Weeds

Park UMC R Swenson Mt 13 July 20, 2008
We are in what I call the Ag department of the Gospels
..this is farming country
in Matthew 13 we have these agricultural parables
.... farming stories
the parable of the seeds and the sower with the different kinds of soil
now this morning we have the wheat and the weeds
and next week
we get something about a mustard seed

but did you also noticed that mixed in with these seed parables
there is actually talk about parables themselves
in this same chapter... in verse 10
the disciples are asking Jesus; "why do you speak in parables?"
and then Jesus talks about the use of parabels
again in verse 34
and you can also here
the disciples wanting Jesus to interpret the parable
so let me actually start with a little story
about parables and truth
it’s a traditional Jewish story
Once upon a time,
Truth went into the streets ...just as naked as the day he was born.
It was the naked truth
But no-one would let him into their homes.
No one wanted him around
When People saw this naked Truth
, they turned away and ran
One day
when Truth was wandering around feelign all sad
he met up with Parable.
Now, Parable was dressed p in some fine fancy clothes with beautiful colors.
And Parable, looked at Truth, said,
"Tell me, neighbor, what do you look so sad?"
Truth said, very bitterly ..
truth said
My friend, things ,are bad.
Very bad.
Nobodys want to hear the truth
maybe I'm so old,
that no-one wants to have me.
No-one wants anything to do with me."

Parable head this and said,
"People don't run away from you because you're old.
I am also very old . And I have always been here too.
But the older I get,
the more People seem to like me
so
I'll tell you a secret:
Everyone likes things disguised and prettied up a bit.
Let me give you some splendid clothes like mine,
and then you'll see that the same people who pushed you away
will invite you into their homes
and they will enjoy your company."

so Truth took Parable's advice
and put on the borrowed clothes.
And from that time on,
Truth and Parable have gone hand in hand together and everyone loves them.
They make a wonderful pair.'

some other version of the lesson go on to say that Truth put on the clothes..
Of metaphor and symbol
poetry plots and story

Edward R. Murrow must have known the story of parable and truth
when he said
Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them
and cover them up, at least a little bit –
so what is the naked truth that Jesus is dressing up in the parable of the wheat and the weeds?

remember the parable for just a little bit... a farmer gets good seed planted in the field
but somewhere along the way
something else shows up
and when the wheat heads out
the other plants get discovered

now it doesn’t spell this out in the parable.... but in the middle east back then
there was a common problem with kind of wild grainey weed
the older translations called this parable of the wheat and the tares
the tares were the weeds
this kind of weed looked like the good wheat
it was sometimes called false wheat
.. you couldn’t tell the two apart until closer to harvest time
when things headed out
you see the good wheat
would get heavy
and it would droop down a bit
but this false wheat ..was lighter
.it didn’t fill out as much
so it still stood up straight.
That was your first clue ,,it didnt really amount to anything!
.it stood out for its lack of weight
and you didnt want to jsut harvest it
becuase those little weed grains were poisonous...
You get bad flour out of th deal
anyway
You could NOT see any of this until later in the growing season...close to harvest time.

and by then
there was another problem..
the roots had usually grown together


mixed in tight with the good wheat
and the bad stuff had strong roots.
That’s why Jesus said , as every farmer would know
that when you pull out the bad stuff
you'r going to be damaging the good
it makes sense doesn’t it.
if you’ve done much garden weeding
you know that it can happen.. The roots get tangle up..pull one..you get the other
I remember that the Englstads up in Thief rivers Falls
who did the grain farming right where I grew up
sometimes
they would hire some of us kids to go into the wheat fields
and pull out the oats
the wild oats
so they wouldn’t get docked at the elevator
or sometime
we would go out
and pull out the pig weeds
(do you know about pig weeds.?
They probably got a more official name.
..thy get great big dirt clomps around the roots ,,
you get a chunk of ground when you pull those big weeds up..
Anyway we were just kids
and sometimes we weren’t all that careful
we pulled out a few good things along the way
well
now again what’s the point..
Jesus said it.. right out..
Should we pull out the weeds ...should we pull out the bad things?
No.. ... For in gathering the weeds..
you would uproot the wheat along with them.
Let the wheat and the weeds grew together


Do you hear the naked truth that Jesus is dressing up in that parable?

This is probably
one of the most ignored lessons from Jesus in all of the gospel
this is a truth that we have not listened to..
Do not pull up the weeds!!!!!
why
because you will damage the good.
You will do more harm than good...
Let them grow together
hear that???


You see ...we want to be like the servants in the story
we want to pull the weeds
we think we should pull the weeds
we think that we can pull the weeds
but Jesus says ..keep out..
Even in the interpretation that Matthew gives us later on
those same field hands
are not going to be the ones sorting out the crop.
.. Human judgement ...never gets a chance to do this..

The problem here
seems to be human judgement and human clumsiness when we try..
But oh we try..

Back in Jesus day
the field cleaners were ready to go to work
the patriotic zealots were there..
to rise up in violence..
Drive out the romans
drive out the unbelievers
the pagans
the Roman influence
the Greek influence
in their way of thinking it was as a moral cause.
.they were soldiers of light..
we have old scrolls that talk about that.
.
ready to be martyred..
Maybe they were just desperate to do something.
Judea was an occupied land
and that was such an oppressive burden
Romans were taxing them to death..corruption was everywhere
the weeds were thick!
and soem of the Jewish people did rise up in rebellion
eventually that urge to purge.... leads to the burning of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in 70 Ad
it lead to a slaughter of Jerusalem by the Romans
Jesus taught this lesson
in that kind of a setting
that’s why some people wanted Jesus to give them that permission
they wanted him to be that kind of messiah...
to clean up the field
Get rid of the weeds
shall we pull up the weeds?

By the way.. How did Jesus live with weeds
. he ate with tax collectors and sinners
he ate with people who didn’t seem to be very pure
he ate with people who collected taxes for Rome
and cooperated with that enemy
Jesus healed the servant of Roman officer healed the centurions servant
you get the idea that Jesus ..in his life demonstrated this parable of the wheat and the weeds

but no
we don’t want to live with the weeds! we want to pull
.. gotta pull at the weeds
...
How many times has the church said.. we gotta clean up the field..
Heretics ..outa here..
we have burned people at the stake..trying to pull the weeds
well
we haven’t done that here I n park church or Brainerd
but you know its in the church history
we have gone on crusades...
Done inquisitions...
Split churches
Thinking we could pull the weeds
we have this puritan impulse... to purify and purge
pull up the weed

its an old story
I know.. we want to be right....we want to be faithful to God..
We are like those field hands; eager to please and serve
\
and that’s good
"
Master do you want us to go out and clean this up.?"
Didn’t you plant good seed
of course you did!
this isn’t what you had in mind..right
...an enemy did this..
We know there’s a problem,
you see
this is not a denial of the problem
Don’t try to turn this into a kind of anything goes.
.parable with moral blindness
its not that..
Nobody is saying that the weeds arent out there

we know
we live in a mixed up world
this is not a weed free life

but the issue here...seems to be , what we do about it
how do we live with it..
how do we live
in this inte-rooted,
interconnected..,entangled... world..
Maybe there is a clue in the Bible study itself

listen to the words
in verse -30
where it says
let the them grow together until the harvest
translations say things like "permit it"
;;allow it...
but you could translate it some other ways
the word that is used can also be translated as forgive...


the word that is used here
is used 156 times in the New Testament a
about a third of the time ...its translated as forgive
and could be translated that way even more
What if Jesus is telling us
that t our job is the forgiveness..or at least the tolerance
not the judgement
I don’t know
"
forgive the weed?"
sound strange doesn it .. but then again Jesus said...
love your enemies
pray for those who persecute you
forgive 7 times 7o times s
makes about as much sense as forgiving the weeds ... Allowing the weeds to live.
Can you imagine that..

Could we ever like that ? I’ve got some questions here
:
Are we supposed to be passively resigned in the face of evil?
are we supposed to let things go to weed
this is not a divine command to ignore injustice in the world
I think that the larger weight of scripture says
that we must work for justice
no.. we don’t just ignore the failures of the church either


this is not some hopeless resignation
This is not a call to despair
or abdication of responsibility...
(nothing you can do about the weeds!)

Actually there is something we are supposed to do in here
and I believe its harder thing to do..than actually pulling the weeds..

we are called to protect the whole field.
.let them grow together.. The parable says
There is a type of faith work
that we are being called into
but this is not conventional wisdom and its not the way of the world
So we avoid the truth of this parable
How do we live with the weed?
first of all we trust and obey the master of the field
that means we have to admit our moral clumsiness in weed cleaning
we are not able to do this job
pulling the weeds
the second thing we do..in living with the weeds
is avoid doing more evil ....
to do no harm
if you pull up the weeds you will do more harm than good
we are suppose to let the good keep growing
We are suppose to stay with the good course and the wisdom of the master
we are supposed to trust the owner of the field
and trust the power of the good seed
get this
In this parable the ability of the good seed to produce a harvest
is never questioned.
In fact ....what is the only thing that might hurt the good seed?

The only thing that threatened the good seed
is the eager but clumsy work of the servants
The wheat will survive in spite of the weeds

that the good news that the servants need to hear
..the good will be there..
BUT Can we believe that!

apparently God is more comfortable with this weedy mixed up world
than we are
God allows a mixed up world
whether we like it or not
whether we understand it or not
this is how it is,
..

Now what’s that got to do with us today
how about
if we read this parable
whenever we talked about soemof the most tangled up and complicated thigns that we face today
like sexuality issues
in church and society
we could come up with a mixed up list
of social issues and moral issues
abortion. Evolution ..poverty, global warming, illegal immgaration,
,gay rights
,,separation of church and state..politics,,,interpretation of the Bible...the war in Iraq...
All of that is very tangled up stuff

like it or not..
its there
Have we done a very good job talking about those things?
I wonder ..if in the process of trying to sort this out
maybe we have also hurt the good
sometimes we have done more harm..than good

we have hurt the witness of the church and neglected our ministries.
we have Not been at our best
We have ripped into these delicate and sometimes personal..complicated matters
churches get torn part.. By the roots
lives get hurt.
I know we may not be comfortable;
with the mixed up ..and compromised conditions
but sometimes..it’s the best we can do.
As the parable seems to say
we are all in this field together

we are bound..inseparably for now.. at the roots
we live along side of each other
what I do effect you
what you do effects me..
and if the roots are entr-twined as they are
then we need to protect each other
sound strange doesn’t it..co existence
I protect myself..by protecting you..
I care for everything in the field.
First do no harm
no matter what we think of each other
Maybe this is parable that we desperately
need to hear today
God allows
God..forgives
the mixed up field ..at least for now.

Maybe this is even bigger than just the church
maybe this parable is about the world

maybe we need to hear this lesson that as Christians ...Jews... Moslems... Buddhists... Hindus... atheists.. Humanists... New ages or whatever

Jesus is telling us that we need to learn to live together for our own sakes
for the good of the harvest.

Let the good grow
It is a call to keep the good growing
to learn forgiveness
patience... humbleness... prayer..
to trust that God will do what we simply cannot do.
Let the weeds and wheat both grow toghter until the harvest
That’s the Naked truth that Jesus is dressing up
and ends the lessons by saying Those who have ears to hear..let them hear
,,listen up ..if you can
amen