Jesus The Jester #3 | “Weeds”

0:10 We are listening carefully to the stories Jesus used to describe the realm of God. And in these stories, Jesus paints pictures of God at work in the world. As these sacred stories percolate through our souls, drip by life-changing drip, they invite us deeper into the path of faith. Last week, the vista that Jesus offered us came from the kitchen. It came from contemplating the magical properties of a suspect substance, yeast.

1:01 Today, we turn our attention to a farm. to a field. Although, as is always the case with parables, it's a field and it's something much, much more. Let us now listen for God's word as it echoes to us from Matthew chapter 13, beginning with the 24th verse. Jesus put before them another parable. The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone 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.

2:14 And the servants 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? He answered, an enemy has done this. The servant 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 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.

3:18 This is the word of God for you, the people of God. Thanks be to God. For obvious reasons, today's passage from the good book is known as the parable of the wheat and the weeds. In this story, a farmer plants a field with wheat. An enemy then shows up and plants other seeds in the same field. Servants eventually notice the rogue plants, the weeds, and report them to the field's owner. Finally, the servants and the farmer discuss what to do about this mixture of different plants, weeds and wheat. Now, typically, after we read one of Christ's parables together in worship, we approach the story with a series of questions.

4:20 Why did Jesus say this? How would first century folk react to that part of the story and so forth? But here, the parable of the wheat and the weeds sees us coming. It gives voice to its own set of questions. In fact, Tom Long, the author of an insightful new book on the parables, argues that this story, the wheat and the weeds, hinges on these questions. And with that in mind, we are going to allow three questions from the parable to guide our journey this morning. Question number one.

5:07 Where did these weeds come from? As the sun rises on our parable, a group of servants are going about their chores. Walking the fence lines, they detect a problem. Running, they knock on the farmer's door. Sir, sorry, sir, sorry to disturb your breakfast, but we've been out putting up a few scarecrows and we discovered something, something bad. There are weeds among the wheat in the back 40. There are a lot of weeds. Then, unable to contain their curiosity and their confusion, questions tumble out of these laborers. They lean toward the farmer.

6:00 What do you think could have happened? Did you not sow good seed? It's crazy back there. How in the world did we get all these weeds? These questions sound familiar to me. From young students in confirmation class to white-haired adults contemplating the evening news, everyone wants to know, where did evil come from? Why do bad things happen? Is God at fault when things go haywire? Or is there some other explanation when life runs off the rails? Who's to blame for this mess, this gargantuan mess?

6:52 The laborer's questions are our questions. And today's parable is ready with a quick answer. Why did this happen? Well, I'm sorry to say, the farmer explains, but an enemy did this. It took place while you were sleeping. It happened when you weren't looking. One night, a villain snuck into my field and planted a second set of seeds. Bad seeds. And there you have it. An enemy is to blame. An enemy? What enemy? Well, today's parable comes to us from the Gospel of Matthew. And in the pages of Matthew, Jesus typically identifies Satan, humanity's ancient adversary, as the enemy, as a cruel force seeking to spread lies and corruption. Now, when preachers mention Satan, I'm aware that we reach a fork in the road for many of the faithful.

8:14 For a certain slice of believers, hearing that the devil is at work in the world makes sense. Some picture a being almost on a par with God. A figure who's locked in a cosmic battle with the Holy One. a malevolent force who sneaks around tossing bad seeds in God's pristine fields.

8:40 Others find the notion of the devil to be unnecessary and perhaps distracting. They point to the fact that a great deal of what many people believe or think about Satan has been sourced not from the Bible, but from books like the Left Behind novels or from any number of low-budget horror movies. You don't need the devil, these people argue, to explain what's wrong with us.

9:14 I think these criticisms are important. Still, I've long been haunted by the provocative words of Charles Baudelaire. Back in the 1860s, the French poet observed, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he doesn't exist. Here's where I come down. In this parable, I think Jesus is pointing to something real. Something spotted by C.S. Lewis in the halls of Oxford University and by Hannah Arendt while observing the Nazi trials in Nuremberg and by Gustavo Gutierrez when describing the crushing force of poverty.

10:11 I think evil is real. I think evil is powerful. Last week, we talked about how good can be subversive. Leaven, when added to the mix, can lift a culture. This week, Jesus points to the other side of the equation. Evil can be sneaky too. It can swing by in the middle of the night. It can plant corrupt seeds in our midst. It can take people by surprise. One day you can be hanging banners outside your church depicting Jesus as a jester, a figure capable of speaking truth to power. And the next you can be reading stories in the news about a thin-skinned king who demands that all the jesters in the land be fired.

11:10 one day you can be walking a fence line taking inventory of your flourishing crops and the next you can find yourself doing a double take wait there are weeds here so many weeds where did they come from how did this happen in today's parable Jesus asks listeners to consider the insidious ways of evil. And this observation leads to our second question. Question number two. Do you want us to go and gather them? Here the laborers offer a perfectly natural response. You say that an enemy has scattered bad seeds in our fields. Okay, should we go grab our work gloves and start weeding, start pulling up all the evil shoots.

12:16 Hearing their proposal, the farmer shakes his head. He stops his team from running out to pull up the offensive plants with these words. In gathering the weeds, you would uproot the wheat. In your desire to vanquish evil, you risk doing more harm than good.

12:46 I've been thinking a lot about this part of the parable. Largely because I think it presents parallels to the debate raging in this country over freedom of speech. You may remember from your high school civics class that the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States reads as follows. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. It seems like every generation in American history has to wrestle with and fight over the meaning of those words.

14:00 Why? Well, when it comes to freedom of speech, our rancor may be explained by a simple fact. people are regularly shocked by things that other people say. Although what shocks one person may not shock another and vice versa. And there you have it.

14:25 Now sometimes, of course, our reactions to other people's speech goes beyond shock. Sometimes we sense that a person is planting evil seeds with their words. We worry that these wicked kernels could take root in the hearts of our neighbors and family members. They could blossom into hate. And our natural impulse is to want to stop hateful speech. Why should a society permit rhetoric that sullies our values, belittles those we love, and demeans things that we hold dear? There ought to be a ban on toxic rhetoric. We should cancel words that offend.

15:16 Right? Well, let's think that through. To implement such a ban, you would first, of course, have to answer two key questions. One, what counts as hate speech? and two, who gets to decide what counts as hate speech? These are gnarly questions for a democracy. They are questions about power. And this, of course, is where the First Amendment comes into play. The framers of the Constitution made a difficult choice. they decided that the benefits of free speech outweigh the pain. The benefits of a free society, a society where no one individual or group or religion gets to ban any other individual or group or religion's speech.

16:23 These benefits outweigh the considerable pain that can come from having to hear, at times, speech that we find problematic, wrong-headed, and even downright awful.

16:43 Did the framers make the right choice? personally I will confess that there are times occasions when I have wished that freedom of speech was not enshrined in our founding laws there are moments when I've wanted someone in the words of today's parable to pull the weeds don't we all feel that way at one time or another And yet this is when today's parable rings most clearly in my ears. What you propose, the farmer says, sounds satisfying. But at the end of the day, my friends, pulling those weeds is going to do more harm than good.

17:29 This counsel from the farmer brings us to question number three. This final question is not literally spoken in the text, but it is implied by the parable's conclusion. And it's probably the most important question before us this morning. Question number three. Okay, if you don't want me to pull the weeds, then what am I supposed to do? If canceling bad seeds, cultural weeds, other human beings is not my task, well then what? Am I just supposed to sit around? Is this a parable that commends apathy? This is such a good question. To answer, let's focus our attention again on the end of the parable. Here, the farmer assures the laborers that the problem of the weeds will be dealt with in due time. Let both of them grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time, I will tell the reapers, collect the weeds first, bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.

18:51 Now, I'll be the first to admit that the conclusion of this parable rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Some feel that it's too judgmental. Weeds get tossed in the fire while weed is drawn into the barn. This feels like a you go to hell while I get to dance in heaven ending. Others criticize the idea that God promises to take care of things at the end of time, on judgment day. They feel like the story serves up a slice of pie-in-the-sky faith. they hear Jesus saying don't worry about working for change about pulling weeds about trying to do good right now God's got this pour yourself a cold beverage relax eventually someday God will make all things right Is that a fair way to read this story?

20:00 Yes and no. First the yes. Yes, this parable draws our eyes toward the future. when the laborers voice concern over the weeds the farmer points to the end game don't stress he says when the harvest rolls around everything will be sorted out so yes Jesus more or less says God's got this one day Christ promises all people will face a just reckoning. And on that day when Gabriel's trumpet blows, weeds will be burned and wheat will be gathered into heaven's barn. God will do what is right.

21:01 So, yes, this story has us glance toward the future. Still, the other part of our question lingers. Does a vision like this promote apathy? Over the years, my answer to this question has changed. I used to think that appealing to a future in which God triumphs over evil was an easy way to dodge responsibility and to duck hard issues in the here and now. Over time, though, good conversations, provocative readings, parables like this one, have changed my mind. I have executed a spiritual flip-flop. I now believe that God's promise of a hopeful future can ground us and guide us in our own anxious present.

22:09 Now, how exactly does that work? I have two thoughts. This past week I listened to a podcast featuring Ross Douthat, a conservative Roman Catholic commentator for the New York Times, and Ezra Klein, a progressive culturally Jewish commentator for the New York Times. In the podcast, these two different fellows lamented the state of our country. They talked about the scourge of political violence and renewed attacks on freedom of speech. They discussed the way in which today's political rhetoric focuses almost exclusively on criticizing the other side, on listing the errors, the stupidities, the downright evil acts perpetrated by our political enemies. And I nodded.

23:05 Everyone really does seem eager to pull the weeds from the field of American culture. right now. In the podcast, Klein and Douthat also agreed that contemporary America is lacking in utopian vision, in a utopian ambition. And that's a fascinating phrase. We are lacking in utopian ambition. And it raises a really good question. Who out there is sketching a grand vision for this country? Who has a compelling picture of the future, a picture around which we might gather and toward which we might strive. As these two very differently wired souls debated, a short but urgent verse from the book of Proverbs ran through my head.

24:17 Where there is no vision, the people perish. Eventually, thankfully, Douthat and Klein asked each other, what is your utopia? Can you describe a hopeful future for America that might grab people's hearts and energize our better angels? and I thought what a wonderful and important question to ponder. What is your utopia?

24:57 Can you describe the world that you hope we might all move toward together? This is such an important question. Because our utopias, our hopeful visions of tomorrow, have the capacity to ground our constructive actions today. Today's parable gets this. It asks people to base their ethics and actions on a future promised by God. So does that ever happen? One last story. Harriet Tubman was born in 1822 in rural Maryland, not far from the Chesapeake Bay. She was enslaved on a small farm there. And then at the tender age of 27, this small woman who could not read or write escaped to freedom, making her way to the city of Philadelphia. In Philly, Tubman famously became the organizer, the general of the Underground Railroad. She repeatedly risked her life returning to Maryland to liberate scores of enslaved people and to bring them to the north. A little over a year ago, I visited my mentor and friend, Tom Long at his house in Maryland and Tom took me to see the statue of Harriet Tubman in Cambridge, Maryland and as we drove by the statue Tom told me a story.

26:54 You thought I was already in the story but now that's just prolegomena. In 1854, Harriet Tubman learned that her brothers, still enslaved in Maryland, were going to be sold, put up for auction over the Christmas holiday.

27:18 Fearing that her brothers would be torn from their families and dispersed to plantations where she would not be able to find them and have any chance of helping them get to freedom, Tubman asked a literate friend to write a letter to Jacob Jackson. Jackson was a free black man who owned land near where Tubman's brothers were enslaved. And Tubman trusted that Jackson would be able to get word to her brothers. But she worried that the letter that she was about to write would be intercepted by postal inspectors and that they would tip off her plans. So Tubman dictated this letter in a kind of code. After going on for a few sentences about mundane matters, it read, read my letter to the old folk and give my love to them and tell my brothers to be always watching unto prayer. And when the good old ship of Zion comes along, be ready to step aboard.

28:37 Well, Tubman was right. Postal inspectors did open the letter, although they could not make heads or tails of it because they knew that Jackson didn't even have any brothers. So they summoned him to the post office and they said, what does this mean? Jackson read it and decoded it instantly, but he feigned ignorance. I have no idea what this thing is about. It cannot possibly be meant for me. So they shelved the letter and as soon as the interrogation was over, Jackson ran and told Tubman's brothers, get ready, be ready. The ship of Zion is on its way to pick you up. what kind of code was this well for most Christians at that time the good old ship of Zion was an image evoking the future evoking the final journey that the faithful will take at the point of death it was a metaphor describing a soul's trip to God's promised land to the place where we will be reunited with all the saints. For Tubman though, this promised future reached back to define her present. She believed that families would be reunited there and therefore she believed that families ought to be reunited here. Reunited now. For Tubman, the ship of Zion was no pie in the sky. It was a real vessel carrying real people over real rivers to a life of freedom.

30:38 In today's parable, the farmer assures the laborers, I've got the final judgment covered. One day I will sort the weeds from the wheat. Now does that promise, that vision of the future, provide guidance for living in the now? Can this parable free us from our own misguided need to take God's job and weed the fields? Can this parable inspire us to answer the question, what is your utopia? And then, like General Tubman, can we throw our shoulders to the wheel to make those ships of Zion real?