josephholubsermons


 

July 17, 2011 -   Pent 5
2 Corinthians 9:6-11
Matthew 13:24-30

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Weed-Pullers or Grace-Givers?

"Let both of them grow together until the harvest..." - Matthew 13:30 -

Jesus was a storyteller in Jewish rabbinic tradition. His stories were about the Kingdom of God.  His stories didn’t begin “Once upon a time”, but they began “The Kingdom of God is like…” (or “may be compared to…”).  His stories (called parables) emerged out of the fabric of ordinary, everyday life.  The Kingdom of God is like: a shepherd, a sower, a lost sheep, a lost coin, lost children,  a landowner who went out to hire laborers, a traveler on a dangerous road, a great banquet; seeds and soil; hidden treasures; merchants and pearls; nets and fish and many more. He didn’t spew philosophy, convey formulas or provide simplistic pat answers.   His stores are short, but they have profound depth and multiple dimensions of meaning.   I have been engaging these parables for most of my life, and the more I engage them the more new aspects of meaning continue to emerge.  Today it’s “The Kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field…”

“Kingdom of God (heaven)” is not a reference to a sugar-coated afterlife – that’s a glaring misunderstanding.  Its meaning is far more down-to-earth. The people to whom Jesus primarily spoke, the peasant and poorest classes, would have heard the word “kingdom” in a very different way than we hear the word “kingdom.”   When we hear the word “kingdom”, it might conjure up something like Disney’s Enchanted Magic Kingdom or the realm of fairy tales. But in Jesus’ time “kingdom” was a word that carried heavy political baggage.  “Kingdom” referred to the political, economic and religious system under which the people lived; a collaboration between the Roman Empire and the indigenous powerful elites.

So, when Jesus spoke prolifically of the Kingdom of God his hearers would have immediately been aware of a contrast.  They lived under the Kingdom of Caesar and Herod and knew all about living under its domination, crushing power and inclination for exploitation.  Jesus taught about a different paradigm for life – a different vision for the way life could be – called the Kingdom of God (heaven). For Jesus the Kingdom of Heaven was what life in this world can be according to the Divine vision; God’s will and intent.  The Kingdom of God was ultimately about the Divine passion for fairness, equity and compassion taking root in this world in contrast to the systemic injustices bred by the rulers of Rome and their collaborators.

In the prayer Jesus taught his disciples, he said to pray, “Thy kingdom come… thy will be done on earth.” He didn’t teach “Our Father, remove us from this harsh world and whisk us into heaven.” On the contrary he taught, “Thy kingdom come… on earth…”  The Kingdom of God is the Divine vision for this world that Jesus proclaimed and embodied in his own life.

The popular Christian escapist message that we frequently hear expressed often dwells, at times almost exclusively, on the next world or afterlife and how to gain access to it. But that was not the emphasis and focus of Jesus’ teaching.  His emphasis was on this world and God’s intent for this world.  It is my conviction that any so-called Christian expression that does not take the situation of this world seriously with all of its inequities and injustices does not take seriously the core teachings of Jesus. 

I imagine Jesus sitting among his disciples and the crowds, and their attention was riveted upon him as he spoke to them.  Nearby was a field of grain. He pointed to the grain field and said, “The Kingdom of heaven (God) is like that field…”  

The word used in this parable for “weeds” is highly significant - in Greek zizanion. (ζιζάνιον)  Zizanion was not just any weed, but it was a weed that so closely resembled wheat it was impossible to distinguish from the wheat.  It wasn’t until the wheat ripened that the difference became discernable. By that time it was too intertwined with the wheat to pull it out.

Something I have learned and experienced over the years in wrestling with Jesus’ parables is that the parables have both public and personal implications - outward and inward implications.  The parables challenge me to live in the world in a public way grounded in the values of the Kingdom of God; to be concerned about the nature and quality of our life together as a human community and society.  The parables also challenge me to personal inner transformation.  We could say the parables have this double- edged aspect to them and include both. 

This parable only appears in Mathew which tells us something about the issues in Matthew’s community.  Last week you heard me say that Matthew’s faith community was predominantly Jewish based.  There was a contingent in his community that did not approve of the mission to the Gentiles.  The Jew-Gentile rift was one of the biggest in the ancient world.   Matthew uses this parable to address that contentious issue in his community.  The parable affirms  Jesus’ world view that in the world, and even in the faith community, the weeds and wheat grow very close together, and even become intertwined, and often are impossible to distinguish from one another.  By focusing on eradicating and excluding what we perceive is bad, we run the serious and likely risk of jeopardizing that which is good.   

Jesus often incensed those who lived with a judgmental weed-puller-mentality when he lauded the faith he experienced in women, gentiles and children and others who the so-called righteous had already identified as weeds.  He further exacted the contempt of the religious when he hung out, included  and enjoyed the company of those the righteous had categorized as weedy infestations.

For me there is a powerful contemporary parallel. There is a powerful temptation lurking around for Christians to live as though they have special insight into the weeds and the wheat. It troubles and concerns me when Christians write off as weedy infestations, whole nations and various groups of people because of national origin, ethnicity, religion, political persuasion or sexual orientation.  It troubles me when I hear rhetoric commonly and widely used that categorizes, pigeon-holes and oversimplifies a complex and ambiguous world.

So Jesus comes along with his little story and makes the stupendous and scandalous suggestion that such self-righteous over-simplification is contrary to the Kingdom of God.  The farmer told his workers, in no uncertain terms, to leave it alone!   Life is too ambiguous - too intertwined - too complicated.  If you start pulling up wholesale what you perceive to be the weeds and proceed on such a strictly judgmental basis, you are going to pull up a whole lot of goodness right along with it. He told them they simply were not capable of that kind of discernment so knock it off!    The underlying message here is that God just may be at work in unlikely people and places that you and I would not expect. 

But the story goes even beyond that.  “Let them grow together,” says the master in Jesus story. The Greek word for “let” is “apheme,” (ἀφίημι),  and it is another significant word. In the New Testament when that word is applied to debts or offense, it means “to forgive.”[i]   In other words defer to grace and toleration! (something our nation and world could use a lot more of right now for sure)

What is true about the weeds and wheat growing together in the field of the outer world is also true of my personal inner world.  Perhaps a lack of recognition of this truth lies at the root of many of the world’s problems?  When I look at the inner wheat field of my own life I see both wheat and weeds growing side by side.  I am reminded of something Jesus said in Luke’s gospel, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”  (Luke 17:21)  

When I look inside my life I see the wheat of humility, but I also see that seeds of puffed-up ego often try to take root.   I trust Jesus would say to me, “Let humility win!”  “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

When I look inside my life I see the wheat of compassion and the desire to advocate for those who are oppressed, but I also see the seeds of apathy trying to gain a foothold.  I trust Jesus would say to me, “Let compassion win!”  “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

When I look inside my life I see the wheat of generosity, but I also see the seeds of self-indulgence trying to sprout.  I trust Jesus would say to me, “Let generosity win!”  “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

When I look inside my life I see the wheat of true honesty but I also see seeds of duplicity reading for germination.  I trust Jesus would say to me, “Let a spirit of honesty win!” “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

When I look inside my life I see the wheat of forgiveness intermingled with seeds of resentment that would withhold forgiveness.  I trust that Jesus would say to me, “Let forgiveness win!”  “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

This is where this parable finally gets highly personal;  gets in the soul and rattles things around a bit and becomes transformational, life-altering and grace-filled.  “The Kingdom of God is within you.”  It starts in us and flows out to the world.  

That takes us to the final line of the parable which is a reference to the harvest where the weeds and wheat will finally be separated; the weeds bundled and burned and the wheat put into the barn. "Let both of them grow together until the harvest..."

There are two ways to take that final line.  You can see it as a bad news fearful  threat or a good news promise. 

       The self-righteous weed-pullers whose religion is based on judgment and fear see it as a threat to all of those weedy people that they have already consigned to hell.    

       The grace-givers beginning with Jesus, don’t take it as a fearful threat but as a picture expression of God’s stupendous grace that God never gives up on this world or on us, but will continue to tirelessly work until the Prayer of Jesus is finally fulfilled in the world and in us, “thy kingdom come…  thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”