Now Kingdom, Start Growing – Psalm 86:11-17, Matthew 13:24-30
I found myself this week, as you do, reading an article entitled, ‘Controlling Weeds Post-Harvest in Winter Wheat’ from the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska -Lincoln, and this line jumped out at me, “Controlling weeds in the growing wheat offers the best chance of reducing weed population and vigour after harvest.”
Controlling weeds in the growing wheat…
Exactly the opposite of what the householder tells the (very sensible it turns out – they obviously read the article!) slaves to do in our parable this morning. “Don’t weed out the weeds! Leave them. ‘Let both of them grow together until the harvest.’”
This is crazy advice! Any farmer or gardener will tell you that leaving the weeds to grow can choke out the other plants, as we heard in last week’s parable, and leaving the weeds to grow, and seed, guarantees that there will be enough more weeds to deal with next season!
It’s as crazy as Toad, in the story I read earlier, reading stories to his seeds, or singing songs to his seeds, or reading poems to his seeds or playing music to his seeds!
It’s as crazy as the sower in last week’s parable who sows seeds – without much judgment it seems – in all sorts of soil; hard soil, rocky soil, thrown soil and good soil!
And it’s as crazy as Jesus, who knowing, according to Matthew 13:13, a quote from Isaiah 6:9, that his audience are determined not to respond to him – ‘seeing they do not perceive and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand’ continues to tell them the parables of the kingdom. In telling parables, it seems, Jesus is acting as the sower does, or as the householder does, hiding away seeds in the ground of our thinking, our living, our worshipping, and then waiting, patiently waiting for faith to germinate and flourish in us!
So, what does this crazy advice to leave the weeds to grow mean for our faith?
There are two things it doesn’t mean.
Firstly, that there will be no reckoning with evil. The parable makes it very clear this is not the case, although, heavily influenced by the explanation of the parable in Matthew 13:36-43, we are quick to assume that the sifting of wheat and weeds refers to individual lives – and not to a sifting within our lives and within our common life that will result in a good harvest for all people.
Secondly, this parable does not mean that we should condone abuse – abuse of others – within the church, and within our society. That flies in the face of everything that the Bible says about the treatment of those who are vulnerable. Abuse must be called out and must be addressed.
But what the parable is saying is that the reality of our lives, of our experience, is that despite the good that God has planted deep within us, we are all capable of good and bad (Romans 3:23: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”); that our living and the human communities we form will contain both, inextricably tangled together (Romans 7:21: “I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.”) We endeavour, like seeds, to grow, in relationship with God, healthy and fruitful lives, but we must also recognise, as workers for God’s kingdom, that our perspective about which are weeds and which is wheat is sometimes impaired, is sometimes not long-sighted enough; that we must not be too quick to remove the weeds as good growth will be damaged in the process.
I must confess that all this week I have been identifying rather strongly with the weeds.
As many of you know, within our NSW/ACT Baptist Association at present there is a kind of zealous weeding taking place. It is like that which marked the Jewish community confronted by the early emerging church, that perhaps this passage was written to mitigate against, and like that which has marked the Christian church – tragically – many times over in its history – a zealous weeding that says we know which is wheat and which are weeds and the time to remove the weeds is now!
I am reminded of Toad in the story getting close to the ground and shouting at the seeds. We, too, can want the kingdom of God to come – in our image and our timing – now.
At the present time the Association has decided that any church that does not support the Association’s ‘Position on marriage’ will be disaffiliated, and any minister that does not support the Association’s ‘Position on Marriage’ will be disaccredited. There are several reasons why our congregation, in our church meetings and in our leadership deliberations, has argued against this direction.
Firstly, in our view the Association’s Position of Marriage has failed to take seriously the task of reading the Bible, of understanding the role that marriage played in the Bible, and therefore, how we might regard marriage in our context – as Christian people – today.
Secondly the Association’s Position on Marriage is an inadequate pastoral response to the lives of people in our church congregations. It says to LGBTIQA+ people, and their families, that they are not welcome in our Baptist churches. It is similarly unhelpful for those who are divorced, or in de facto relationships, or single – or to those experiencing domestic violence.
Thirdly, we are concerned that in focusing so much on this one societal issue, same sex marriage, our Association has abandoned the values that have held us together: that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, is the sole authority in all matters of faith and practice, as revealed in the Scriptures; and that each church and individual has liberty, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to seek the mind of Christ in matters of faith and practice; that we come together for shared mission and for mutual support.
We recognise – because we hold those values – that not everyone in our church will have the same view on the positions I have just put forward. We know that believers who have considered the scriptures and sought the mind of God can reach different conclusions.
Which is why, I think, we need to read and reflect and let this parable about wheat and weeds growing together take root and grow in our lives.
I am indebted to Doug Hynd who sends the occasional interesting article my way, and a few weeks ago it he sent me an article from the Anabaptist World magazine, written by pastor, S, Roy Kaufman, described as an agrarian theological and historian, which seems appropriate as we consider this passage!
Kaufman says that he has been a pastor for over 50 years and for all those decades the question of LGBTQ inclusion has been on the agenda of the church. For many years the more rural congregations that were more conservative held sway and LGBTQ people and more progressive congregations were made to feel unwelcome, but in recent years the power dynamics have shifted and now the more progressive churches hold sway, and the more conservative churches are now wondering if they should leave and find somewhere where they would feel more welcome.
“Is this really what anyone wants?” Kaufman writes, “Have we embraced former outcasts only to create another group of outsiders? If the church is to be a redeemed community, can we turn our backs on brothers and sisters on either side?… We should stop trying to change minds and instead follow our hearts.”
And then he gives examples of what he means by following our hearts.
“If they were following their hearts, traditionalists would, I think, say something like this to LGBTQ people…: ‘We aren’t convinced same-sex unions reflect God’s intention for the human family, yet we see that you love Jesus and want the best for yourselves and your families. We love you as brothers or sisters in Christ… We want you to be a part of the church, and we pray that the Holy Spirit will guide us all to a fuller understanding of God’s will.’
….At the same time, LGBTQ people…might say something like this to traditionalists: ‘We are not asking you to change your beliefs about what God intends for the human family. But we love Jesus and are seeking to be faithful to him. And we love you as members of this church… We, too, are on a journey as followers of Jesus, and we would like to walk with you.’”
He concludes, “Power struggles rarely, if ever, produce redemptive change. Trying to change minds only produces winners and losers. People are hurt; relationships are broken.”
Which is why I think that we need to rethink our understanding of what happens at the end of this parable. Because God is in the agri-business not of producing winners and losers – but in the agri-business of producing redemption change. Yes, there is a separation of the wheat and weeds – and as I mentioned earlier, if we also read Matthew 13:36-43, there is an even more graphic description of a furnace of fire and weeping and gnashing of teeth… But, as I also said earlier, this separation of wheat and weeds refers to a greater process, a wholistic process of redemption in our world, not the weeding out of certain individuals.
We also need to keep in mind that this passage is referring to a promised future – not of torture chambers – but of harvest – where, one of my favourite passages, Isaiah 25:6-8 says:
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
7 And he will destroy on this mountain
the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the covering that is spread over all nations;
8 he will swallow up death forever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
As Frog says – and Toad realises – having a garden is very hard work. Similarly, getting to the harvest is very hard work. Sifting the wheat in our lives and our world from the weeds in our lives and our world; persevering in generous sowing, generous compassion, generous patience and grace; is all very hard work.
But we have a God who is prepared to do the hard work; who – although their method of planting, their method of growing, their method of giving up their life in vulnerable love seems crazy to us – is prepared to do the hardest work of all, and will not stop working until the harvest is gathered and the table is laid and every tear is wiped away and death is swallowed up forever.
We have a God who is prepared to do the hard work of love.
Let us sing this prayer – and pray as sing – that we will join God’s way of love in our world.