Latest / Belin Memorial UMC / Rev. Will Malambri - "The Lord of the harvest"
Transcript
- Belin Memorial UMC: I I feel the need to explain to you one thing that may be familiar to some or not to others. But at Blaine Memorial, we are part of something called the Revised Common Lectionary. We typically use that on Sundays, and that guides us in our scripture selection. So in a three-year cycle, we every week the preachers have basically four scriptures they suggest we consider for that Sunday's scripture reading. It's something that began in 1992. So every third year, every third summer on this particular week since 1992, the parable I'm going to read from Matthew's gospel today has been read. So it's not something that that I felt was the right thing this week to read. It's something that God had been setting in motion for some time through this revised common lectionary. That happens every week, and and sometimes you can feel the the connection more directly than others. But I want you to know that as background before I read today's parable. From Matthew chapter 13, Jesus put before them another parable. The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder holder came and said to him, Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where then did these weeds? Come from. He answered, An enemy has done this. A slave said to him, Then do you want us to go and gather them? But he replied, No, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest, and at the harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but in but gather the wheat into my barn. Then he lift 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. He answered, The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of the Father. Let any one with ears listen. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Again, it's good to be with you today. I've been away the last couple of weeks, so it's nice to be back and worship with Blame Memorial. It's nice to be in this space. grateful to Sandra and David and Jim and all who did the work, many people who did the work to figure out how to bring these services together. appreciate you all being flexible with it. I know it's adjusted your spots, I know it's adjusted the distance from us. Everything is different. but sometimes in the midst of difference, God can bring out New and exciting things among us, so I'm I'm grateful for your patience in that. I want you to to know that I watched the service last week and thought you all did well. I was pleased to hear through the week how many people were pleased with how things came together. I did notice though as I was watching online that particularly at the 11 o'clock service, the screen was closed and it gave me the idea that we missed an opportunity instead of this tan sort of Dape drapery behind us, we could have had a green screen. And what that would have given us the opportunity to do is preach from anywhere, like, say, Duke Chapel. Or Saint Peter's Basilica. Or probably best of all would have been at the World Cup final today. Right there in the halftime show, I think it'd be a great thing. All good places to preach and to pray. And pray we must, because as Jesus' parable reminds us and our own good sense points out, we are prone to try and solve problems that we don't have the experience or the wisdom or the ability to solve on our own. And and and oftentimes we forget that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Some of heard last Sunday that that Pastor Sandra's grandfather was a farmer mine, was as well. I loved going to the farm. It would be such an adventurous place for us. And it was always, you know, new things to explore and new ways to help. And one of my father grandfather's attributes of his farm was that he had his own little gas pump, and he had this, well, a an international harvester truck that we used to love to ride around in. And my mother would be quick to point out that is neither his gas pump nor his truck. But in those days, people didn't photograph everything they looked at. And so I had to go to Wik Wiki Commons to come up with these photos. But it gives you the idea. So wanting to be helpful and observing my grandfather, I noticed that sometimes he would take the fuel from the pump and put it into the equipment, and I thought I could do the same thing. Only I could not quite operate the gas pump as a young person. But I did see that there was a water hose and a spigot. And so I did what I could. To help out my grandfather. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. It was an innocent child, they didn't punish me, of course. I learned from my mistake, but but it did remind me that. That it's good to ask questions before you do things. It's not, unfortunately, the last time I have not asked enough questions before I did things. In the parable of the wheat and the weeds, thankfully the laborers asked the owner, you know, should we go and tear these out before they just went about doing so? Should should we, now that we've seen that these bad seeds have grown tears or weeds among the wheat, should we go and rip them out? And you you can imagine them wanting to go and just do it for their owner. When they came back, let me show you what we have done for you. We saw that these weeds were bore growing in your wheat and we went and tore them out. Look what we have done. You didn't even have it ask us, but thankfully something in them had them asked before they went and did that work. Because the inevitable The unknown consequence of them doing whatever it is their impulse told them to do would have been they would have torn out wheat in their attempt to take out the weeds. What they may not have known before that is that was a a type of of of weed that in the early stages looked like wheat. It would be hard to sep to tell the difference. And then once it had a chance to take root, the the roots would grow around stronger and deeper than the wheat, so that they kind of entangled themselves in the wheat and Thus, as the landowner knew, pulling one out would pull both out. Their attempt to do what would be good would lead to bad results. But let's not be hard on them. We can understand their impulse to go and remove the weeds. No one likes to be scammed. It's embarrassing. It makes you angry. There there's a desire for rent revenge. We we get that they would want to go and and take out the the bad work the enemy had done in their fields. D to do something, whether go and sow bad seeds in in his field or tear out his wheat, something that would feel like an eye for an eye. Good for the workers then that instead of asking, instead of going and doing, they asked the question, should we go about doing this before they decided to go and inflict harm on their enemy or even on their landowner's wheat field? Good for them for not being hasty and uninformed, which seems to be what Jesus is cautioning us about. We can't see all that will come from our impulsive actions, all the results that will come from what we do, good or bad, especially if they're the reactions that come from our f fight or flight or freeze or foam part of our brain. If we're operating out of that, we can't always see very clearly what's to come and if we pause long enough, pause long enough to ask some good questions, pawns pause long enough to To get our emotion in check, pause long enough to make a plan, it is typically a better path than just going with what our gut tells us in the Sure, any sower would want his field to be a perfect field of the exact seeds he's planted. But this sower knows life is rarely perfect. He understands that. He understands that sometimes other seeds get in the mix. That there are seeds that grow from previous years that re-emerge. There's seeds that are transplanted by wind or birds. And as in the case of the parable, there's seeds sometimes that someone might sow into a field that is not their own. And that's the one that gets us. It's unfair. It's unjust. It's a violation. We we lurch toward how dare they, how quickly can we get this thing right? The Lord of the Harvest cautions not so fast. You desire to protect the fragile, and that is good. But the way you're going about it may well endanger them. Purifying the field. Will harm the ones you seek to protect. Let them grow and when the time comes we'll harvest the good and we'll burn the bad and the result will be the best that it can be. And the workers accept it because they know that the landowner's experience and wisdom and ability have given him that knowledge. That and the land belongs to him. I don't have my grandfather around any more to ask if the farmer's practices in the parable would make sense to him. But he did know the Bible. So I'm pretty sure he'd point out that that payable really isn't all that much about farming anyway. about the Lord and his people. In one of the few parables that Jesus actually took the time to explain, or that's recorded in his explanation, he identifies the characters. You've already seen them. Jesus is the one who sows good seed. The field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom, the weeds are the children of the evil one. The enemy is the one who s the devil who sowed the seeds. The harvest is the end of the age. The reapers are the angels. That doesn't answer all our questions about the parable, but it does give us a sense that Jesus is concerned. Ripping out those that we have determined are weeds. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. A much safer route is to trust him, which is why he also seems concerned that we would jump in with his wisdom, that when we jump in we would use his experience, his knowledge, that we would seek his guidance when we do these kinds of things. If you've lived long enough. You know that that some of the people you would have ripped out because you were sure their weeds turned out to be wheat. And some of the people that you would have kept close, have kept close because you were sure they were wheat turned out to be weed. We're just not very good at distinguishing one from the other. Our tests prove as faulty as our hearts, as biased as our minds. Limitations we place on others discounts our limitless God. We we never fully know what the Lord of the harvest is up to with either the wheat or the weeds. And if you're looking closely enough at your own life, I'm looking closely enough at my own life, I realize that there are parts of it that are wheat like. And there are parts of it that show that the weeds have infiltrated my heart, maybe yours too. So what are we to do? First, let's remember that parables are helpful guiding illustrations, not prescriptions for all of life. They point toward the truth, but like any metaphor, they reach their limit. We we learn from parables we don't turn them into all-encompassing rules of life. With that in mind, let's recognize that there are select times when wheat and weaves weeds have to be separated before the harvest. Sometimes the risk is too great to keep the two together, even when there will be pain and cost in separating them. Sometimes the threat of one kind of harm has to outweigh the threat of another. To stretch the metaphor it's Let's think about what that requires. There has to be great care for the wheat. That always has to be the priority. And so we have to think, our is my are our minds and hearts in their best places to rightly identify the weeds. Are we removing them carefully enough that will keep the wheat intact? Do we recognize that people within faith communities ripping out others? It's not only harmful to the ones being ripped out, but also to the ones who care about them, who've served alongside them, who've built relationships with them, who have loved them. They're complicated emotions that are born out of good times shared. Deep hurt disappointment feelings of betrayal and loss when separation has to occur. When it does, Jesus provides a process for that. It's in Matthew chapter 18. It's a deliberate process to be used with extreme care and prayerful concentration. Always with the goal of discovering what can lead to healing for everyone. rather than self righteousness for one side or the other. They're painful times when things have to go that way. But the parable teaches that we should never be eager to or even comfortable with ripping out whoever we believe to be a weed. Instead, we're to give great attention to being the most faithful wheat that we can be. Trusting God and his angels to handle the reaping, to remove the causes for sin, to remove the causes for evil doing, to make right what we never could, so that the kingdom of heaven will become a weed-free existence after all. The promise is it will be that. Whatever this life includes, the kingdom of heaven will be free of sin. It will be free of evil doing. It will be full of the peace and joy that God provides. The fire that Jesus references is only meant to be a threat to those who are seeking to be weed like. For rest, it's meant to be a promise that thanks to the Lord of the harvest, the sin and evil of this life will never enter into the life that is to come. That is good news. those who trust the Lord, His wisdom. His ability. It's power to make it so. Thanks be to God.