Comfort for the Wheat Matt 13:24-30; 36-43 Pentecost 5 July 17, 2011 I didn t realize how much I was cheating when I was gardening for the last several years. Several years into my time in Morris, I discovered this amazing fabric. A few holes for the plants to poke out, several handfuls of freshly mown grass to lie on top of, and I was good to go. A purist, I guess I am not. Weeds still came up, but they were pretty limited. Gardening wasn t that difficult. On the other hand, without that weed shield, I ve seen just how fast those nasty weeds can come up. I realize if you re going to garden, you just expect them. Therefore it seems kind of crazy that the servants ask their master in our Gospel lesson, Where did these weeds come from? Uh, do you remember Gen 3? What God said to Adam? cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life, thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. And even crazier that the master seems to forget the same thing and exhibits classic paranoia somebody is out to get me. He planted weeds in my field. But that s pretty much the way the parable has to be told, to explain what the disciples are seeing. It turns out, not all of God s people were God s people. They were circumcised, they called themselves Israelites, they lived in the land promised to their ancestors, but they were not His people. They rejected His mercy in the Messiah. In fact, they were in the process of rejecting His messiah, and that is what the disciples were seeing. Whole towns had rejected the proclamation of the coming of the kingdom, the religious leadership was becoming more openly opposed to Jesus, and the crowds stayed aloof, following Jesus because it was the latest thing, but not really embracing His words. The disciples were like the servants, How did this happen? The Lord had been tending His garden; His people should have jumped at the chance to welcome the Messiah. Why is this happening? An enemy. Swap the field of wheat for a vineyard, and listen to Isaiah singing, Let me sing for my beloved, my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, He planted it with choicest vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it and hewed out a wine vat in it, and he looked for it to yield grapes but it yielded wild grapes. Boom! He got them. They didn t know what hit them. And if they were too slow to get what he was talking about, he continued with the indictment. And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard that I have not done for it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield only bad? On Good Friday, that song is sung as one of three reproaches. It cuts me to the heart every time. Maybe we can do that here next year. But the picture going on in Galilee, the places where Jesus had preached, wasn t just that. It wasn t only bad stuff. The field had some good wheat growing. The seed had taken
root. The Kingdom was breaking in. God was doing His work; people were following Him, they were seeing who Jesus was, but even as they were coming to grips with who Jesus was and, just as importantly, how much they needed Him and His words, those who were following Him were also overwhelmed by how much resistance they saw. They were staggered by it. They needed some encouragement a lot of it. And so Jesus provides it, The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. Is it really that much different today? If we stop to think about it, we might, and I want to stress the word, might; we might need the same kind of encouragement. You, God s saints--i don t want to lose what Pr. Hanan has gained during his time as your vacancy pastor you are truly His holy people, His saints only by His grace, but perhaps you may not realize that those who are called His saints are under pretty heavy fire, and it s not coming just from the world of unbelievers. Some of it is, but it s the reaction of those you would like to think are in your camp that seems to encourage it. In fact, if you were to trace the line of the shells and bullets you would find it is coming from what would be considered friendly fire. Last week, we had the treat of hearing Pr. Aadland of the AALC, a Lutheran church body in the U.S. with which we have full altar and pulpit fellowship. He talked about the work of the Christian church in Kenya, but also the condition of missions all over the world. This, along with the picnic out at Beebee park, was part of our mission festival. Think back to how you may have once wondered or heard others ask about the people born in Africa who never had a chance to hear the Gospel. We would have been inclined to ask, How could they ever become a Christian because they never had a chance to hear the Word? There are now a lot of Christians in Africa, and I m becoming convinced they are starting to wonder the same thing about us, now. The Christian Church of the West has wandered so far from the truth that Christians in Africa and Asia are probably starting to wonder how there could be faith in our country. The weeds are growing up right alongside the wheat. The effect of these weeds is persecution of those who want to retain the truth, but the persecution is coming from those who ought to be protecting that truth. Out at the park, Pr. Aadland talked about Bishop Obare of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya, and what he did a couple years ago. Swedish missionaries started the Lutheran Church in Kenya about a half century ago, maybe more. Since that time, the Lutheran church of Sweden has fallen into horrible apostasy. Anybody that tried to follow what God would want, were subjected to persecution. Young men were coming out of the seminary in Sweden, eager to be the Lord s prophets to His people in Sweden, and told they would not be ordained unless they received the Lord s Supper from a woman pastor at least 3 times. They would not do it even once., they couldn t in good conscience, and so their education was wasted, and they still couldn't go out and preach.
The faithful ones appealed to their daughter church in Kenya who responded favorably. The church of Sweden needed someone to ordain pastors that would remain faithful and so, Bishop Obare went up to Sweden to consecrate their own bishop who would ordain pastors coming out of the seminary. As he considered their request and prepared to go to Sweden, he actually received death threats. For those who were there at the picnic, you already heard this, but I would like to repeat it for those who weren t. He talked about it with his wife. Should he go up there with a price on his head? She said they could kill you here or kill you up there, but that church in Sweden needed for him to go, and as she finished it up, she told him, If they should kill you there, it would be my honor to bring back your body. He went up therefore and when he was there he said to them, You brought the Gospel to us, now we are bringing it back to you. That s the situation. That s what is happening in the church. This is the field of wheat and weeds. But do we feel distress like they do in Sweden? Like the disciples were when Jesus knew He should give them this parable? Do we look at the situation in America, with the state of the Christian church, and hurt when we see it? Perhaps not. Lives aren t necessarily at stake, but souls still are. Does it bother us that people in our country are subjected to preaching that reinterprets the Creator s words so that they are no longer what the Creator said with regard to abortion, homosexuality, origins of the earth, women s ordination, or even the possibility of there being truth? Or are we bothered that Christians in other churches listen to preaching that downplays the Gospel? That when these pastors preach, the Gospel is not treated as the power for Christian living? Oh, the Gospel is preached, but it is given only to those who need to be converted to make sure they are saved, but for those who are already Christian, and would seem to be safe in the boat, they can only hear it directed to those unsaved people? Does this bother us? Are we frightened by the influence it could have on us and does have on us because we many times want to be like our neighbors, especially our neighbors who are successful and have big churches? Or, worst yet, do we rejoice that we are not like other men, we have it right, we have the truth, the right religion, and therefore have no fear we could actually look and behave like the weeds, instead of the wheat? I suppose this kind of turned the way Isaiah s song had done. Isaiah starts off singing what sounds like a love song, and then when they re really into all the Lord has done for His vineyard, he s really drawn them in, he smacks them right between the eyes by telling them they are that vineyard. It sounds safe, and then he lowers the boom. What we are getting may not be as dramatic, but still it may not have been as safe as we might have first thought. I guess that s kind of what happened here. Look at the parable and think about why Jesus is telling it. It s apparent He is telling it to assure them He is still in charge, that He knows what is happening, and something will eventually be done about it, as the parable
reveals. Jesus wants them to know He is still directing things. But if we re not distressed like them, then we may not be seeing what they were seeing. We need to be sensitized to it. It s here in America a similar slide from truth as I have been demonstrating, but we don t see it or it doesn t seem to bother us. We may not realize how bad it is, how distressed we ought to be for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are not getting all God wants. Most importantly, we may not understand what our lack of distress says about us. Granted, the disciples were pretty shocked by what they were seeing. They had heard about the Messiah since they were little boys, for their whole lives, just as their parents had, and their parents before them. Now that the Messiah was here, they were confident that when people realized Jesus was the Messiah, they would have done the same thing and started following Him. They didn t. Furthermore, the situation was different. The church and the state were not separated. This is the world, as far as Jesus describes the field in the parable. Governing leaders were church leaders. The disciples felt threatened by the resistance, because their livelihood and even lives could be at stake. In this way, we can be like them. At our young adult meeting we briefly discussed the erosion of our religious rights. This causes serious concern. I know many of you are watching that erosion, and are alarmed. But I don t see distress over the fact there are so many different confessions of the Christian faith. Instead, we take it for granted. But what does it mean that there are so many denominations? Jesus was pretty firm as He charged the disciples to preserve all He had taught them during His public ministry. What those disciples were taught has been preserved, and can be observed every time the church went through a knock-down drag out fight for the truth, holding strong to biblical doctrine. Throughout the eras, those who confessed that apostolic faith had everything God wanted for His people. Whereas those who confessed differently, veering from the bible s teachings, forfeited precious gifts. That s the situation we have now. We know many Christians who don t confess the same faith the apostles had been given, and as a result don t enjoy all of God s gifts. How do we feel about that? Does it bother us? Do we regret that the church has allowed so much diversion from the truth and people are hurt by it? Perhaps our distress should be that we don t feel that distress. We don t know faith should be disturbed by what it sees in the Church. It s like when we take a few moments of silence before the confession of sins so we can examine ourselves, and when we look into our heart for that sin, some of us might come up empty-handed. Can it be that we have no sin or rather that we don t know what it is when we see it? Our sin is so deep, that we are blinded to it? Our confession is that we have no confession? Even so, our Lord gives absolution; even if our confession wasn t as heartfelt as we think it should be; as valid as if we had tears streaming down our cheeks from the guilt. For Jesus to give us comfort when we don t feel distress, still is kind of odd and even awkward. It s like having someone come up to you and say, You know that thing you did? I forgive you for it. when you didn t think you did anything wrong.
But like Isaiah says in 65:24, Before we call, He will answer, or as in the Psalms, Before a word is on our tongue, He has heard it. In other words, before we feel distress, before we realize we ought to feel that distress, He already assures us He s in charge. More than that, He directs our attention to where it should be. We do not know what to pray for as we ought. Therefore, the Spirit that searches our hearts, speaks for us and leads us into all truth. He directs us back again and again to the gracious and steadfast word of our Lord. He directs us to Jesus. It s not pondering over the situation of the Christian church that will cause our faith to mature and bring about the need for Him to assure us, but rather pondering Jesus Himself. When we see how we behave, how we lack love, how we often look more like weeds that wheat, we see Jesus wonderful and trustworthy word of forgiveness given to us because of His payment on our behalf. When we see what we are given, we can t help but regret that others don t enjoy the same. Still, He is in charge. That s the point of the parable. We are wheat by His choice. We are saints because He has adopted us as His children in baptism. We may come to feel some distress at the state of the church, but He knows what is going on. He ll take care of us, of His church, of His believers, no matter where they are. For those who know, as you do, when we pray as we pray the 3 rd petition of the Lord s Prayer, we are assured He will keep us firm in His word and faith until we die. AMEN