Sermon: July 23, 2023
Readings: Genesis 28:10-19a / Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23 / Matthew 13:24-30,36-43
Today’s Gospel lesson deals with the difficulty of telling the difference between good and bad seed, the wheat and the weeds, the saint and the sinner. It’s something that runs through all of us. We don’t always live up to the standards set for us. We slip. We fall. We sin. It’s something we admit during our confession of sin. We sin in thought, word, and deed by things we’ve done and left undone.
But the parable also tells of God’s patience as we grow and mature. You certainly wouldn’t go out in a cornfield and expect to harvest ears of corn before it had a chance to grow. It’s the same way with us. We’re not done growing. We still have stumbling blocks, so God is patient with us and offers forgiveness.
In the story, Jesus described the same type of patience when the workers were told not to rip out the weeds. We are to show the same patience with one another, not ripping away at one another trying to judge who is a weed and who isn’t. We are not to draw some dividing line that separates us. We aren’t good judges, and we make even worse weed whackers. When we start whacking away at what we think are weeds, we’re likely going to harm the crop that God intends to harvest; because God's grace is at work in places and ways, we may not recognize or expect. Judging is God’s job. It’s above our pay grade.
Jesus tells us that it’s the angel’s work to deal with the weeds, to root out the causes of sin within us. It’s not up to us to draw lines determining who’s in and who’s out. If we did that, it would deny the fact that Christ lives in all of us, and that all humanity is created in the image of God. We are to have patience and respect the dignity of every human being. We are to seek and serve Christ in all people as we are all still growing and maturing in our faith, following in the way of Jesus Christ.
Jesus promises that God’s angels will remove the stumbling blocks, and through God’s grace, we will continually be transformed into what God intended us to be, a reflection of God’s image.
May we take the words of today’s Psalm to heart and ask God to seek us out, to know our hearts and restless thoughts. To look for and remove the skandalon, the stumbling blocks in our lives, and lead us to everlasting life. May we allow ourselves to be open to God’s love so our hearts are filled with moments of grace upon grace encouraging us to walk faithfully in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, evermore transforming us and the world as we grow and mature in God’s love.
