It all started with the disappearance of three teenagers. For 18 days, their families waited for

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1 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; 25 but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 27 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?' 28 He answered, "An enemy has done this.' The slaves said to him, "Then do you want us to go and gather them?' 29 But he replied, "No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 30 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.' " 36 Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field." 37 He answered, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; 38 the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40 Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, 42 and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen! Grace, peace and mercy from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. It all started with the disappearance of three teenagers. For 18 days, their families waited for news. For 18 days, their community asked questions and the police searched. For days, the country of Israel speculated. Then in a horrific discovery, the three boys were found dead. Their names are Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrah. For days after their bodies were found, I held my breath. I knew this atrocity would not go without retaliation. And it came On July 2 nd, one day after the funeral for the 3 Israeli boys, 16 year old Mohammed Abu Khdeir was grabbed off the street on his way to morning prayer at 4 a.m. and killed in revenge.

2 And again anyone who knows anything about Israeli- Palestinian relations held their breath because this seemed like a fuse had been lit that led to a huge powderkeg of tension. Since that day only two weeks ago today the violence has escalated. Rockets have been fired from both sides. Nearly 200 people have died mostly civilians people have been injured mostly women and children. It s not just the four teenage boys anymore it s a war. So why am I telling you this? Why am I bringing the news into church? Because I think this intifada as they call it war as I call it goes right back to our gospel text for today. And it all hinges on one tiny little connecting word but I ll get to that tiny word in a minute Our text today is a parable. A parable in a series of parables that Jesus is telling here in Matthew. Last week it was the parable of the sower who scattered seeds that fell among the rocks and the weeds and the good soil. This week we have the parable of the wheat and the weeds. Evil has come among the good crop and planted weeds. But the weeds are similar to the wheat and the master tells the workers not to pull the weeds because it will damage the wheat. At the harvest, the master orders the weeds to be gathered into bundles and burned. The wheat is gathered in the master s barn. Pretty straight forward right? If there is any doubt as to what it means, Jesus then explains it. The master is the Son of Man. The field is the world. The good seeds are the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one. And so on So, we live with the weeds and let God do the judging. End of sermon, right? Amen

3 If only it were that easy, if only I could let that go Here s the trouble with this parable it s just too darn easy to identify with the wheat. It s a judgment text where God does the judging, but it is all too easy for us to claim that identity as wheat for ourselves. From there, it s not a hard leap to look around at the weeds-as-an-excusefor humans all around us. Let s go back to my first example. Honestly, there are people on both sides Israeli and Palestinian who are claiming the role of wheat and pointing the finger at the weeds. Accusations fly. Words are exchanged. And then people die. I think what is happening in the holy land is not isolated. It happens when people look at the wheat and weeds using one little tiny word wheat OR weeds. When it s OR, we tend to put people either into the bundles to be burned or into the master s barn with us. Christians have a long history of doing this of pointing the finger at anyone and everyone who doesn t measure up to our orthodoxy, our piety, our politics, our morality. You can start from almost any position, right or left, yell GO! And watch the accusations fly it s not a proud part of our history. I am not happy to claim that as a religious reality, but it is a reality. It s also a human reality and I am just as guilty as anyone at doing this in my own mind and heart. So what I m proposing for this text is this let s change the OR to AND. Instead of wheat OR weeds, what about wheat AND weeds. It s a hard reality, when we begin to try to route the infidel that the infidel might actually be us. The infidel might actually be inside us growing right alongside the wheat, so expertly leafed and disguised that we might never guess that he is a weed. And he is a part of us

4 The preacher and professor Anna Carter Florence wrote about his text and how it s not a text that we can hold separately from ourselves. It s a text that is a part of us a part of who we are. We are wheat AND weeds. She asks the questions, What are the biggest weeds in your life? What threatens the good wheat you want to produce in your field? Stress, busy-ness, money, ambition, keeping up appearances weeds are prolific, she says. They rise up and choke the life out of us. They throttle us with thorns. We really do want to get rid of them. But we can t. We can t get rid of the weeds because they are us. Just like the infidel. Just like sin in its original form grafted onto us, the weeds might even serve a function beyond anything we can imagine. I have given you a little handout tonight with questions on it from Anna Carter Florence. If we think about these weeds within and among us, that Jesus tells us we cannot pull out, how do we live with them? How do we grow and thrive among them? And how are we careful that we do not focus on the weeds in someone else while not seeing the weeds in ourselves? In the end, it all belongs to God. At the harvest, God will collect the weeds and ready them for the fire. In the end, God will rid the kingdom of all causes of sin, verse 41 tells us. It s a cleansing act. Freeing us from the sin and the causes of sin. I m not saying that God s judgment isn t scary. I m not saying that God s judgment isn t in this text, it is! But God s judgment belongs to God. Our job is to figure out how to live with the wheat AND the weeds. Both within us and around us. Weeds AND Wheat

5 Mourners gathered last week to pay their respects to the family of the slain Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir. As his family and friends gathered, other mourners began to join them. A few trickled in and then more and then seven charter buses from downtown Jerusalem and Tel Aviv all Jewish. A 69-year-old Jerusalem retiree paid for an obituary for the boy. He said, We must let go of the trigger and press down on the pedal of peace. Between me and you, it s nonsense. Things are only getting worse. This will not be the last incident, we re in for worse. Believe me these 350 people here are nonsense. They don t even make up half a yeshiva. Who does this help? Who cares? We re barely a grain of sand. Not a grain of sand, I say, but a field of wheat standing tall against the weeds in and among. Even though he thought it was only a small token of what needs to happen, Moshe Simchovitch showed up and paid for the obituary. The acts of these 350 Jewish mourners did not go unnoticed. In the midst of a week of attacks against the Palestinian people in Gaza, the men of slain teenager Abu Khdeir s family stood in a row at the funeral and quietly shook hands welcoming the large Israeli contingent. In this one small moment in one small country half-way around the world, there was a moment where everyone looked beyond the weeds to see just the wheat. They came together to share in their grief. They came together not as Israelis and Palestinians, but as people who long for one thing peace. They found common ground in that. So in this text today, here s what I want us to walk away with knowing that there is evil among us is one thing, but knowing that there is evil within us brings us humbly to our knees to seek

6 God s mercy. And knowing there is wheat within us is easy, but seeking the wheat in others challenges us to see as Jesus sees, love as Jesus loves and to seek peace as Jesus sought peace. Maybe today, your struggle is the weed within. Or maybe today, your struggle is finding the wheat in the other but either way, it is something we give to God. The judgment is God s. The redemption is God s, and in the end, the righteous those made righteous by God will shine like the sun. For today, we trust God to handle the weeds AND the wheat. God of the harvest, we seek to lay all our judgment on you. As we judge ourselves, as we judge others, let us notice the wheat and leave the weeds to you. We place that burden in your hands. We leave the reaping to you, in your own time. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.