19/7/26
Romans 8:12-25
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
We might be in Ordinary Time in the church calendar but our readings are anything but. Matthew has recorded Jesus’ agricultural parables of the good and generous sower scattering his good seeds on different types of soil. Paul starts probably the most difficult chapter in his letter to the Romans with the bold and joyful declaration that there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. It is in the Spirit where true life and peace are found
While these images are beautiful and full of joy they have a shadow in them. A warning for us. The easier option would be to ignore the shadow warning and carry on with joy. In this week’s readings, the heat is getting turned up. To the good news of last week is added some bad news.
In Matthew’s Gospel we still have a generous sower sowing seed in his field. This time though, he is limiting the sowing to his field only. The other sower appeared to scatter seed everywhere, regardless of soil conditions.
This sower is narrowing his focus down. Both the sowers are references to God. We see God as desiring his love and word to go everywhere, be flung to the farthest reaches. We also see God focusing on a particular field.
My back garden has some magnificently tall weeds growing in it at the moment. It needs some weeding and my neighbour and his mower to do a job on it. I find weeding an immensely satisfying job. I am not always a careful weed-er but rather take the position that anything I do not want growing in a particular location is a weed. I would stop short of classifying myself as an enemy though.
The field in our Gospel reading has an enemy who sows weeds into the good wheat. A little research tells us that the literal weeds (which many scholars believe is darnel, also known as “false wheat”) are not harmless. They are poisonous. These weeds mimic the look and colour of nourishing grain, but they are fake. Their seeds can cause illness and even death if consumed in large quantities.
This is evil! We are not to deny or gloss over the evil that exists in the world. Debie Thomas writes, ‘In other words, there is nothing enlightened about denying the reality of evil in our world and in our midst. We are, like the field in the parable, both mixed and messy. Each of us individually, our faith communities corporately, and our world in its entirety, contain wheat and weed, good and evil, the fruitful and the poisonous.’
The existence of evil in the world brings a lot of questions. We might think that God should stop it, step in and intervene. Of course. However, we then need to be prepared for God to root out the evil in our own individual hearts and minds. Would we really want God to rule the world directly and immediately so that every thought and action was weighed, instantly judged and potentially punished?
These parables are about waiting. Waiting for the seed to take root and grow. The sower is watching, probably with frustration, as the weeds grow alongside his wheat. Waiting for the harvest to come.
So often we are like the servants who want to go out and pull up the weeds. Clear the field of them. The sower is emphatic that this is not what he wants. The weeds are to stay until the harvest comes. The danger being that the good wheat could be uprooted and the good crop could be lost.
For Jesus’ followers who heard this parable, they did not want to wait. They wanted Jesus to act, to bring about restoring the kingdom and Temple as they thought. Remove the Romans, get a Jewish king back and all would be well.
Patience is required. Patience on the part of the sower who watches what is happening to his crop. Patience for the servants who want to pull up the weeds immediately. Patience on the part of God who does not want to see a field full of weeds. But God does not enjoy the thought of declaring the harvest time too soon and destroying the wheat along with the weeds.
Those who cause sin and all evildoers will be harvested at the end of time. This is as serious as it gets. Some people will be harvested for the evil they have done and punished for it. It is but for the grace of God that (I hope) many of us will not. We should want all people to be the good seed of the children of the kingdom.
For the creation, as Paul writes in Romans, waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. We wait to be set free, free to become the people God created us to be. Not only us but the whole of creation. Paul calls us to hope for salvation. This hope is often unseen and we have to wait patiently.
