to live and grow in the world, among the weeds. For, where else can his wheat come into contact with lost weeds? Where else can his wheat sow the seed of God Word that can change them from weeds to wheat?
I want to tell you another reason why we should not be in the in the business of tearing up weeds. The simple truth is that if we were to tear up all the weeds we would have a bunch of empty churches on Sunday morning. They would be empty for you see, we are weeds. That is right we are weeds, for as long as we live on this earth we are both weed and wheat, or as Martin Luther put it, simultaneously saint and sinner.
There was once a young man who had to spend several months in a nursing home because of a serious car accident. He was complaining rather loudly about the food. After a period of time the cook came in. He told him, “What else would you expect?” Everyone here is at least 40 years are older than you, and many of them do not have good teeth and strong digestive systems. They have to have bland soft food, instead of the spicy food you like.
Just like that young man, we who are citizens of the kingdom of God should not be surprised or discouraged that we are weeds at the same time we are wheat, just like we should not be surprised when we find ourselves entangled with people and other forces that we would liken to weeds.
“What do you expect, an easy life?” All of those difficulties and misfortunes that we, who are of the Kingdom of God, face are just a demonstration of Satan’s hostility to God. We should expect problems, but not get discouraged, for God provides all we need to grow strong and bear much seed. We have the promise of God given through Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 55 verses 10 and 11 where he writes, “As the rain and the snow come down from the heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
You see this parable is not about us in the sense that we are to, on behalf of God, make personal judgments about just who are wheat plants and who are weeds. It is about God’s work and that is a good thing.
Since we now know that it is not our job to root out wheat look-alikes, then what is our job? Our job is to be wheat doing what wheat does, that is growing strong and making more wheat. And we can only do that by living in the Word that was implanted in us when we were baptized. Amen