Weeds and Wheat (not gluten free)

The Weeds and the Wheat (not gluten free)

It is worth noting that metaphorical speech is a primary way we hear the stories of Jesus. His parables fall into all kinds of metaphorical speech - but this not a lecture on types.

It is enough to know there are NOT pre-packaged meanings, but challenges for the hearers to respond. (I recognize we will shortly hear a what sounds like a packaged meaning from Jesus’ own explanation to his disciples.)

 Question: What Unusual elements did you note? 

       answers/Master plants, where do weeds come from?

   “That he would be sowing his own field rather than his slaves is unusual.”

“Atypical dimensions function to gain the audience’ attention, impart insight, prepare for subsequent interpretation.”1

Where does one get ‘weed seed’? Who, what, when, …

Seed, nighttime ‘black ops’ is not explained.

Owner somehow knows an enemy has done this rather than recognizing a common weed. 2

Just like it should, the parable challenges us to think! Let’s hear how Jesus later explained it to those closest to him.

Scripture Mt. 13:36-43

1) how does this explanation make you feel?

2) do the categories apply to our day?

We seldom focus on “Judgement Day” nor think of a final HARVEST of souls - yet realize much of scripture did give clues about the end. Doesn’t make scripture irrelevant, we just have to do ‘our’ work to find ‘our’ meaning.

Matthew uses a frame of reference we call - ‘apocalyptic dualism’

What is it? What dualism do you notice?

Black and white, light and dark, evil and good = clear categories

We know a little about Matthew’s day; a time several generations later (1/2 century) when Jesus’ own people seemed to have completely rejected him (in fact most Jews and many Jesus’ followers have dispersed from the center of the movement in Jerusalem) and the movement is becoming a church of ‘gentiles’ or those who are not born Jewish. Resulting in resentments on both sides, and a diversity that doesn’t sit well in most 1st century congregations. 

Recognizing Matthew’s/author use of ‘apocalyptic dualism’ should cause us to look for it in our own day.

a sermon from 7/27/14 with my color coding that won't go away. :-)

Where do we see simple dualistic explanations and are we tempted to use the same? 

The scripture climb 

The message we seek to discern as THIS community again gathers around scripture takes work to tug and pull and listen in order to find.

Recognize that purposefully a parables’ vividness/strangeness leaves our minds in sufficient doubt to its precise application to TEASE our minds into ACTIVE THOUGHT. 

How are we to hear this?

1. Jesus’ ministry in his day : Certainly - the parable itself is likely Jesus’ very words. We can hear him saying it.. Agricultural images common.. Struggle for us who no longer live so close to the land and our food sources.

2. 1st Century Church : Our author inevitably writes about and to ‘his/her’ church which faced trials we can only imagine, as the population shifts and the church transitions, into something very new.

3. Judgement Day : Yes, it’s about the eschatological day of harvest - the end of all time.  For much of Christianity thruout history our faith language speaks of waiting, and hoping for this day of harvest, when we will see the risen Christ who comes to judge the world.

so YES - ALL THREE WAYS are meant to be heard.

And ‘hearing’ all 3 layers, we have already climbed into the text looking for ‘our meaning’.

We’ve dug into Matthew’s use of dualism, a somewhat scholarly approach - altho one we need to see. Now how about we return to the earth and dig some more.

 “Do You Use Weed Killer”

One more close look: Looking at weeds (see slide) What they knew and we don’t...

A pastor I know, Teri P describe it like this: “it’s a specific weed, named in the Greek text—is darnel, or false wheat. It looks just like wheat until the ears mature…almost until harvest time, you cannot tell the two apart. 

Only when the grain matures can you see that the real wheat is heavy and bends over, while false wheat stands up straight and has a slightly darker color. In the meantime, while you’ve been watching the wheat grow, the false wheat has wrapped its roots around the roots of the real wheat, so pulling up one would pull up the other, or at least damage it. 

To add insult to injury, the fruit of false wheat is poisonous, and even a little mixed in can make a whole batch of flour toxic.”3 

“Botanical equivalent of ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ & Jesus has used that image before. 4

Now that you are botanical experts, 

What meaning do YOU take from this parable?  . . .Is there evil in our world? 

Did you note that Jesus’ explanation was not to the crowds but to his disciples? 

So the message about evil and good, existing together, is a message for the church... And perhaps a message for each of us.

One more question:

What are we told to do? . . . NOTHING - 

Not every sermon that ends up telling you to do nothing...

We are NOT to root out the evil in our midst the parable says, but leave it up to God. In fact, in a few more chapters, we are given some specific ways to address inappropriate behaviors in the church - see Matthew 18 for that message - but overall, we are to recognize that our God is a God of INFINITE PATIENCE. (TBTG)

That in spite of evils “pernicious nature” (much like Arlington’s English Ivy, or the Kudzu that is creeping our way from the south) we have a God that can deal with the evil among us. (even when we can’t)

It’s a reminder that the church contains evil, just like the world.

Now don’t you wish we were in a circle so you could look everyone here in the eye and wonder about who is evil?

Yet the church is greater than our circle. 

We know the horror stories of the Christian church

Crusades

Inquisitions

Our Brethren and anabaptist ancestors weren’t killed by non-Christians, but by OTHER christians who disagreed with baptism by immersion and our way of living.

Then On US shores - witch hunts

Church sanctioned slavery and racial discrimination (whole denominations broke into black and white and most are still that way)

The Lesser status for women in the world and the church (to put it mildly)

Even up to today’s ‘debate’ over equality for loving couples and who has the ‘right’ to marry.

Or even who is acceptable in God’s eyes.

Many would even pull up and separate those whose passion - makes them different, whether they are stewards of the earth, environmental advocates, social activists, or evangelical missionaries.

Who would you pull up and out of the church?

It seems clear, as one pastor put it, we have no right to condemn others as ‘evil’ as ‘wrong’ as ‘bad seed’. We are not the landowner – however much we might want to be. 

We are ALL God’s beloved children and, as humans we all fail, we all do wrong. Some wrongs seem unforgivable and awful but it does not make the person who failed ‘bad seed’ – just a fellow child of God who sinned..as we all do.”5

Truth is “in any given moment there are members of the church who are acting, publicly or privately, in unchristian ways.”6 making the church a mixed field of sweet wheat and poisonous weed. 

In fact, recent brain research shows us that we are all a mixed field - right within our own selves. Each of our brains contains “evolutionary levels from the reptilian ‘fight or flight’ instinct, to the amygdala where the shape of trauma is preserved, to the ‘God center’ in the cerebral cortex.”7

“Each of us is some mixture of wheat and weed,” a scholar wrote, we are each “Holy and unholy, potentially fruitful and potentially destructive.”8

Meaning: If we are following the Jesus’ Way, then we too will act with RESTRAINT, recognizing that our God is one of “Holy purposeful ambiguity” which is far from the black and white interpretation that we at first see in this parable. 

Know that God isn’t shrugging us off, with a ‘whatever’ response to humanity. But the “ambiguity is both wise and intentional.”9

Our God of “infinite patience” gives us the time - even ‘frees us’ ‘to get on with loving or at least living with each other.”

“Often, in the space created by such patience, it is not just others, but we ourselves who are welcomed into a larger reality.” One person called it being ‘born again....and again...and again.’ 10

Are you feeling better about the waiting? 

And are you ready to hope for the harvest?

Maybe that stalk ..that looks just different enough from the rest of us that I’m convinced it’s a weed, will turn out to be the bearer of more fruit than any stalk in our field.

I might even HOPE that there will be time for God to transform the weedier parts of me into good fruit..some time before the final HARVEST. .When all will be safely gathered in...

1 -  William Carter workingpreacher.org for 7/20/14 Year A gospel

2- ibid

3  Teri Peterson - Clever title Here.blogspot.com
4 Talitha Arnold Feasting On The Word - YrA pastoral (Louis:WJK,2011)262
5  Maggie Hunt posting on RevGalBlogPals 7/19/14
6  Gary Pluso-Verdend Feasting on the Word YrA Theological (Louisville:WJK,2011)262
7  ibid Pluso-Verdend p264
8 ibid
9  Theodore J. Wardlaw Feasting on the word YrA Homiletical (Louis:WJK,2011)263
10 ibid 263