Sermon - 7th Sunday After Pentecost (7/19/2020)
Is. 44:6-8; Ps. 86:11-17; Rom. 8:12-25; Mt. 13:24-30, 36-43
1
Jesus said, The kingdom of heaven is like a farmer who planted a field full of good seed. Later, his disciples said, Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field. Jesus told them a parable about a farmer who planted a field full of good seed in expectation of a bountiful harvest, but his disciples heard a parable about weeds.
Paul wrote to the Romans, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. Paul has good news about God’s good creation being set free from bondage to decay and the glory that will be revealed, to which the sufferings of the present time are hardly worth comparing. Yet the sufferings of the present time are everywhere you look on the news today.
Jesus told a parable about a farmer who planted a field full of good seed, but his disciples were only focused on the sufferings of the present time, and so they thought he was only talking about the weeds. Paul wrote that the whole creation is groaning in pain and agony, subject to futility, bound to decay – but the pain is the pain of childbirth, what is coming to be is the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
The groaning of creation, the weeds in the field – these are things that we feel very strongly in these days of disorienting loss and anxiety about the future. But Paul says none of this is worth comparing to what God has in store for us; Jesus told us a parable about a farmer who planted a field full of good seed in expectation of a rich and plentiful harvest. Can we hear the good news the Scriptures have for us today?
2
In the parable of Jesus, the farmer’s servants discover weeds growing in the field that the farmer had planted with good seed. The servants come to the farmer: How is this possible? Didn’t you plant good seed in this field? An enemy has done this, the farmer says. After all, no one plants bad seeds in the expectation of a harvest of weeds! Weeds aren’t good for anything, that’s why we call them weeds. There is no affirmative goal in planting weeds, just the purpose of interfering with the farmer’s goal of a bountiful harvest – it can only be the work of the farmer’s enemy.
Why the farmer has enemies, Jesus doesn’t say, but philosophical questions about how God can be all-good and all-powerful and yet there is still evil in the world are simply not interesting to Jesus. God sent the Son to save the world, not to solve our intellectual puzzles. The real question, which the farmer’s servants pose next, is what are we going to do about the weeds?
The servants, fortunately, share the farmer’s goal of protecting the good seed growing in the field. They are on the farmer’s side, not the enemy’s side, and for that we can be thankful. Their idea is to go and pull up all the weeds – which in theory sounds reasonable. The problem is that the weeds look just like the wheat, they grow together. Try to pull out the weeds and you’ll destroy the wheat as well – and that’s just what the enemy wants.
Don’t worry, the farmer says. I planted this field in expectation of a harvest. When Jesus explains the parable, he tells his disciples not to worry, God will send angels to gather in the harvest – so you disciples don’t need to be concerned about that. The weeds will all be taken care of then, and servants, that is not your job. I know you’re impatient to work hard and get the weeds under control immediately, but if you are on my side and want to produce a good harvest, that’s not what I need from you right now.
What I need you to do right now, the farmer says, is let them both grow together until the harvest. Let them grow. The Greek word that is translated “let them” is one of my favorite words in the gospels, which I’ve talked about several time in the past. It’s “aphé,” which fundamentally means let it be, let it go – but it is often used with the specific meaning of “forgive.” It’s the word Jesus uses to say, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” – Father, let them be, let them go. It’s the word Jesus uses in giving us the Lord’s Prayer – Forgive us our trespasses, let our trespasses go, as we let go of those who trespass against us.
So in the parable, the farmer tells the servants he doesn’t need them to root out evil, that would be counterproductive to what the farmer is trying to accomplish. What the farmer needs the servants to do is to cultivate forgiveness.
3
And I have to admit, that is not what I want to hear, not when the world seems full of weeds planted by the enemy of God. Just sit back and let it be? Didn’t Edmund Burke say, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing? Are we just supposed to stand by and let terrible things happen, let people be hurt and watch people die, and do nothing? It feels like an abdication of responsibility, a cheap way out, a coward’s response.
I imagine myself among the disciples of Jesus hearing this parable and the explanation Jesus gives, and I don’t imagine myself being satisfied. I want to ask Jesus: If the servants’ primary job is to do nothing and let the weeds be, why does the farmer even bother having servants at all? Are you telling us to be indifferent to the weeds, are you telling us to be patient with injustice, are you telling us to sit on our hands and do nothing? When innocent people are getting crucified, does God want us to respond with forgiveness?
To which I imagine Jesus responding, [fold arms, roll eyes, stare.]
OK. Point taken. But Jesus, it just doesn’t feel right, not when there are outrageous people doing outrageous things. I feel like I should do something. Why can’t I just try to make it stop? To just let it go and forgive, that seems too easy. And I imagine Jesus would reply: [fold arms, pause] No, it’s not.
God created human beings with tremendous freedom, including the freedom to do terrible things to one another. That suffering bothers God at least as much as it bothers us, probably more, probably a lot more. Because God planted a field full of good seed, and God saw that it was very good. And it is precisely to make sure that the good seed grows and becomes a bountiful harvest that God refrains from yanking out every weed the enemy sows in the meantime.
That’s not to say that there isn’t a place for taking action to protect our neighbors from injustice and harm. Both Scripture and 2000 years of Christian practice affirm that there’s a role for government and police and militaries to restrain the worst things humans do to one another. Social order and good deeds for our neighbor are good things and we should be thankful for them and celebrate them. But they are not to be mistaken for the kingdom of God, or the work that God is doing to deliver creation from the need for such restraints.
All creation is groaning with labor pains, Paul writes, longing for the birth of the children of God. And every parent who has ever watched a child make a mistake knows how hard it is not to swoop in and fix everything for them; sometimes the most loving thing a parent can do for a child is to hold back and let them learn for themselves. Letting be, cultivating forgiveness, is not easy; it’s actually easier to imagine that we’re in control and just get to work destroying weeds. But if we are focused less on the weeds and more on the farmer who planted a field full of good seed, if we join the farmer in anticipating the joy of a bountiful harvest to come, then we can join the farmer in the difficult work in the meantime of letting be and cultivating forgiveness.
4
One day, the time of harvest will come, but that’s for God to worry about, not us. On that day God will separate wheat from weeds, but that will not be our job. In the meantime, our job is to cultivate forgiveness. It is neither easy nor glamorous work, but it’s work we get to do along with Jesus. Fortunately for all of us in whom wheat and weeds grow together, Jesus is the master of cultivating forgiveness. May we learn well from him, and may God’s good seed yield a rich harvest in us.