Matthew 13:24-30

He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field, but while everybody was asleep an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”

Sermon Text

Two weeks in a row where Jesus wants us to talk about gardening. I could not feel more out of depth. Yet, if the Lord thinks it is an image we need to keep in our head… Who am I to disagree?

Like last week, Jesus is asking us to see the Kingdom of Heaven as an agricultural experiment. God has gone out and planted, but alongside the good seed that God has planted, weeds have been thrown. The workers of the field ask if they should start pulling the weeds, but the farmer in his wisdom tells them to wait. When the time for the harvest comes, the wheat will be separated from the tares, and one will go into storehouses and the other into the fire. Yet, to keep the wheat safe, there must be a period in which the two grow together.

This parable provides one of scriptures more unsatisfactory explanations for a real problem we face. If you look around you in this world, and even in the church, you will see people doing what they ought not to. This is not always just self-destructive acts, but real and serious evil toward others. We often ask, “God why could you not just get rid of all this evil?” And the answer we see, in this parable at least, is that there would be no way to do that that would not harm innocents as well.

God is a God who is not restrained by anything, God has the divine freedom to act upon anyone and anything how God likes. Yet, we know that God has created this world with certain rules. We have free will to do good and bad. God respects this innate will and does not force changes upon us, we must accept and follow God’s leading. Likewise, God in God’s abundant patience, gives people the opportunity to repent, to change, and to try to make right the things they have done wrong. God could change all evil with a snap, but it would not be consistent with the world God has created, therefore only forceful removal would be possible.

A person may say, “Well, how bad could it be! If God could just wipe out evil people, then let God do it.” Well, God did do that once… And God chose never to do so again. The Flood, in all its brutal terror, is a story about God wiping the sleight of creation clean, except for a small subset of humans and animals preserved out of mercy. The story of the Flood is not just a story of wrath or mercy though, it is an object lesson in why “eradicating evil,” cannot be done through violence. The Flood happens, Noah and his family exit, and within a single chapter we are told they go back to the ways of their neighbors. War continues, theft continues, violence of all kinds continues, the Flood did not work to end evil.

I do not believe, fundamentally, that God’s intent with the Flood was to end evil forever, that is what Christ’s incarnation was for. Yet, the fact that God took steps like that at all serves as an eternal reminder that redemption, and not destruction, is the essence of God’s mission in creation. While I cannot give a completely coherent explanation for why God allows evil to exist in the way it does, I do know that God has told me through scripture that if God were to eradicate by force, that eradication would be complete and total and would not leave anything on the earth. God has said that the evil and good must coexist for a time, to spare the good until the time comes for the evil to be erased.

I was curious, as I read this parable, if there was a specific kind of weed involved in this story. Sure enough, the “tares,” that the enemy planted are a specific plant. It is called, “darnel,” and it is a plague on wheat farmers even till today. Darnel is a weed that mimics the appearance of rye, and so it grows in rye fields and propagates. It looks just like rye, until the very moment it produces corns. When the fruit of the plant shows itself, then one can be told from the other, not a moment before.

I read this truth to suggest that maybe God is not saying, “I have plans to take care of all this evil, deal with it until then.” I do think that God is asking us to trust that all evil will be punished someday, but I do not think that God is abandoning us to just sit and deal with this either. The weeds that are in this parable are revealed by one specific thing – their fruits. The things that come from a person, the things that their actions produce, are a valid means to evaluate their nature. This is the lesson of this parable as much as any end times hope it provides.

Do you know someone whose actions you have tried to excuse based on some appeal to their core nature? Maybe it is time to stop. I’m not saying they’re beyond redemption, or that they are without any sort of hope or need for compassion, but I am saying that if someone shows themselves to be consistently in the wrong… Maybe we should acknowledge them for what they are. Call a spade a spade, and do not excuse wrongdoing just because it is easier to tolerate it than to speak to it.

We are not like wheat, we can change what our fruits are. I know I have had times in my life where I have been more trouble than help to the people around me… But it did no good for those people to ignore that I was going down the wrong path. Looking back, I wish more people had called me out for my behavior – not in anger or to reject me – but out of the concern I needed to hear to know I needed to change. Not that I would have listened necessarily…

Next week, we will look at how we can mourn situations we have no control over, specifically family situations. Yet, before that week where we hand so much over to God, I want us to remember our part. Find the tares in your own heart, and start pruning them back so that the fruits of the Spirit can grow. Do not be afraid, if fruits of evil have shown in your life or in another person’s to do something about it. In all things, remember, resemble, and give thanks for the God that gives us time to be transformed, and does not burn the innocent to spite the evil. – Amen.

Matthew 10:40-42

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous, and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

Sermon Text

The gifts we offer to God allow us to receive gifts in turn. To give to God is to receive, in due measure, the same value of our gift again. Scripture is clear that God does not neglect the work or resources we invest into the work of God and God’s church. Yet, I think, our worldly view of the matter often corrupts our vision of what God is willing and capable to do with our gifts and with the reward that is owed to us. We hear the promise Jesus makes in our scripture, that helping a righteous person means we will be owed the rewards of the righteous, and that the same is true of someone who helps a prophet, and as a result we dream of every dollar we give being multiplied and ever hour of work repaid with two more of leisure. We assume what our reward looks like and we neglect what we are truly being given.

There are many ministers who preach many sermons encouraging people that if they give their money freely, then God will bless them with expansive bank accounts and no worldly troubles. There are many people who, in order to try and leverage God’s goodness, will cut checks to charitable causes to try and tip the scales in their favor. There are many who, when told not to lay up treasures on earth, put a large asterisk next to it and say, “Unless you write it off as a gift from God.” We have decided that God wants us rich, healthy, and equipped with all worldly happiness – but I am convinced that the God who offers us that easy road is not the God of scripture.

What we have read this morning is Jesus sending his disciples off with one last instruction. After telling them to work without pay, to trust in God’s protection, and to expect a great deal of opposition, Jesus tells his disciples that anyone who helps them will be blessed. As they work as prophets, God will reward those who help them to speak God’s word. As they work righteousness, God will reward those who help that justice roll down like water. Even the simple act of giving a child a glass of water, when done in the name of Jesus, is transformed into something far greater.

The disciples were the righteous, they were the prophets, and if we want to see what sorts of rewards they received for their work we just have to examine their lives. They were not rich, in fact they lived in poverty. They were not powerful, they were trampled on by everyone they ever met. They did not know peace, they were persecuted and killed and maimed, all because of and not despite their devotion to God. The reward that Jesus promises for our participation in God’s good work is not plenty nor power, but goodness, mercy, and, in eternity, the fullness of God’s presence.

As the Church grew and someday found a home in the upper classes of Roman Society, aspects of its teachings were subdued. Jesus’s insistence that we are to live a life rooted in care for others at the expense of our worldly goods is not popular with the rich in any time or place. Likewise, the idea that generosity is expected and does not correspond to immediate and reciprocal rewards is not going to sell many books. We expect a transaction out of our faith and God is offering us something far less concrete and far more relational. God, who offers to us the full abundance of eternal life, does not try to win us over with petty gifts, but invites us to be truly transformed by the work we embark upon.

If I give to those who are in need, I will not in turn be made rich – I will be made more generous. If I support those who are doing what is right, I will not be given power and fame, but I will be more like those righteous people. If I help facilitate the preaching of God’s word and the rebirth of souls, then I will benefit from that life giving word in due time. When I give water to the thirsty and food to the hungry, Christ will not forget the kindness I have given to them. God is not offering us a personal development plan, God is offering to make us new.

I do believe that God will not punish us for earnest and good stewardship of our gifts. If we give to those in need, we will find enough to feed ourselves. If we support the work of the Church, the Church will support us in due time. If we devote ourselves to the work of ministry and the alleviation of pain for others, we will find comfort in our times of need. This is only possible if we learn to do two things well. Firstly, to give without expectation of tangible reward and, secondly, to steward our gifts reasonably and with a mind toward generosity.

The first is self-explanatory. If we give, we should not expect immediate rewards of money, power, or circumstances. That second one is harder though. If we are to give properly, then we need to actually keep track of our money so that we can give freely. We need to deny ourselves and live simply, so that we can always have the money available to help others. I’m not saying we need to get rid of every comfort or every amusement, nor that we need to go without essentials, I simply mean we need to budget so that giving is one of the first things we plan to do and not the very last thing.

As I have said previously, I am on a pretty rigorous program to pay down my debts from seminary, and that prevents me from giving as much as I would like to. However, I still make a definite plan each month for my expenses to always allow me to give to worthy causes. Sometimes that means I get to give toward someone’s GoFundMe or meal train, sometimes that I get to put money in the plate toward something this or another church is working on, and sometimes it means that I can simply bless someone with some small kindness. If we are to be blessed, in any form, for our generosity, then our generosity cannot be an afterthought.

I encourage you, therefore, to take an accounting of your expenses from this month. Review everything you bought and did not buy, those subscriptions you don’t use… Etc. Look at each aspect of your life, and see what you can do to better steward your generosity. – Amen.

Matthew 9:9-13

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.

And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

Sermon Text

Who is invited to sit at God’s table? Who makes the guest list for the grace of God? Is it you or me? The Magisterium of the Church? Who has authority to pull up a seat and say, “Tuck in!” Our lips may immediately say, “Only God! Christ alone! Whoever the Spirit calls!” but I am skeptical that we are committed to that truth. I am skeptical because I’m sure if I ask a different question we would probably have different answers. “Who isn’t invited?”

“Who isn’t invited?” That is a question that tantalizes more than any other. At first we may, again with a pious heart, say “All people are invited! None are barred!” Yet, our actions suggest differently. Look around this room and ask yourself how diverse a body we truly are in this congregation. I’m not just speaking in terms of race or place of origin, I mean in dress or attitude or disposition. Our incomes are not so varied as to shock, our manner of dress is comparable if nothing else, and we all have our Ps and Qs so aligned as not to distress our neighbors with too great a varied response to worship.

We are not alone in our homogeneity. The most segregated hour in America, along all lines, is a Sunday Morning. Churches attract their own little niche of people and they do so subconsciously. In the mode of worship they employ, in the time they offer it, and in the way they act throughout it. Some of this is inevitable. Though we wish to “be all things to all people,” at the end of the day there is only so much we can do in the bounds of our order of worship and within an hour and change on a single day of the week. There are different churches because there are different people and sometimes God needs us to employ our differences to save people with different needs. Yet, I feel, if we take that line of thought too far then Church becomes a place you have to shop around for, a thing you consume rather than are consumed by, it becomes a place we go to receive and not a place we become a symbiotic whole with.

Our Scripture today captures the scandalous nature of Jesus’s ministry well. Calling his disciples as he goes, he finds Matthew the Tax Collector. We do not know if Matthew was a Roman transplant into Judea or a native Judean who took on a Roman job but either way we know what his reputation was. Tax collectors in his day were seen as traitors and crooks – taking money to support the soldiers and empire that would throw you in the gutter for fun and crucify you for talking back. Matthew, Judean or Roman, was seen as someone working against the people of God, robbing them for his own health and for the good of their enemies.

Yet, when Jesus sees him, he knows what Matthew is to become and not what he is. He does not see a Roman traitor, he sees an Apostle, or someone who will become one at least. He calls for Matthew to follow him and Matthew follows immediately. Then, either at Matthew’s house or someone else’s, Jesus has dinner. People are coming to hear him speak anyway, so a crowd begins to gather. Yet, the people who are invited to be at Jesus’s table, those who he wants closest to him, are the rejects. He has the tax collectors and “sinners,” a catch-all term here meaning, “those people,” sit down right beside him.

As Jesus breaks bread and eats, some of the crowd gathered around the house leans in to ask his disciples a question. These are the local pastors of the area, the Pharisees and Teachers, and they’re concerned about this traveling miracle worker. “He does these wonderful things, teaches these wonderful teachings, but now he is sitting and eating with these people? Make that make sense to me.” The disciples do not get a chance to answer for Jesus, because he publicly answers their private accusation disguised as a question – “A doctor does not attend to people who are well, a doctor is called to heal the sick!”

Here enters in the contradiction that Jesus always leaves in the midst of his teachings. Jesus is saying that the folks he is sitting with need him more than the people coming in and criticizing him. Does that mean that the Pharisees and Teachers aren’t sinners in need of salvation? Of course not! They are, however, people who should know better. They have received God’s grace through the established means of the Temple and the fellowship provided by the Synagogue and the tutelage of the law. They are folks who are not “cured,” of sin, if such a thing is possible, but they are folks on their way to recovery.

They have, however, forgotten that they are only where they are by the grace of God. Only the accidents of how they were born and how the cards have fallen in their life to this point has allowed them to be Pharisees and Teachers rather than tax collectors and publicly known profligates. They have allowed themselves to forget that anything they do right they were taught and supported into doing and all they do wrong has left their mind is a sea of perceived righteousness. They may not break the rules as readily or as often as those they now criticize, but they have not been transformed by God’s grace – they have let their hearts harden if anything.

There are two main things that keep people from coming into Church, and neither of them have anything to do with Jesus. The first is past hurt from the Church, ways that the people of God have actively harmed them – that is a talk for another time. The second, however, is still tied to the failing of the Church. We stand on a hill of perceived holiness, we spread our arms out to the world and say, “We’re here if you want us!” Then we shake our head at all the people who don’t waltz into our sanctuary. We do not go out into the world and bring the Gospel with us, if we did that we’d lose control. We do not invite folks in with a wild and uncompromising invitation, because it would ask too much of us and our habits and expectations.

Christ our Lord not only sat with sinners when he found them, but actively sought them out. He did not ask them to get clean and perfect immediately. The Pharisees were not shocked by their sudden repentance or holiness, they still viewed them as sinners and thieves. It is unlikely that the people gathered around Jesus that night, sin sick their whole life long, were suddenly and permanently changed in that one night… Yet I’m willing to believe that several of them started the long, hard road of discipleship after coming close to Jesus that night.

The Disciples that night were serving a role that we often neglect in our role as Christians. They were standing around the table, letting people come to Jesus, and answering the questions of the people who would doubt the validity of the people coming to eat with him. They were not interrogating people to see if they were worthy of God’s grace, but refuting those who questioned it. The Pharisees could not get close enough to browbeat those seeking Jesus, because the Disciples stood in the way. What would it look like for us to do that? To be the sort of people who kept the judgmental eye off of those seeking Christ, and spared no expense in bringing his table to those who most earnestly wanted to eat from it.

People of God, the table of Grace is set before us. As we approach to take part in Christ’s passion, let us let this grace transform us. Let us become defenders and advocates for folks to make their way to this place of grace. Christ has come to save sinners, and that definitely includes us. Are we willing to let it stop with us? – Amen.