A Time for No

Sermon from last Sunday at Church of the Redeemer

Genesis 28:10-19; Psalm 139:1-11, 22-23; Romans 8:12-25

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Introduction

Parables are invitations to imagine a world unlike ours.

They are like portals into an imaginary world. The characters and plot of the parables invite us in and, once in, we become participants.

As such they are like The Hobbit to LOTR, like the Wardrobe to Narnia.

            Like an MDiv degree to future church ministries

            Like an apprenticeship to employment.

Parables are portals to an imaginary world. They are also “Listen up” stories (13:43).

First, let’s read this parable again (13:24-30).

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

>>Zizania, “weeds,” is lolium temulentum, “an annoying weed that looks very much like wheat, especially before maturity, and can carry a poisonous fungus. If it is harvested and ground together with wheat, the resulting flour is spoiled” (Snodgrass, 198).

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

Listeners knew this was a fictional story. They did not think of particular farmer’s field or some interloper tossing zizania into his wheat field.

Close listeners would not have wondered Who the enemy was (Satan) but they would have wondered Who or what the weeds are.

Re: Weeds. An irresistible church pastime.

1.     The weeds are those who have sinned after baptism. Sinless church impulse.

2.     The weeds are those with notorious sins. Holy church impulse.

3.     The weeds are heretics. Pure theology impulse.

The weeds are people in a different denomination, women’s ordination or who don’t, baptizing babies or those who don’t.

4.     The weeds are those with a different politics. Exclusive culture impulse.

Twitter, FB, and now Threads do lots of weeding in the church’s garden.

Weed-detectors soon discover they have become judges of others. Jesus did not create apprentices to be weed-detectors.

Perhaps we should be asking why it is that we want to be weed detectors. Is it not to justify ourselves? To pat ourselves on our muscular backs?

Will Willimon, that one-of-a-kind Methodist preacher, in a sermon once said “From time to time… We have tried to clean up the church, removing from the rolls all the slackers, dead wood, morally impure. Let's get this church paired down to the truly religious, the really committed, we said to ourselves. Invariably, we ended up with a church which more closely resembled the people who crucified Jesus rather than the ones who followed Jesus.” Collected Sermons, 108-109.

But is this how this parable works? Are we meant to be asking Who are the weeds? How do we purify the church?  Is this the “groaning” from our reading of Romans 8?

The church’s temptation to become weed detectors blinds our reading of this parable. We miss the point.

What is it that we are missing?

What we need is some context. This parable is about the presence of the kingdom in the days of Jesus. Already here in some ways. Why then the presence of evil? Why then the reality of the Enemy?

What Jesus’s hearers expected was the question of the “owner’s slaves” (NIV softens with “servants”): ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

Of course! If the kingdom is here, let’s kick butt! Kingdom, Messiah, and victory were tied together.

Mary, in her Magnificat, sang like Amanda these words of an already-victory: “He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble” (Luke 1:42)

Zechariah, one page over in the Benedictus, announced the already-victory of “salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us” … and “to rescue from the hand of our enemies” (1:71, 74).

Many would have known the hopes and expectations of a text called the Psalms of Solomon, which described the days of the Messiah in these term: “See, Lord, and raise up for them their king, the son of David…. Undergird him with the strength to destroy the unrighteous rulers, to purge Jerusalem from gentiles who trample her to destruction; in wisdom and in righteousness to drive out the sinners from the inheritance … to shatter all their substance with an iron rod…” (17:21-25).

First Century listeners to Jesus were wondering how in the world the kingdom can be present and the world around them not fully redeemed.

They expected to call Galilee the New Bethel as in our Genesis reading today. They did not expect for Galilee again to become Jezreel, or in our terms, a church culture war.

Their wondering no doubt was visible on their faces when Jesus responded to the question about uprooting the weeds, about removing the enemies’ seeds with some violence.

With that context I want to point out that there is one clue that completely changes the meaning of this parable from wondering about who those pesky, annoying, poisonous weeds are.

After telling another parable, Matthew tells us that “Jesus left the crowd and went into the house.” Traditionally Peter’s house in Capernaum where Jesus set up his kingdom mission shop. I hope I’m right about that because I’ve told students that right next to the remains of Peter’s (supposed) house. That’s not the clue.

Nor is this: the disciples said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” They wanted to know why we’ve got kingdom and evil at the same time. And they wanted to know what they could do about it.

They were on the threshold of that house asking if they could go kick butt.

Let’s read vv. 36-43.

Jesus identifies some of the particulars, turning the parable into a part-time allegory.

“The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.”

The clue is “The field is the world.”

Not Israel, not Galilee, not Judea. Not Syria. Not even Egypt or Rome.

Not the church.

The world.

The field as the world changes everything.

It stops weed-wondering and begins world-wondering.

This parable is about how kingdom people relate to non-kingdom people in this here world. How to relate to the sometimes non-kingdom poisoning of the fields.

Jesus instructs his disciples that the kingdom is both present and an experience-able reality, but that does not mean what they thought it meant. It does not mean a kick-butt victory.

It means patience, waiting until the end. Waiting for the Son of Man.

“… so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.

The purifying work, the excluding work, will be the work of God. And God doesn’t do things the way we do things.

In Bernard Malamud’s novel, The Assistant, we read this dialogue:

            He asked her what book she was reading.

            “The Idiot, do you know it?”

            “No. What’s it about?”

            “It’s a novel.”

            “I’d rather read the truth,” he said.

            “It is the truth.”

In the book in which I read this clip, the author then says, “the truth of the imagination.” (Epstein, The Novel) Exactly what this little parable is: truth of imagination.

“No!,” Jesus said in this little fictional uber short story to those who wanted victory now. With a sword in their fist. No! is the truth he wants them to know.

One of Marilynne Robinson’s wondrous pastors made this wise observation what happens when we turn to kick-butt violence.

And I said that … the desire for war would bring the consequences of war, because there is no ocean big enough to protect us from the Lord's judgment when we decide to hammer our plowshares into swords and our pruning hooks into spears in contempt of the will and the grace of God (Gilead, 42).

Now is the time for kingdom people to dwell with non-kingdom people.

Now is the time for kingdom people to live peaceably with non-kingdom people.

Now is the time for kingdom people to establish toleration for all people.

            Besides, we don’t know who kingdom people are and who isn’t.

I know it sounds rather odd, but this parable leads us to relax. To know that God is at work, God will do God. It’s a relief to know we aren’t called to rip out the weeds. To know we are called to dwell with, to live peaceably, to tolerate. That we are not the judges, with the sad realization that weed-detecting turns us into judges.

Now is not the time for Christian nationalist takeovers of the US Capitol.

Now is not the time for Christian imperialism to assume the throne.

Now is not the time for “happy shiny people” to sneak into power.

Kingdom people maybe are not using violence these days, but victory over non-kingdom people in the political, cultural war has been a game too many are playing. With appeal to Christian ideas and scriptures.

Now is the time for dwelling with.

Now is the time to be a witness.

Now is the time to worship.

Now is the time to pursue and work for peace. “God blesses the peacemakers.”

Now is the time to resist injustice, not with violence but with the way of the Cross.

This parable is not advocating doing nothing. It does not teach us to let racism be, or to let violence go on, or to let the drug cartel do what drug cartels do.

A single parable isn’t the whole Christian way of life. Parables do what they do, and they are but one little adventure into the kingdom envisioned by Jesus.

There is a time to back off and back down, a time to tolerate, a time to pursue peace, to enjoy a bench in the shade in the park.  This parable tells us that time is now.

With the Psalmist today perhaps we need to pray “Search me, God, and know my heart.”