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Sermon by the Sea - Matthew 13:24-30
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Well, welcome. My name is Jeremy. It's great to have you with us here, especially during this season of Lent, where we as the church are in the midst of preparing ourselves for Easter. Now, Easter is all about life and return and resurrection. But in order to celebrate resurrection well, we need to spend some time contemplating the in between.
Speaker 1:So the gaps and the spaces and the longing that we experience as we move through life together. And that's what Lent is all about. It's the season where we remember that we are waiting together for resurrection. And so if you have never seen a clerical stole like this before, that's what I'm wearing right now, this is simply part of how we visually remind ourselves of the season that we're in as a church and that we participate in here as commons. Now, in addition to fancy scarves, we also choose a series every year that we think will help to lead us towards Easter.
Speaker 1:And this year, that sermon is called the sermon by the sea. Now, we jumped into this series last week, and I talked about seeds and soil, and we'll recap that in a moment. But first of all, let me set the stage here again quickly. Because in Matthew, Jesus has been teaching publicly and drawing a following throughout ancient Palestine, And more and more people are starting to catch on to the significance of this guy. Starting to wonder if he might actually be the long promised Messiah.
Speaker 1:Except that as Jesus moves closer and closer to Easter, he seems to become more and more aware of the misconceptions that people have about him. And so he seems to be saying that if they think my kingdom will be parochial, visible, and propositional, If they think it will be a military established theocratic state, then I'm gonna turn all of that on its head. Instead of playing into their expectations, I'm gonna start to come up with stories that say the kingdom of God is actually everywhere and mysterious. It's already present in our midst right now. I'm gonna tell them that my kingdom is already aggressively demanding their allegiance in ways they can barely imagine.
Speaker 1:And so what happens is that in chapter 13 of Matthew, Jesus gives another large open air sermon to a huge crowd of gathered people. But this time, instead of teaching them, instead of giving them advice, his entire sermon is just a series of stories. Now, we call these stories parables because they're a certain type of story. But this is a really significant shift in Jesus. And yet, in fact, this storytelling, parable crafting, enigmatic Jesus is often the one that we are most familiar with.
Speaker 1:And so last week, we looked at the story that Jesus opens this larger sermon with. And I love how he starts it. Because contrary to the English translations, he doesn't just say, a farmer went out to sow his seed. He actually says something that could be read more like, look, there's a farmer. Let me tell you a story about seeds and soil.
Speaker 1:And I am just endlessly fascinated by this Jesus who can pull the divine out from the most ordinary moments of existence. And today, we shared the Eucharist. Bread and wine that represent our Lord. And think about that for a moment. The the central image of Christian memory, the one that God chose for himself, not steeples and fishes and crosses that we chose, but the image that God wanted to be remembered by, is nothing special.
Speaker 1:It is ordinary and mundane and everyday and beautiful. Bread and wine, food and drink. This is something that every single human being who has ever lived and breathed has experienced in some way. And God says, that is what I want to be remembered by, by what you share with each other. Well, Jesus speaks in that shared language.
Speaker 1:And so he gives us different images of soil. Now, for us latte drinking city folk who sit behind computers and have very soft hands like I do, images of farming might be a little distant. But for his audience in the first century, this is life at its most familiar. So he talks about a hard rocky path. He talks about shallow rocky soil.
Speaker 1:He talks about soil infested with weeds and thorns. And then finally, talks about good soil that produces a healthy crop. And often, I think what happens is we read this and we say, oh, okay, we get it. There are four different types of people. And so the question is, what kind of person, what kind of soil am I gonna be?
Speaker 1:I need to work to make sure that I listen well and I work hard and I be good soil for God. That is absolutely, definitely part of the story. In fact, there are times where that is precisely what I need to hear from Jesus. Yet, I also wanna suggest that this is only the most obvious part of the story. Because that's what we might expect a messiah to say.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's what we would anticipate from the mouth of any religious leader. Work hard, listen well, be a good disciple. And yet, the longer I sit with this parable over the years, even as I am challenged to be better soil in my life, I've also become more and more aware of the grace of the farmer in this story. A farmer who discards etiquette and ignores efficiency. A farmer who looks at the cost benefit analysis of all of this soil and then tosses it aside to make sure that every possible square inch of soil he can see gets covered in seed.
Speaker 1:Yes. Of course, Jesus is telling us something about ourselves. And, yes, we need to pay attention to that, but what makes this story so beautiful and so characteristically Jesus is that he's also telling us something about God. That God will always take a chance on any soil he can find. That God will never imagine that you aren't worth his time.
Speaker 1:That he will invest just as much in the lost cause as he will in the sure bet because that's who God is. He is just generous. And that I find comforting in those moments where I know I am not the best soil for his word. Now, before we jump into this week's parable, I had a chance to take one of the ideas from last Sunday and expand on it a bit during the week. I'm trying to do that from time to time, and so I took a small line from the sermon about finances and our relationship to that, and I put some thoughts together to build on that.
Speaker 1:We posted it, and you can find it on facebook.com/commonschurch. But if you subscribe to our YouTube channel or to our podcast feed, then you can make sure you get those supplemental pieces when we put them together, because we are trying to do that a bit more. Links to both of those are available at commons.church if you're interested. So, let's pray and then this week it's weeds and seeds. Gracious God of abundant harvest.
Speaker 1:The one who sows generously and who scatters seeds everywhere he goes. Who invites all to come and know him and sit at his table. Might we have ears to hear today so that we might be good soil for your word. Would we respond not because we are good, but because you are gracious and you have come to us? And so as we continue to explore your parables, these images of kingdom transform our expectations.
Speaker 1:Would we begin to see you for who you are and not for who we have imagined you to be? Reveal yourself as the good and generous force that sits behind our universe, bringing breath and life to all and inviting each of us to turn from what is broken in order to enter your healing presence. Might we now live with that same openness toward all those who cross our path, bringing light and love where we go. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen.
Speaker 1:Okay. We're gonna jump straight in today and we'll pick up where we left off in Matthew 13 verse 24 where we read, Jesus told them another parable. And let's stop here for a moment. And I know it sounds like I'm joking, but I'm not. Because last week, we didn't get to talk about this word parable.
Speaker 1:Now, this word comes from the Greek word parabolae. And at its most basic, this is a compound word made up of two Greek words, para and ballo, which mean with or beside, and to throw or to push. And so the basic idea of a parable is to throw two things together, or to push two ideas beside each other to create a juxtaposition. Now, we see this all the time in Jesus' parables. Right?
Speaker 1:He pushes the idea of a mustard seed and how small it is together with the idea of a kingdom and how large that is to create an unexpected contrast for us. We're actually gonna look at that contrast next week. That's our parable. But there's more than that to it here. Because by the time parabolae becomes a common word in Greek, it has taken on an intransitive quality that means something like to come alongside.
Speaker 1:And so if I were to parable, it means I were to come alongside you. I would bring my language near to you. It it means I speak in ways that close the gap between us. I think that's part of what we're seeing when Jesus says things like, hey, look, there's a farmer. You know about farming.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about farming. I will come alongside you and talk in ways that you inherently already understand. In this sense, I think Jesus is, you know, we could say the ultimate parable of God. Jesus is God saying, let's let's speak, let's meet together in ways that you can grasp. Jesus is God saying, I will come alongside you.
Speaker 1:But there's one last aspect of this parable puzzle that we need to talk about today. And this one takes us back to the Old Testament or at least to the Hebrew language because the Hebrew word that sits behind the Greek parabolai is the word Mashal. Now, Mashal in Hebrew means something very similar to what we mean when we say proverb, sort of a a common sense wisdom statement. And the roots of Mashal are actually very similar to parable. It originally meant a comparison or a contrast.
Speaker 1:And eventually though, in in wisdom literature, it became a semi technical word that meant a wise saying rich in comparisons. However, what gets really interesting here is that Mashal in rabbinic language can also take on a meaning that approaches something like a riddle. Now, let's jump back a couple verses here to just before Jesus gives the explanation of last week's parable. Because there's this scene where the disciples come and they ask Jesus, like, why are you talking in stories? We haven't seen you do this before.
Speaker 1:What's up with this? And this is what Jesus says. Chapter 13 verse 11, he says, because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given to you but not to them. Whoever has will be given more and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.
Speaker 1:This is why I speak in parables. Now, there's sort of an obtuse saying here, but don't read it as if Jesus wants the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. That's that's not his point. He's not talking about wealth here. He's talking about understanding.
Speaker 1:And what he's saying is that the kingdom of God is in some sense like a riddle. Once you get it, you get it. And once you get it, it makes sense and you start seeing it everywhere. You can't stop noticing God's fingerprints all over the place. The the way that God is present in a thousand ways that you never noticed before.
Speaker 1:Or the way that Christ is at play in the world bringing life to where there was only hurt or death before. But until then, until you really grasp that the kingdom of God is upside down from every other kingdom or structure you have or known or imagined, then the more you hear about the kingdom of God, the more you listen to Jesus talk about it, the stranger it sounds. It's almost like the less sense it makes. Does that make sense? Because it shouldn't.
Speaker 1:You know, unless, you know, it does. Right? Because the kingdom of God is something that can only ever be discovered. And Jesus speaks in parables because he knows that he can't explain kingdom to you or force kingdom on you. It's not something that he can conscript you into or convince you to believe in.
Speaker 1:He can only ever entice and tease and welcome and invite you to discover this completely new way of thinking about the world for yourself. And so parables are so much more than just simple juxtapositions or contrasts or familiar stories or wise sayings to complement our lives. Parables are fundamentally riddles that are meant to transform the way we see the world. And so when we read Jesus' parables, we need to keep our eyes open for more than just a nice lesson to take home. We need to look for the deeper ways in which he's flipping our world upside down.
Speaker 1:That's what he's doing. And so, Jesus told them another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
Speaker 1:The owner's servants came to him and said, sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from? An enemy did this, he replied. The servants asked him, do you want us to go and pull them up? No, he answered, because while you are pulling up the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them.
Speaker 1:Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time, I will tell the harvesters, first collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned, then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn. So that's Matthew, chapter 13 verses 24 to 30. Now, once again this week, we're gonna need to gather up a little bit of the context that sits behind this story. Because the weeds and the wheat in this story are actually very specific references to very specific plants.
Speaker 1:Now, the word for wheat here is the word in Greek, and it means, well, wheat. And that one's not all that exciting, so we can move on. But the word for weeds is interesting. It's the Greek word zazenion. And not only is that a lot of fun to say, just try it in your head right now.
Speaker 1:Zazenion, am I right? But not only is it interesting to say, it's actually not a word. This is a Greek transliteration of a Hebrew word, zonin. So this is basically how a Greek person sounds when they're trying to pronounce Hebrew. And it's it refers to a very specific type of weed.
Speaker 1:It's a poisonous form of rye grass that we call darnel. And technically, in Latin, it's named lolium temulantum. Now, which is not as nearly as fun to say as the Greek, but now you all know how to talk about ryegrass in English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Who says you never learn anything useful in church. Right?
Speaker 1:Right there. That is that's great material. The next time you have a dinner party and you have people over, gonna be like, hey, are you enjoying your fresh bread? It's made with wheat. And speaking of wheat, have you and I ever talked about ryegrass and its various naming schema?
Speaker 1:Boom. Like, that's that's a great conversation starter. Use that. That's free. Anyway, what's important here is that Zazanian was actually very well known in ancient Palestine.
Speaker 1:So well known in fact that there were specific rules related to it. You see this particular rye grass was not only poisonous, it also had the temerity to look exactly like wheat early in its growing cycle. In fact, the only way to reliably tell the difference between wheat and Darnell is to wait until the plants begin to grow ears. Basically, you just you just have to wait until they produce their crop. And what that would mean is that you would have to go through stock by stocks to separate out the poison.
Speaker 1:And basically, this would make the entire crop financially unviable. Now, add to that the fact that there are rules in the old testament that specifically forbid two different plants from being seeded in the same field. And so, if this was to happen, the crop would have to be destroyed and the field would be receded from scratch. And so, that is basically what we're expecting to happen here. The owner comes out, he hears the bad news, he says, okay, we're never gonna make any money off of this.
Speaker 1:Let's burn it all up and we'll start over again. However, because a lot of farmers would depend on their crop not just to sell, but perhaps for food for their family if you're a small farm. There was actually a set of rules and exemptions that revolved specifically around this weed. So in the Mishnah, which was a Jewish rabbinical document that provided commentary on the old testament rules, there's a book called Kallayim in verse one says, wheat and zonin, remember that's the Hebrew word for this, do not constitute mingled seeds with each other. So basically, there's an exemption in the Biblical rules that say, well, if you want to wait for these plants to produce and you want to go through the tedious process of separating them out one by one from each other, perhaps because you need that crop to survive the coming year, then you have an exemption from this old Levitical law.
Speaker 1:You can let them grow together. Now, the religious reasoning behind this was that the rabbi saw zonin not as a separate plant, but as a corrupt or a damaged offshoot of wheat. So in the rabbinic mind, at the time, zazenion and sitos are actually the same thing until they sprout. They look the same, they grew the same, they were hard to tell apart, and so for the rabbis, they were essentially the same seed or the same plant until they produced a crop. You just simply had to tend the field and wait and watch to see what would happen.
Speaker 1:Now, it's a long excursion into plant classifications and rules. But, it's actually really important when you look at this story that Jesus is giving us about the kingdom of God. Because what is every religious person's favorite pastime? Aside from drinking coffee. Because we can be honest, can't do church without coffee.
Speaker 1:Right? But what is religion almost just as famous for? Taking it upon ourselves to decide who's in and who's out. Right? Spencer Burke writes that for years, we focused on excluding those people who don't appear to be with us.
Speaker 1:We've stiff armed people, even other Christians. We've divided and subdivided and divided again. In a sense, we have done exactly the opposite of what Jesus advised. And probably, most of us here in this room have some story somewhere about someone that we loved, who was pushed away from Jesus by someone who thought that they were protecting God and his territory. And yet, what Jesus himself tells us is that his kingdom and his territory, God's reign in the world includes weeds and wheat.
Speaker 1:And he's not surprised. He's not alarmed. He's not terrified. And not only that, he actually goes out of his way to hire workers to make sure that everyone in the field is cared for and tended to, and given every opportunity to grow into something beautiful. So the point of this parable is not just that there are weeds and wheat mingled together in the world.
Speaker 1:We know that. The point is, you can't tell the difference. You and I, we simply have not been given the necessary technology to know what will grow out of a person's life. And when we try, when you and I try to write their story in our head, what happens is that we actually cause more damage to the kingdom than they ever could. I mean, think about this.
Speaker 1:Jesus is more concerned about his disciples writing people off than he is about the evil one infiltrating his field. And so, you have ever felt like Jesus is present in your life, and he's real, and he's transforming you slowly by his grace in some way, and yet there is something somewhere back there in your story that disqualifies you or stigmatizes your participation in community. And please understand that this is only because we, as the church, have often misapprehended the expansiveness of God's gracious welcome. You are not a weed. Not while you are still growing.
Speaker 1:Now, there is a hard edge to this story. Now, here in Matthew, this is one of only a few times that Jesus provides explanations for his parables. And so we saw him do it last week with the parable of the sower and the soil. And here, he does it again for the parable of the weeds and the wheat. Verse 37 says, the one who sowed the good seed is the son of man.
Speaker 1:So that's Jesus. The field is the world. So everything that you see and touch and taste, this is all part of God's kingdom. The good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one and the enemy who sows them is the devil.
Speaker 1:The harvest is the end of the age and so this is important. The point here is not just to look for people's life and the fruit that they produce and then judge them on their actions. The point is you don't know the story until it ends. So the harvest is the end of the age and the harvesters are the angels. So Jesus does not give us a lot of room to misidentify characters in this story.
Speaker 1:There are people who will grow into an acceptance of Christ and his kingdom. There are people who will ultimately reject that world and refuse to participate in God's grace. This is not a parable telling us that our choices don't matter. This is not a parable telling us that weeds and wheat are all the same thing in the end. This is a parable that is telling us the story isn't finished yet.
Speaker 1:And none of us know exactly where the story will go. I don't know if you realize this, but approximately every seven years, every atom of your body is exchanged with the universe. Now, not all at once. That would be less comfortable. But every day, there is dead skin that falls from your body and hair that gets tangled up in the drain.
Speaker 1:There's dandruff that flakes on your shoulders. It's actually incredibly disconcerting to me to realize that most of the dust in my house is just leftover bits of me. But scientists tell us that with a great deal of rounding error, approximately every seven years, every cell in your body will go through a regeneration. That means the the essential physical material, the atoms that we call you, are completely new. In a very specific and scientific way, you are not the you you were seven years ago.
Speaker 1:You are not the you you will be seven years from now. In fact, you could say that you have never known anyone longer than seven years. You're making friends all the time whether you want to or not. So that's kind of nice to know. But what I would suggest is that perhaps even more important than how this works itself out in our physical bodies.
Speaker 1:The same regeneration is happening all the time in our spirit. One of the most humbling things for me as a pastor is to go back and look at old sermons or conversations that I have had and recognize just how differently I thought about God ten years ago. I'm 39 now and I've read a lot more than I had at 29. I've had a lot more life experiences. I have a son now that has completely reshaped the way I think about the world.
Speaker 1:All of that is good. I mean, I I think I would feel deeply inadequate if I got up here sensing that I had not grown in my journey in the last decade. But the more mature I get, both in my faith and also as I just get older, with more to look back on in my life, the more it forces me to speak with humility. Because what I realize is that ten years ago, I was a completely different person. And that means that ten years from now, I will likely be a completely different person all over again.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm convinced that I was loved by God at 29, and I know that I am loved by God here in this moment. I have faith. I I trust that I will be embraced by my heavenly father when I stand on the precipice of my fiftieth birthday a decade from now. But what I see in this story is the reminder that God often takes a much longer view than we do. Oh Lord, you are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness.
Speaker 1:Patient with all, not wishing anyone to perish, but wanting everyone to come to the knowledge of your grace. You see, when God looks at me, here in this singular moment in time and space, you know, this this snapshot of my life that we often want to judge each other based on. God doesn't see a weed or a seed. What he sees is a story that continues to grow and unfold and take shape and root. And sure, you know, that story may take all kinds of twists and turns along the way.
Speaker 1:That's what makes it a story worth watching. But a story is one that won't be over until he says that it's over. You see the parables of Jesus are these very carefully constructed contrasts that they come alongside us and they are meant to help us see the world in completely new ways. But what this parable is helping me to see right now is that the people around me, both those who I admire and I want to imitate and those whom I might want to seek to avoid in my life. All of these people are unfinished stories that point to the open ended grace of God.
Speaker 1:And so part of what this parable says is that if you struggle with parts of your story, that for some reason continue to hang on to you and pull you down and drag you back, Don't let the fact that you can't rewrite your history stop you from writing a better future, because that is always in front of you. And you're not defined by the past. In God's kingdom, you are never a weed until you stop writing your story. But second, what this parable says is that my tendency to want to write people off or to shape their next chapter in my head. This obsession that we all have with deciding who's on the right side of the line, not only is it misguided, but it's destructive when it comes into contact with the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1:Because I'm not here to decide whether you're in or out. I'm here to tend the field and to help you flourish, and then to wait and see how your story will unfold. Because it's still being written, and that's what the kingdom of God is all about. So may you sink deep roots and stretch up towards the sun. So that when the time comes and the harvest begins, you will know that the story you lived was the story God hoped you would write.
Speaker 1:Let's pray. God, help us as we move through this world. Recognizing implicitly in our experience that there are weeds and wheat mingled together. There are people who are good to us and generous to us and they feed us and they help us become a better version of ourselves. And then there are people who are sometimes poisonous.
Speaker 1:And yet, God, help us to understand that the final destiny and identity of every person we encounter has not yet been written. That as we move through this life, with the grace that you extend to us, we should be able to begin to see in each person unlimited potential. Defined not by who they have been, but by the grace that you continue to extend it to them. And so God, if there are moments in our past where we feel like we have already been defined, would you, by your spirit, be present to us reminding us that there is still a future ahead and a story to write, One that you are deeply invested in and one that you are willing to walk beside us as we move through. And for those who we encounter, who may annoy us or irritate us or perhaps even injure us at times.
Speaker 1:God, would we still remain open to your future? To the grace that you extend to those people and to this unbridled imagination that you have for where each of us could go. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen.