Advent Lutheran Church

"Letting God be God (Pentecost 5)"

Grace and peace to you from God, the Creator, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

 

            A colleague of mine on the ELCA Church Council led a devotion earlier this week at a staff retreat in Chicago.  As he began to share, I knew that Pastor Steve was revealing not only a piece of his faith journey, but a picture of life that touched my heart and I’m sure will touch many of yours.  He graciously allowed me to share just a bit of what he had to say:

            “Our older daughter Kate turned 21 this past spring and four of us celebrated her birthday with an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. 

            It was the first time she had been in our home since we had called the sheriff's department six months earlier when she assaulted her sister. 

            It was the first time she had been to our home since her two suicide attempts in December and since she had spent five weeks on a locked psychiatric ward at the mental health hospital. 

            It is the first time she has been to our home since going before a judge on two separate occasions for a mental competency hearing.

            I bring her up this morning not so much to talk about Kate, but to talk about what I have been learning over the past three years. I am learning the discipline of letting Kate be Kate.  When she chose to use illegal drugs I had to find a way to tell her I love her anyway.  When she chooses not to stay on antidepressants or mood stabilizers I tell her I love her.  When she was arrested for shop lifting and assaulting a police officer I told her I love her but would not post bail.  When she dropped out of college and lost her eligibility for a free four year education in New Mexico I told her I love her… 

            I don't know what God has in mind for Kate…it could well be that she will not live to be 30 years old.  That is between her and God, not mine to decide.”

“Not mine to decide.”  Those are the words of awareness that we will need, to really hear the story Jesus is telling us this morning, the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds.  “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field.”  The field has already been sown, the growing season is underway, already in process, and it is clear that no one knows about the weeds until the grain appears.  And then, there are two responses to the field of wheat and weeds:  First, the slaves of the householder.  You can almost hear the words of judgment as they blame the weeds on the Master’s planting.  “Master, didn’t you plant GOOD SEED?”  (Well, it must have been the cheap stuff, or there wouldn’t be any weeds…this guy makes mistakes all the time, he doesn’t seem to have a CLUE about farming!  Must have inherited the field in the first place…) And then, they volunteer to help him out.  “Uh, Master, how about you let US go and clean up that field?  Why, we could have those weeds out of there in no time at all.  And we’ll do it quickly and efficiently because we KNOW the difference between wheat and weeds” (hint, hint…)

But the Master is content to let it go for awhile, to let it grow for awhile.  The Master is content to watch things grow.  And as the Hebrew language describes, he’s happy to watch the wheat “wheating” and the weeds “weeding,” just doing what they were made to do.  Just like human beings being human:  making choices – some good, some not so good.  And what is God’s patient response to the freedom of our choices?  God continually and faithfully sows good seed – flinging it everywhere - on paths and rocks, into weeds and on to good soil…

Just like the owner of the field, God is content to “suffer it” for now.  That’s the old-fashioned word used to translate the Greek word “Aphete” (which means to let, to permit, to suffer.  And finally, to forgive.  It’s all part of the process of creating.  But there will be a time when the Master will tell the reapers to CUT IT ALL.  The wheat will be wheat; the weeds, weeds.  The seeds sown just become what they always were.  And God will USE it all.

            This Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat appears in Matthew’s gospel in two parts.  First, there is the story as Jesus tells it, part of a series of teaching stories using agrarian themes.  Then, a few more images (including next week’s mustard seed.) At that point in the story, with the preaching and teaching done for the day, Jesus and his disciples close up shop and head to their lodging, where the disciples ask for further clarification.  What follows, most scholars agree, is an interpretation of the original story by Matthew’s community.  Therefore, the explanation is focused pointedly on this group of Jewish Christians who are becoming less and less bound to the synagogue as they find there way to becoming church.  Remember that Jewish life and faith was undergirded by the Law, and thus their first response is to assume that this story is about righteousness:  who is good and who is bad?  Who is the wheat and who is the weed?  How are we to live in this world surrounded by evil?

            You know, it’s a good thing Jesus was a carpenter, because he didn’t know much about farming. Any of you who have ever planted a garden or a field know that allowing weeds to grow up with whatever you planted is not a good idea.  The weeds “choke” the wheat, and they leave multitudes of seeds for the next year and the next and the next!  So why would Jesus tell stories that his hearers knew more about than he did?  Well, he didn’t!  Parables are always about God, not us, and this parable is not about a successful garden.  It is about something much greater:  a successful Creation.

            In this story, it is not injury to the crop’s growth that’s a concern, but the quality of the  worker’s plan vs. the “Master’s plan.”  It is about the Master Sower, who flings good seed/his seed everywhere regardless of where it will land, and then waits for the time when he tells the reapers to CUT IT ALL.  Then, remember, God will USE IT ALL.  At the harvest, the weeds are bundled and burned, and the wheat is gathered in the barn.  But then what happens to the wheat?  It is THRESHED! Beaten, broken up, chaff sifted and blown away; grain ground into tiny stuff to be measured and mixed, kneaded and baked.  Baked into bread to feed a hungry world…

            And therein lies the point of the Parable.  It’s not about whether we are wheat or weed (good or bad, or good and bad.)  It’s about God and God’s Creation and intentions.  But, Pastor Susan, “If God is good, why does he allow the weeds?” You might just as well ask, “If God is good, why does God allow us?”

            Jesus says in the story that the enemy has come and gone. The weeds have been sown with the wheat.  And apparently, even the Kingdom of Heaven is no longer perfect.  That’s because perfection belongs ONLY to God and

in this life, God allows creation to be as created, in the midst of the other forces that exist in this world.  God may have a will for your life, and I believe in God’s loving intentions and desires for each of us, beloved children.  But it doesn’t involve micro-managing individuals, it involves patiently waiting for the whole harvest.

            I know, it’s difficult to not find your place in the story.  So I’ll help you out.  You are not the weeds, nor the wheat.  You are the children of the God who has created the field, and you are heirs with Christ of it.  But,

                        sometimes you are the ones too impatient to wait on God, and                 

                        sometimes, you are the ones who want to do the judging and be the pullers of weeds, and

                        sometimes, just like everyone else, you’re the one who knows better than the Father.

                        Doesn’t make you a weed.  Doesn’t make you wheat.

            But how do we resist whatever weeds might be threatening to choke us - the weeds of this world that grow up right next to us:  a desire for power over others, the accumulation of “more than enough,” escaping the realities of the world we’ve created for ourselves, or an unwillingness to forgive and be forgiven?  Whatever keeps you from trusting in your relationship with a God of unending love, patience, and goodness is the warning of the parable. 

            But the Good News is that God loves you no matter what.  God’s love never falters nor ends.  God’s patience goes beyond time; God’s forgiveness covers even our attempts to try to be God and our failure to let God be God.  And Kate?  She gets to have her life.  And she gets to have Steve’s love, and forgiveness, and patience.  Kate will be Kate.  Steve will be Steve.  And God will forever be God.  Amen.