Sermons

July 2002 (click here to return to "July 2002 Sermons" page)

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (July 21, 2002)

“Sow What?” Van Kemper

Text: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Sermon

Last Sunday, we saw God at work in the Parable of the Sower. We learned that God’s kingdom is everywhere: along the path, on the rocky ground, among the thorns, and even on the good soil. The explanation offered by Jesus emphasized what ancient Hebrew prophets like Isaiah had learned the hard way: The people might hear, but would not understand; the people might see, but would not perceive; the people would not repent, and be healed.

I concluded last week’s sermon by imagining a very weary God, tired of laboring for eternity in the fields of the kingdom, yet unwilling to give up on humanity. In my imagination, I asked God the burning question, “Lord, why do you continue to love us, especially when we are so unworthy?” And an unexpected answer came back to me, when God

took a deep breath and answered in a still small voice, “You sow and sow.” . . . God keeps sowing, keeps after us, keeps showing us how to deal with adversity, keeps providing us with more opportunities to blossom. God did not just create the world and then turn away.

Now, this morning’s lectionary reading brings us another parable of the kingdom. This time, Jesus tells the crowds that someone sows good seed and then, while everybody is asleep, an enemy comes along and sows weeds among the wheat, and then goes away. The wheat grows, but so do the weeds. (In fact, the weeds in this parable are particularly bothersome because they look very much like the wheat they infest!) When the servants finally see what is happening, they ask their master for permission to pull out the weeds. But their master says “No,” and then explains that, at harvest time, the reapers will collect the weeds for burning while they gather the good grain into the master’s barn.

If you gather nothing else from this parable, you surely will come away from it with the opinion that Jesus was a much better carpenter than he was a farmer! (pause) Even though I grew up in the city of San Diego, California, I spent enough summers on my Granny’s farm in southern Oklahoma to know that leaving weeds to grow in the fields until harvest time is a very strange way to be successful at farming. Every summer, I would be given a hoe bigger than I was – and pointed in the direction of what seemed to me to be endless rows of cotton plants. Even if you’ve never chopped cotton – a misnomer is there ever was one, since the idea is to miss the cotton and chop down the weeds! – you still know that weeds need to be eliminated as soon as feasible. Even if your agricultural activities have been limited to caring for a lawn at your urban home, then you know that it helps to pull out or cut down the weeds before they sprout their seeds and generate even more weeds.

What Jesus suggests in this parable seems to run counter to good agricultural practices. Even though it does not seem to follow the best practices for farmers, it still provides a guide for best practices for saving the world – something at which Jesus really is the expert. Jesus knows a lot about love, mercy, righteousness, forgiveness, and patience – all the good stuff of God’s kingdom.

We need to turn to Jesus’ explanation of this parable to make sense of it from his perspective.

As with the earlier Parable of the Sower, this Parable of the Weeds of the Field – as it is labeled by the disciples – receives an explanation that helps only a little. Here the sower is the Son of Man – whom the disciples and Christians ever since – take to be Jesus himself. The field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom, while the weeds are the children of the evil one. The explanation then moves toward eschatology – the end of the world – as the disciples hear that the enemy is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.

This focus on the end of the age takes the explanation beyond the present time of the disciples – and even beyond our own times. For this reason, many commentators have concluded that this parable is intended to preach patience among the faithful. They should not rush to judgment about who and what is evil in the world around them. And they should leave the reaping and the separating of the weeds from the grains in the hands of the Lord.

We also should notice what Jesus ignores in his explanation. For instance, Jesus does not condemn the servants or the master for failing to keep watch during the night instead of sleeping. If the master had posted a servant as guard over the fields, then the enemy might not have been able to broadcast his weeds among the wheat. So, this parable is not about some rare and intentional falling asleep at the wheel or being inattentive, but instead emphasizes how such “sleep” naturally and inevitably comes to “everybody.”

As to the servants’ eagerness to cull the weeds from the wheat, Jesus cautions that we must be patient. It is not up to us to do the reaping, for this is to be left in the hands of God, through his messengers (angels). Jesus explains that sin and evildoers will be dealt with, but not yet! According to Jesus’ interpretation of this parable, it is not up to his disciples to determine who is good and evil, much less to take into their own hands any actions against sin and evildoers.

So, just who is going to take responsibility for dealing with the weeds?

The Anglo-Irish playwright and author Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) once observed that

Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent among them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance toward civilization (from “The Soul of Man under Socialism,” Fortnightly Review; London, 1891).

Although Oscar Wilde was referring to late 19th century socialist agitators, most of us here can see that this profile fits Jesus to a “T.” Indeed, Jesus’ entire career as reported here in Matthew and in the other Gospels is the story of an agitator, a man of social criticism and social action. Jesus always was intefering, meddling, upsetting the elite members of his community, and sowing the seeds of discontent among the people. He was well aware that he was pitting those who followed him against centuries of tradition. He also understood that, from the perspective of the powers and principalities, he and his followers were like weeds among the wheat in the fields.

Here is the paradox in the parable, here is where Jesus throws his listeners the inevitable curve: The Son of Man sows the good seed, but the good seed is at times the seed of discontent, the stuff of agitating, interfering, and meddling.

It is not an accident that, in the parable, the “enemy” comes while “everybody is asleep.” Being “asleep” is another way for Jesus to express to the crowds the natural tendency of human beings to become complacent, to the point that the people “hear but never understand, see but never perceive.” Especially when what we having been doing for years seems to be working, it is very tempting to continue to do the same things season after season. Eventually, the sameness of whatever approach we employ leads to acceptance of the status quo as if it were the only way to do things. In many congregations, this approach to doing church is celebrated through what some call the Seven Last Words of the Church: “We’ve never done it that way before.”

So, it is with great joy that I stand here to report that some new seeds are beginning to be germinated here at Trinity. These seeds have not emerged yet and certainly have not borne fruit yet. But, a new beginning is upon us – and I want to let you have a sneak peek into this wonderful work.

If you have been reading The Trinity Caller, and hearing Wayne Davis stand up and make announcements from time to time, then you are aware that we now have an “Inclusive Ministry Task Force” working at the command of the Session. This Task Force is working faithfully:

· to expand our horizons in ministry as we move ahead into this 21st century;

· to discern how Trinity can become more “inclusive” of the broader community outside these sanctuary walls; and

· to transform Trinity into a “welcoming congregation” within our Oak Cliff neighborhood.

Many years ago, this congregation suffered through hard times. The members’ faithful response to those crises led to reestablishment of the facility in our present location and, eventually, to the construction and renovation of this building in which we now hold our worship services and other congregational activities. Without their vision and commitment, we would not be in this sanctuary this morning and every Sunday morning.

These days, even as our membership has declined from more than 200 to around 160 and worship attendance from around 100 to around 60, and even as we have just closed on the sale of the former Wynnewood church facility, crisis and opportunity are both in the air here at Trinity. The Inclusive Ministry Task Force understands the present tension between crisis and opportunity. Next month, the Task Force will send to the Session a series of recommendations – and actions to match – that, if taken seriously and fully implemented, can transform this congregation and its relationship with the surrounding community.

All of us will see the impact of these recommendations on who we are and how we do church here at Trinity. Inevitably, there will be some discontent. After all, most folks – and perhaps especially life-long Presbyterians – are averse to change.

When you are urged to participate in our congregational transformation, remember that the very future of Trinity Presbyterian church is on the line. Many of you sitting in the pews this morning are thinking that any such transformation will not matter, since you know that it is not going to change the way you participate in Sunday morning worship services, in the women’s circles, in First Thrusday and Fifth Sunday social gatherings, and even in the numerous funerals that we can expect to attend in the coming months and years.

But let me remind you of a statement from Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919), an American writer, journalist, and poet, who once remarked: “With every deed you are sowing a seed, though the harvest you may not see.” Some of us certainly will not see the results of the changes being proposed by the Inclusive Ministry Task Force. But all of us can be faithful to the message of Jesus, the ultimate agitator who sowed the seeds of transformation in his own community some two thousand years ago, and who provides our model for bringing about transformation in our community here in Oak Cliff.

When you hear what is ahead for Trinity, don’t just turn away, believing that it doesn’t matter what you do. Turning around the situation here at Trinity will not occur overnight. Each of us can become a good seed for change, if we will act positively in answering the question “What can I do to transform Trinity into a ‘welcoming congregation?’” Nearly thirty years of declining membership and resources can be turned around – but only if we all commit ourselves to turn the uncaring apathy of “So what!” into the missionary zeal of “Sow what?” Amen.