Sermon - 7th Sunday of Pentecost

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

(Jesus) put before them another parable.

It is frustrating to some that Jesus uses parables to teach and to instruct.  And he does it a lot.  In omitted verses of today’s Gospel text, Matthew gives a bit of an explanation for why Jesus teaches in parables.  You can read it for yourself; it really doesn’t clarify things all that much.  It is sort of a parable within a parable.

It is likely this frustration with parables which lies behind Matthew’s including an explanation of the parable. 

Parables call upon the hearer to do the work of understanding the message.  Parables have the advantage of teaching that message without beating you over the head or getting into your face.  Parables also allow those who would just as soon not hear their message to walk away and focus on some other part of the parable and ignore what the parable has to offer.  Parables allow the hearer to receive one message today, and a differing message at some point in the future.

I want to share with you what this parable seems to be saying in the context in which we currently find ourselves.  I do not mean to get in anyone’s face, and I hope what I share this morning will leave open the opportunity for anyone who wishes to do so to simply walk away.

The thing about this parable which has dogged me all week is the Master telling the slaves not to attempt to remove the weeds.  If the weeds are the evil planted by the devil why would the Son of Man not want his followers to pull up those weeds?

Hopefully, you are engaged enough and know the story well enough to be thinking, “Pastor, the answer is right there is verse 29.  In the parable the Master says, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.”  But, does that settle it? 

Depending on how many years you have dutifully sat through sermons and how many differing preachers you have heard approach this passage, you may have heard two very popular explanations for why Jesus tells them to leave the weeds alone.  One involves the difficulty in telling the weeds from the wheat till they are fully mature; and the other is at attempt at agronomy and speaking of how the roots of weeds intertwine themselves with the roots of the wheat so that you can’t pull up the weeds without also uprooting the wheat.

Both of these attempts at an explanation have benefits for us in these days.

Let’s start with the inability to tell the weeds apart from the wheat. 

Maybe you have had this experience.  You plant a garden, or a flowerbed and as you begin to see green shoots emerge from the ground you aren’t sure which you ought to pluck and which you ought to encourage.  Maybe you have had the experience of choosing the wrong one. 

The evil in our world which is easily identified as evil is very easy to remove or pluck out.  The evil which is quickly labeled as such is at the very least given that demarcation and thus our children know to avoid it.  I wanted to come up with some examples of this.  But as each candidate emerged I realized that in the days of its infancy there was no universal acknowledgement of it horrors.  Practically every example was at some point in time an ambiguous choice.

Let’s try a few.

Hitler.  From our vantage point – no doubt.  But his ability to amass followers reveals that there is no universal condemnation.  Even today, his ideologies are attractive to some.  Maybe not to those participating in this worship service – but if there is no universal agreement we have to remain open to our perspective being critiqued.

I started with Hitler because I thought most of you would agree with me.  What if I raise the issue of slavery?  There is a raging battle in our society which I am sure spills over into this congregation regarding the removal of symbols of white dominance.  How united are we, as a congregation and as a denomination and as the One Holy Apostolic Church, to actively pluck out the evil of one of God’s children claiming to own another of God’s children?

Then, there is the example of the thing which I am totally unprepared to act on.  There is no doubt that the scriptures which we read forbids usury.  God’s people were clearly forbidden from loaning money and receiving a profit.  My future life is totally dependent upon the interest earned in my retirement accounts.  Am I willing to tell the difference between weeds and wheat?

Sometimes, this parable is used to remind us that we can’t tell the difference.  Sometimes this parable justifies our leaving the weeds in place.  “It is up to God to decide.” Is a popular refrain.  While it might remind us that we are not to be the judge of our sisters and brothers it also allows us to turn a blind eye to that which we would rather not see.

Even when we do see, it is so difficult to weed out the evil.

Did any of you binge watch the series “The Good Place”?  The premise is four persons who awake after death to be told, “You made it.  You are in the good place,” only to discover they are actually being tortured in a new and unique way.  Sorry for being the spoiler, but the last episodes reveal how difficult it is in a complicated world to do the right thing.  In 1431 a child gives flowers to a neighbor and gets some positive points.  In 2019 a child gives flowers to a neighbor, but those flowers were actually harvested from old minefields by small children in southeast Asia – so that child gets many negative points.

If the earnings of my retirement accounts maintains a 5.3% growth between now and the time I die, Lutheran Campus Ministry will benefit from a hundred grand bequest.  So, LCM is wrong in cheering for usury?

Evil and good are often intertwined.  And it is tough to tell them apart.  So, in most instances, we repeat Jesus’ words and walk away without labeling the evil for what it is – without at least saying that in our eyes this is evil, which would possibly raise some discussion as to whether it is right or wrong.

We will probably get near universal agreement that this COVID virus is evil.  But what of the ways some have responded to it?  Is it evil to insist another wear a face covering?  Are there evil roots interlaced with good when the cry is lifted NOT to politized this issue?

When Jesus tells his servants not to attempt to uproot the weeds, I think he knew that we might be inclined to get mixed up and confused and make some of the wrong choices.  Maybe he knew, and it broke his heart, that by the time we were old enough to be helpful in the garden we had already been socialized as to what the world around us would say is evil and what is good.

I want to leave you with some homework.  First, I want you to identify three expressions of evil encountered as you live your life.  Discuss these with another person; ideally with a person who might not automatically agree with you.  Second, I want you to think about (think about – not necessarily act) how you would attempt to remove that evil.

Matthew 13:34-35 (the omitted verses):

Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. This was to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet:
‘I will open my mouth to speak in parables;
   I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.’

Amen.