Sermon by the Rev. Deborah Hawkins

July 23, 2023, proper 11

Genesis 28:10-19a; Psalm 139:1-11, 22-23; Romans 8:12-25, Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

The disciples call the parable we are given this morning the ‘parable of the weeds of the field.’ Sometimes it is also known as the parable of the wheat and tares, or the parable of the wheat and the weeds. Since it is a parable, it is meant to be looked at this way and then that way and over and over because each time we do it may show us something different. Jesus explains the parable to us in the gospel account, but parables don’t mean one thing and only one thing. They are mysterious and hold many gifts. For all that they can be read differently, each story does have a point that is meant to bother us, dig at us a little, make us squirm so we will shift a bit and see things from slightly different angles. Me, I often start to squirm a little bit when I take seriously the Godly Play questions: ‘Who are you in the story? Which part of the story is about you?’ 

I want to look at 3 of the characters in the story today, seeds, workers, and fields, and ask, ‘Is that who you are? Is that part of the story about you?’

Maybe you are a seed. Are you a good seed or a bad seed? You really don’t know. You just ended up here in this field. To be honest, when the seeds in the story seem to be about me, I like to think I am a good seed. I know I am a good seed because I am quite good at spotting other seeds that aren’t so good. At least, they don’t look so good to me. I wish they would clean up their act and stop causing problems. It is frustrating because, as a seed, there really isn’t anything I can do about them, other than ignore them or complain. Usually I alternate between the two, maybe complaining a bit more than ignoring, I guess. When I am complaining, I don’t have to think about the possibility that maybe I could be a weed. That is an awful thought… 

The best we can do, when we find ourselves identifying with the seeds in the story, is focus on our growing. After all there is a lot for a little sprout to do. Personally, I find, when I stop focusing on finding the weeds around me and instead look at the parts of me that might be a little weed-ish and work on them, I have plenty to do to keep busy, more than enough as a matter of fact.

Maybe you more closely identify with the field hands in the story today. Field hands know what a field of wheat is supposed to look like and notice when it doesn’t. They put a lot of time and effort into growing a good crop. As field hands we know good crop means we will be able to feed ourselves and our dependents for another year, maintain a roof over our heads, put clothes on our backs, buy medicine, educate our children, the whole shebang. We bear heavy responsibilities. Weeds are bad news not just for this year, but potentially for years to come. They can choke out the good wheat, take important resources, like water, and contaminate the final harvest as well as set up the field for even more weeds in the years to come. 

As workers what we do matters. Sowing good seed and tending the field means paying attention to a lifetime of habits, words, and actions, and staying alert because no matter how careful we are, weeds happen. We have to stay on top of them to have any hope for a good harvest. When I am feeling like a field hand my focus is not only on ‘little me’ but also on ‘the crew,’ on our responsibility to work together for the good of the whole, on encouraging healthy growth, and minimizing impediments to a good harvest.

As workers, we plant good seed, remove the weeds we can, but some weeds we have to leave to God. We can easily to get discouraged. One of the good seeds we must cultivate is patience. Patience and hope. Two good seeds. We do our seedling work of paying attention to ourselves, minimizing our judgment of others, and trusting others are able to do the same. We do our field hand work of looking outward and noticing the weeding, watering, and mulching that needs to be done in the world. We cultivate our dependable selves so we can join with others in getting our share of the work done. And yet, but still, even so, it becomes clearer and clearer the roots of the good seed, and the roots of the weeds, are often woven tightly together. We cannot disentangle them by ourselves without doing more damage than good. It is when we know the roots of the wheat and the weeds are all tangled up within ourselves, and within everyone else, that we find ourselves as fields in the story. 

One of the abiding problems I have when I answer, ‘who are you in the parable of the wheat and the weeds?’ with ‘the field’ is patience often doesn’t feel like patience. It feels like giving up or passively waiting for pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by. Then I remember when I think that way I am assuming I know exactly what I am waiting for. And I guess I do. Mainly, I’m waiting for God to hurry up and get the weeds I can’t deal with out of me and the weeds you can’t deal with out of you so everything will just be better some how. Wait a minute, is that being a field or being a worker? A field isn’t about doing so much as about waiting. It is less about fixing than it is about listening. Maybe being a field involves being a place of hope where we wait for something like a dream where angels descend to where we are and gather the harvest.

Seeds, workers, fields. We can find ourselves identifying with any or all of them throughout our lives. But none of them are the point of the story, are they? The point of the story is about a harvest and the kingdom of heaven. For all that we have been focusing on weeds, they turn out not to be a problem, after all. It is Barbara Brown Taylor (Seeds of Heaven) who points out the grain is gathered and ground into flour. The weeds and stalks from the wheat are bundled together to fuel the fire that bakes the bread made from the flour.

The bread that is made is the bread that is broken and shared for the life of the world. No matter what part of the story is about you, it turns out the point of the story is about love.

Thanks be to God.