Good Morning Friends,
Jesus makes it pretty clear that there will be both good people and bad in the world living side by side…living sometimes within the same person. There is no avoiding this mixture until the end. In response today we work at discovering practical ways of dealing with the conflicts caused by the reality in which we live as we study another parable and honestly, this may be one of the most practical parables that Jesus ever told. First, it teaches us that there will always be evil opposition in the world, there will always be those who try their best to destroy the work of the Kingdom of God, the work of those called to Christ’s purpose and stymie as best they can the Will of God. But it also makes it clear we are not in charge of deciding the final outcome. In the interim we seek a sanctuary in the fragile and fractured world we live in and wonder in the weakness of our hearts, How Do We Find Hope When The Evil In Us Is Also In The Church?
Scripture: but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
John 4:14 (NRSV)
Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.'”
Matthew 13:24-30 (NIV)
The Parable of the Weeds Explained: Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.
Matthew 13:36-43 (NIV)
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Romans 8:26-27 (NRSV)
Message: For just about anything to grow you need water and light. It is pretty straight forward. We get both for it rains on the just and unjust and the Sun beats down where it will. Maybe that is why the top metaphors in the Bible have got to be water and light. But today’s parable has a different but related metaphor directed at the church… the picture…Kingdom Seeds and the Devil’s Weeds. The problem is that weeds confuse the appearance of who is a believer and who is not. At least at first. We have read before that Jesus said, and I paraphrase, not everyone who claims to be a Christian will enter heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father. The truth is that there are a lot of pretending Christians and they impede the growth of believers tangling the roots of productive plants. Not everything that grows is good. People who are not Christians can get you involved in all sorts of misguided activities stealing the soil of nutrients. They can stick you like sandspurs. The thing is that weeds do not produce good fruit and for weeds like the sandspur, they can produce pain in the form of little pointed seeds that perennially return to harm us. Thankfully we can recognize them once the seed head is formed and before they reseed. So too a non- believer can be known eventually by the fact they produce no change in character that shows they are a Christian. But like weeds, non-believers plant many seeds – seeds of mistrust, seeds of immorality, and seeds of apathy that if allowed to take root will harm us. The best thing to do is be healthy. Be patient with God as He grows your life. You may only see the seed, God sees the beautiful plant, and its fruit that will come. That is why pulling out weeds in your own life, plucking out the sandspurs in your own feet is a better approach than trying to pull out weeds in God’s garden and the lives of others. Harvest time will come and so will the fire. Until then sandspurs, those Coronavirus of plants, have one redeeming quality. They give us a common enemy. So, we have good seed and bad. Good soil and bad soil. But most everything has a little bit of both the good and the bad. The light and the rain fall on them all until the harvest. God is still in charge and that is hopeful.
And So, Jesus gives us keys to understanding the parable relevant for our time. The passage helps us understand the nature of the Kingdom and the church by answering some questions about who does the sowing and how God works and who does the harvesting and even the nature of good and evil and the wait required before the harvest. The thought of it makes me a little nervous for not only is the world and nature itself like the field in the storyline but so am I. And that brings us back to today’s question and perhaps the hope of our individual sanctification given that the sanctification of the church is so difficult. So, even though I know the focus is on our collective action in response to God, I still ask of myself and of you how we each are going to do our part to be less sinful. It helps us to understand that the church is and will always be a mixture of good and evil, but those who are righteous by faith will still produce despite the challenge. It helps us to understand that God’s seed is not so much our genetic code but the love and nurturing we get along the way to help us to grow and produce fruit. The reality is that the Church does much good in the world, like schools, universities, medical care, music, arts, literature, science, human rights, opposing slavery, influencing laws, providing orphanages, care for the hungry and poor. So why is evil also in the Church? I really do not need to go down an historical list of what people have done in the name of purifying the faith. Inquisitions and murders taint our history. But Jesus tells us that we cannot weed all corruption out of religious institutions. Of course, we get upset and angry with the wrongdoing but then realize that church is a place for sinners as well as saints. Liberals and conservatives accuse each other of evil. But none is without sin. We live in a fallen world where there are inequalities. The scales of justice are not always weighted properly. God’s enemy, and ultimately our enemy, would like nothing more than to have us remain oblivious to the things that are happening all around us. Still we need to grow together until the harvest. Jesus gives us an interpretation that helps us understand why this approach is necessary. Sometimes what we do not do is as important as what we do. Facing this raises our frustration level pretty high but also should give us hope in our own salvation knowing and believing that Jesus will ultimately decide and that He is the only one qualified to judge and that with Him mercy rules.
Pray we are led by the Holy Spirit and the grace of God to weed out the inequities in our own lives. Pray we feel God’s pleasure in our lives helping us to grow. Pray we know that if we ignore God, we will not produce much fruit. Pray that we are being rooted and established in love. Pray we inspect our own lives, but not condemn the lives of others. Pray we have faith that God will deal with the sin of others in time. Pray we encourage, exhort where necessary, but not condemn. Pray we continue growing. Pray we be patient for some responsibilities belong to angels. Pray we remain alert until the end. Pray we exercise spiritual discernment. Pray we are guided to plant seeds that even though they do not only look like they will take root, still do. Pray we not be too judgmental. Pray we forgive. Pray we realize that at the harvest the righteous will shine forth. Pray we realize that we are saved by faith. Pray we realize that whatsoever people sow, that shall also be what they reap. Pray we sow seeds of hope, love and peace. Pray we realize that we are at war more with our own sins than the sins of others. Pray the hope of the called-out assembly be witnessed in our own transformation and productivity. Pray with repentance as God weeds out the garden of our souls….as God produces a great and transformational harvest that gives us hope.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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