Sermon Archive

Separating the Wheat and the Weeds

Fr. Daniels | Choral Eucharist
Sunday, July 20, 2014 @ 11:00 am
groupKey: primary
postID: 6918; title: The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost
groupKey: secondary
groupKey: other
The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost

The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, who knowest our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion, we beseech thee, upon our infirmities, and those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask, mercifully give us for the worthiness of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Proper 11)


args: 
Array
(
    [date] => 2014-07-20 11:00:00
    [scope] => 
    [year] => 
    [month] => 
    [post_id] => 1125
    [series_id] => 
    [day_titles_only] => 
    [exclusive] => 1
    [return] => formatted
    [formatted] => 
    [show_date] => 
    [show_meta] => 
    [show_content] => 1
    [admin] => 
    [debug] => 1
    [filter_types] => Array
        (
            [0] => primary
            [1] => secondary
        )

    [type_labels] => Array
        (
            [primary] => Primary
            [secondary] => Secondary
            [other] => Other
        )

    [the_date] => 2014-07-20 11:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2014-07-20
postID: 319696 (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Ross Tubman)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 319696; date_type: fixed; year: 2014
fixed_date_str: July 20
fixed_date_str (mod): July 20 2014
formattedFixedDateStr: 2014-07-20
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 319696
displayDates for postID: 319696/year: 2014 
Array
(
    [0] => 2014-07-20
)
postPriority: 999
postID: 6918 (The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6918; date_type: variable; year: 2014
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6918
displayDates for postID: 6918/year: 2014 
Array
(
    [0] => 2014-07-20
)
postPriority: 3
primaryPost found for date: 2014-07-20 with ID: 6918 (The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost)
About to getLitDateData for date: 2014-07-20 11:00:00
Sunday, July 20, 2014
The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost
args: 
Array
(
    [date] => 2014-07-20 11:00:00
    [scope] => 
    [year] => 
    [month] => 
    [post_id] => 1125
    [series_id] => 
    [day_titles_only] => 
    [exclusive] => 1
    [return] => simple
    [formatted] => 
    [show_date] => 
    [show_meta] => 
    [show_content] => 1
    [admin] => 
    [debug] => 1
    [filter_types] => Array
        (
            [0] => primary
            [1] => secondary
        )

    [type_labels] => Array
        (
            [primary] => Primary
            [secondary] => Secondary
            [other] => Other
        )

    [the_date] => 2014-07-20 11:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2014-07-20
postID: 319696 (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Ross Tubman)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 319696; date_type: fixed; year: 2014
fixed_date_str: July 20
fixed_date_str (mod): July 20 2014
formattedFixedDateStr: 2014-07-20
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 319696
displayDates for postID: 319696/year: 2014 
Array
(
    [0] => 2014-07-20
)
postPriority: 999
postID: 6918 (The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6918; date_type: variable; year: 2014
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6918
displayDates for postID: 6918/year: 2014 
Array
(
    [0] => 2014-07-20
)
postPriority: 3
primaryPost found for date: 2014-07-20 with ID: 6918 (The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost)
About to getLitDateData for date: 2014-07-20 11:00:00
Choral Eucharist
11:00 am
reading found matching title 'Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43' with ID: 73604
The reading_id [73604] is already in the array.
No update needed.

Scripture citation(s): Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

This sermon currently has the following sermon_bbooks: 
Array
(
    [0] => 60755
)
book: [Array ( [0] => 60755 ) ] (reading_id: 73604)
bbook_id: 60755
The bbook_id [60755] is already in the array.
No update needed for sermon_bbooks.
related_event->ID: 84160

There is a man who I see periodically in the neighborhood. A somewhat ragged character, he walks around with signs with bible quotes on them, and warns passers-by about the imminent coming of the end of the world, the great judgment that is to come, and graphic descriptions of what’s going to happen to those who don’t get with the program.

I confess that sometimes I roll my eyes—partly because I don’t appreciate being yelled at when I’m walking down the street—but, on the other hand, reading the gospel of Matthew, you can see that St. Matthew himself may have been temperamentally closer to that guy than to me, with my rolling eyes. In Matthew you definitely get more discussion of the end of days, and what they will be like, than you do in the other gospels. St. Matthew, we might say, is the Gospel-writer equivalent of the man with the sign.

For example, the parable in today’s reading. There is wheat that is growing up in a field right next to the tares—tares being a particular kind of weed. The weeds are growing up next to the wheat because an enemy of the householder came around one night and, while everybody was sleeping, threw the seeds of the weeds into the field. When the harvest comes, and the tares are found there next to the wheat, the reapers are going to go into the field and separate the two. The wheat will be put into the barn, as you’d expect. But the weeds would be gathered, bound together, and burned.

Jesus explains the parable in an apocalyptic way. The harvest is the end of the age; the wheat are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are those who do iniquity. The angels will do the separating, and the sinful will come to their end: the angels will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Matthew’s community had good reason to yearn for this separation. They were mightily oppressed because of their dedication to Jesus; they were at incredible personal risk. As a result, they were able to see the contrast between the world and the Church more clearly perhaps than we are. In a world where the devil held such sway, that community of Jesus followers recognized that they were called to be the wheat in a field otherwise full of weeds. They were called to holiness while all around them the stalks of iniquity grew tall and strong. For now. Not so at the end of the age, Jesus says. There, the holiness of the Church will dwell with the holiness of God, and those outside that community will face their fiery punishment, wailing and gnashing their teeth.

Just so. The only problem was that, in the years to come, those early Christians would have considerable problems in their own communities; there would even be people inside the group who would betray its message. The Church itself, in other words, would come to contain within it not only the holiness of the saints, but honest to God wickedness.

This dynamic isn’t exactly uncommon. Something new starts, with great excitement, incredible dedication; amazing faithfulness. For a small band of disciples, following Jesus is the most important thing in the world. Then others are added, as they should be. There is still an inner circle of committed disciples, but before long their influence wanes. Some of the zeal fades. Compromises start being made. Selfish concerns sneak in. The institution itself—and it has now become an institution—starts being used for individuals’ own interests. The gospel becomes a means to some other end, not an end in itself.

In the parable’s terms, then, we might say that it is the Church itself that is the field, within which can be found both wheat and tares. It turned out that membership in the Church was no guarantee of holiness. Mixed into the field of the Church were the wheat of the faithful and the tares, those whose sin would be revealed at the end of the age. Maybe that distinction can’t be made with certainty today. But even if the Church cannot peer into the heart of any particular Christian, God can. And will. So it will be at the end of the age. And there, in the fire, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Just so. The only problem, however, was that there came to be a realization that the distinction might not be so neat. Within the heart of every person the devil has sowed seeds of wickedness, and so no one’s heart is free of weeds. Those weeds of the heart are sins, and they can be found everywhere, in everyone—even in the saints. When it comes to human hearts, the weeds and the wheat grow there, cheek by jowl. Some may have more of one; others more of the other. But no one is free of sin.

So all of us need a reaper to come in and clear out the weeds of the heart. And Jesus is the one who can do that. He is the way that the fields of our hearts can be cleared, preparing us to become citizens of the kingdom of heaven. He is the one who takes away the sins of the world.

This is good news. We who are not righteous have been made righteous by him, and therefore we can have hope that we will, at the end of the age, shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father.

Just so. The only problem is that we’re still left with the disturbing end of the parable. Jesus says that the angels will cast into the furnace of fire those who do iniquity. We shouldn’t dodge that. It may be, however, that this prophecy has already come partly true. The reapers did go into the field, and the separation of wheat and tare has occurred. And the accountability for the fields of weeds was taken on by the only person who didn’t need to do so, and he himself suffered that dramatic punishment. Like a field full of weeds, it was Jesus himself who was gathered up; Jesus who was bound; Jesus who was thrown into the furnace of fire. He is the one who was sent into the depths of hell. So we affirm in the Apostles’ Creed: “crucified, dead and buried. [Jesus] descended into hell.”

The damnation that Jesus predicted in the parable was very soon thereafter suffered by Jesus himself. The weeds of sin were destroyed. And with them was destroyed the Son of God, as he entered into the darkest recesses of hell, where there was wailing and gnashing of teeth—just as he had said there would be.

And, on the third day, he rose again. The one who had taken on the sin of the world was raised by the Father and brought again into the kingdom of heaven. And because he was, through his death and resurrection, we also can be brought into the kingdom, shining like the sun, shining like the righteous. He makes that possible.

We remember that moment when we are together like this. When we worship here, we re-create the dynamic of this very parable. In Jesus’ life there were no weeds; Jesus, we might say, was all wheat. He was that life-giving grain; he was the wheat that is destined to become food. The wheat that was the life of Christ is received as bread—the bread of the Eucharist—which itself is transformed at the altar into the very body of Christ. And here we eat the bread that is flesh, and drink the wine that is blood, so that we are in him, and he is in us, forever. The wheat that becomes bread; the bread that becomes body; the body that becomes us: of such stuff is our salvation made.