Pentecost VI (Proper 11 A) [Matthew 13:24-30, 34-43] (20-Jul-2014)

This sermon was preached at St Mark's Lutheran Church, Mt Barker (8.30am, 10.30am). 

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

The sermon text for today was inspired by the Holy Spirit through the apostle St Matthew. And we read from his gospel:

Gather the wheat into my barn…Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

In John 3:16, we read: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.

God so loved the world. He created the world, and he sent his Son into the world. And yet, the world in which we live is not the same as it was at the very beginning when God created it. We read that when God created it: God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.

But we also read in the book of Genesis, how the first people fell into sin. After sin entered into the world, the world is full of corruption and sin. It is still the world that God created, but it has fallen from the beauty, the goodness, the wonder that it had when God first created it. And it wasn’t the fault of God that the world now has problems, but it was the fault of human beings.

And so, on the one hand we read that God so loved the world.

But on the other hand, St John writes to us in his letter: Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

So even though God loves the world, we are called not to love the world or the things in the world. Now how does this work? Aren’t we called to love the whole world? Well, yes – God shows the deepest love to the world, and Jesus shows his deepest love for the world by dying his death on the cross. And of course, he wants us, his Christians, to show deep love together with him to all the people of the world around us.

But God doesn’t want to learn anything from the world. He doesn’t change, and he doesn’t need to learn anything new from the world. All wisdom and power belong to him. In the same way, even though we should love the people of the world around us, we Christians are not called to love the people of the world as our teachers. Christians are called to love God alone, and to listen to his voice, and to let him be our teacher. That’s why in the church we preach God’s word, because we haven’t come here to learn something from the world, but we have come to learn something from God and from his Son, Jesus Christ.

So it makes sense: God so loved the world that He gave his only Son. But also we are told: Do not love the world or the things of the world.

In our Gospel reading today, we read the parable of the weeds. And this parable teaches us what it means to be a Christian in our world. This parable is so incredibly relevant to our lives today, because, I’m sure that you know what it’s like to be a reasonably lonely Christian in a world that is hostile to Christ and hostile to his gospel.

Jesus says: The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.

Jesus is talking about the kingdom of heaven. It is so important for us to realise that Jesus isn’t talking about the some worldly kingdom here, but he’s talking about the kingdom of heaven. Jesus says: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. The whole point of me preaching God’s word here today is so that God may bring people into his kingdom.

And so Jesus explains: The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed are the sons of the kingdom.

So here we see that the man in the parable is actually Jesus himself. He is the man who sowed his good seed in his field. And the field is the world. The world is Jesus’ field. The whole world belongs to Jesus, and he wants to sow his seed in it. And what’s the good seed? Jesus says: The good seed is the sons of the kingdom.

Notice here that the good seed is not the word of God, but it is the people who have heard the word of God and believe it, those in whom the word of God has been planted and taken root. So we have this picture of Jesus, the Son of Man, planting good seed, the children of his heavenly kingdom, into his own field, the world.

Now we read: But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.

Now Jesus gives us his explanation: the weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil.

The first thing that Jesus teaches us here is that there is a real enemy of the church: the devil. Jesus teaches us that the devil is real and that he exists. It’s interesting if people sit and have a discussion, or the topic comes up on TV: Does God exist? But it would take a very different turn if the discussion was: Does the devil exist?

When we talk about Christian faith, we’re not talking about a belief in whether or not God or Jesus exists. Because there are all kinds of other things that exist that we can’t see, like angels, demons, and the devil himself. But we don’t put our trust in them. So when we say: I believe in God, the Father Almighty, it doesn’t mean that we simply believe that he exists, but that we trust in him, that we put ourselves in his hands, so that we are on his side. But we don’t say, I believe in the devil. Yes, we believe that he exists, but we don’t put our trust in him, we don’t put ourselves in his hands, and ask to bat on his team.

So we read that this enemy, the devil, came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.

Wherever Jesus builds a church, the devil also builds his own across the road. The devil always goes about mimicking Jesus. Jesus goes out and sows some seed, and then the devil goes out and sows some seed. It’s a bit like one man sees another guy start a business, and he thinks: I might do the same thing and make some money as well.

So Jesus preaches his word, and then the devil thinks: that’s a good idea—I might preach my word. Jesus makes some disciples, and the devil says: I might make some disciples too. Jesus builds a church, and the devil builds one too.

And so, right wherever we find true Christians, what do we find right alongside? We find false Christians. And this has been going on ever since Jesus entered the world: he sends out the apostles, and then there are false apostles. There are prophets, and false prophets. Christ is preached, and a false Christ is also preached: the antichrist.

And so people who love Jesus always live next to people who hate him. But people who are not Christians pretend to be Christians, and sometimes it only becomes clear that a person is a false Christian when both the wheat and the weed grow up together and the plants start to bear fruit.

I know a man who used to say: If you find a perfect church, don’t join it, because you’ll stuff it up! Is it any surprise to you that there are fights within the church? Is it any surprise to you that in many churches people don’t want to learn God’s word? Is any surprise to you that people around you are hostile to Jesus? Well, this parable explains this. Everywhere where there are Christians, there are also hypocrites close by. Wherever Jesus is sowing, growing and forming his disciples, the devil is also close by sowing his seed.

It can be easy sometimes to give the appearance of being a Christian. But Christians come to church to gather around Christ. Hypocrites come to gather around Christians. Jesus calls people to look towards the forgiveness of sins, to the resurrection from the dead, and the life everlasting, and to look forward in their journey towards heaven. But the devil doesn’t want people to look towards heaven, because he doesn’t have one to promise to them, so he turns people’s eyes to look simply at this life. And so people use the blessings of Christianity simply for worldly purposes.

So be careful: let the word of God, the word of the heavenly kingdom of Jesus, grow in you. Do not love the world and the things of the world.

And so we read: And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?” He said to them, “An enemy has done this.”

Here we see the servants puzzled, just like we might be. Where did all these weeds come from? And Jesus gives us a very clear explanation. He says: An enemy has done this. It’s not Jesus’ fault that there are problems in the world and problems in the church—this is the devil’s work of sowing his seed. As St Peter says: Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion.

We read: So the servants said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” But he said, “No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time, I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.

Jesus says: The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels.

Jesus lets both the wheat and the weeds grow together, because he doesn’t want one single blade of wheat to be destroyed. There will be a close of the age. But he allows us to grow right in the middle of our enemies, right amongst hypocrites, for our sake, for the sake of the wheat. See the great love that Jesus has for each blade of wheat, and how precious each of his disciples are in his eyes!

At the end of the world, though, it will be a different story. Jesus says: Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so it will be at the close of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

If there’s one way to ridicule a pastor, it’s to call him a “fire-and-brimstone” preacher. It gives the impression that he’s loveless, heartless, old-fashioned, and out-of-touch. But Jesus himself has preached more sermons about hell that anyone put together. And he always just says enough: not too much to leave us in despair, but just enough to warn us from away from hell. People today don’t take hell very seriously, but they should. Jesus took it seriously, in fact, he descended into hell, and gave hell a good kicking. Jesus teaches us seriously here about hell, because he takes us seriously, and wants to have us all completely for himself. So Jesus always teaches the Law: he teaches about sin, about hypocrisy, about the devil, about judgment, about hell. And when he teaches this, he wants us all to hit by this word, to be cut to the heart, and to recognise this as a word that comes from him. He wants to find sinners, sinners like you, like me, and root them out.

But then: here’s a question for you—what’s the one prerequisite for you to go to heaven? The one thing that you need to be is a sinner, because sinners are the only people that Jesus died for. The devil doesn’t want you to know you’re a sinner, he wants you to cover your sin up and pretend to be wheat. But real wheat knows that one day it’s going to be cut down and harvested. Real wheat knows that the wages of sin is death, and it’s only when the wheat is harvested, put to death, that it’s useful and gathered into the barns. The death of Christians is not our failure, but it’s God’s victory, it’s his triumph.

And so, what does Jesus promise about these people who know they are sinners for whom he died? He calls them: righteous!  

He says: Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

Not only will our souls be with Jesus in heaven, not only will our bodies rise from the dead, but they will be transformed, free from every disease, sickness, pain, heartache, free from every sadness, sorrow, hurt, betrayal. And not only will Jesus take away from us our sin, and all the things that come with it, but he will let us share in his glory. The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. St Paul says: The trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. Think about Jesus at the transfiguration – our faces will shine like his, our clothes will shine like his, not with our own light, but with his light, the light of his forgiveness, the light of life, the light of his salvation. And if this is what Jesus has called us to, wouldn’t we want to seek this kingdom first and God’s righteousness with all our heart, mind, soul and strength?

As Jesus says: He who has ears, let him hear. Amen.

Dear Lord Jesus, encourage us and give us patience as we find ourselves surrounded by all kinds of people who are hostile to your word and your kingdom. Set our eyes on you, Lord Jesus, the first-fruits of the harvest, and give us the living hope that one day we will also shine together with you, like golden and ripe grain, in the wonderful, glorious sunshine of your face. Amen.