Life in the Weeds

 It's good to be back in the same pulpit for two weeks in a row.

And next Sunday, I'm excited for you all.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to be with you.

 I'm serving at another church in Huntington Beach during this two weeks in July as well.

And it so happened that this Sunday when Pastor Ray is going to be with you, I'm preaching in that other church.

And so that was God's timing.

It just worked out that way.

But I'm sorry that I'll miss that Sunday with you and with him.

Hopefully we'll have a chance to get together while he's in the Southland.

 As I mentioned to you at one point, I think last week or before when I was here, I've really been spending a lot of time in the parables of Jesus.

The parables he told are really fascinating, imaginative, and creative stories that people latch onto.

And, you know, we're people of stories, aren't we?

We love stories.

I was talking to Violet.

She's reading a whole collection of stories, and she loves it.

 We all love stories.

Well, Jesus told them.

And here we find him in Capernaum, which is on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

And the crowds are assembling, and there are so many people around him that he needs to step into a boat that's right alongside the shore.

Turns out it's Peter's fishing trawler.

 If it's a trawler, I'm not a fisherman.

Maybe some of you can correct me.

But he steps into this boat, and he's teaching his disciples and the gathered crowds.

Now, we're not going to put the text up at this point, but we're going to just imagine what it would be like to be with Jesus in this situation as he tells this parable.

 Matthew 13, verse 24.

He put before them another parable.

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field.

But 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 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 slaves said to him, Then do you want us to go out 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.

This is the word of the Lord.

 thanks be to god so jesus gets off the boat and he tells two other related parables and then together with his disciples he goes into peter's house which is just adjacent to where the shoreline is the disciples come up and they say

 Can you explain to us that parable you told a few minutes ago about the weeds and the wheat?

So he does.

Now, life is good, but when things get rough and chaotic, we can feel manipulated, abused, confused, and in our relationships and living together,

 Life gets challenging, doesn't it?

I was reading the other day about a pastor, author, Craig Greshel.

He was raised in a small town and he went to a local school with his little sister.

 And in that school, there's a very popular teacher, and he told jokes in class, and he was always playing pranks on his students, and he gave out a whole lot of A's, which he was popular for.

He assembled quite a following, especially young, cute girls.

And later they found out that he had been abusing many of them.

Among them was Craig's little sister,

 And when Craig talks about when he found out he was livid and anger overtook him, he wanted to beat the life out of this teacher.

He prayed that this man would suffer eternally in hell.

But in the meantime, he wanted to bring suffering over him here and now.

Now, most of us would agree that Craig's rage was understandable.

 But you know, it was not long before he found out that that teacher was in the hospital with a crippling disease, muscular dystrophy.

And Craig found that out, and he was actually glad, and he thanked God for the justice of it all.

But later on, Craig came to realize his bitterness and his desire to destroy this teacher was

 was very counterproductive for everybody it never was healing for him or even his little sister he wanted that teacher to suffer but that was punishing to no one but Craig and those closest to him life gets tricky

 And the parables of Jesus offer insight into how we face issues like this.

Maybe not as consequential as the one that Craig went through, but we need help, don't we, to figure out our way through the weeds, these complicated and emotional situations like this.

Meanwhile, back to the parable.

 It makes sense to us as we think about our lives today.

Jesus goes on to explain the parable.

It's an end times parable where the faithful farmer is the son of man, the field is the world we live in, the good seed are the children of God's kingdom, and the weeds are the children of the evil one.

The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels God sends.

 the son of man will send his angels to reap the harvest and they will collect all the cause of sin and all the evil doers and throw them into the furnace of fire and the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father.

That's the words of Jesus.

So what's the take home here?

 What can we learn?

Because the stakes are high, as this all has eternal implications for each of us.

First of all, I'd like to notice here that this tells us that God is at work sowing generously in the creation He loves.

The Son of Man is faithfully each day scattering His kingdom of goodness

 round and through us all the time now that to me is reassuring because there's times when I wonder I'm sure there are with you as well but he's always scattering seeds around and as he continues it seems there's an intentional malevolence work at work an enemy Jesus calls him the devil

 is sabotaging God's good work.

And something should be done about it, we would all say.

But there's always this scattering of goodness.

Secondly, God restricts us from eliminating evil in the world.

Did you notice that?

That's kind of a surprise in the parable.

 We, as children of the King, notice bad things being done by those who want to stir evil and wickedness in our life together.

Sometimes it's challenging to locate what God is sowing because of all the corruption.

So much has been fouled.

And when we see this illicit activity, our natural reaction,

 Let's get together and take it out.

You know, I was thinking, too, of the Jewish nation in the first century when Jesus was ministering with his disciples, what they were all facing.

That first century, they were coming out of the exile in Babylon after being taken captive in their own country and hauled off to another

 They were held captive there, and many of them wanted to revolt and break loose and return home.

Shouldn't we go and take our captors out and escape?

But God was aware, and we learn in the prophets what they were told.

Settle down in Babylon.

Be My people.

 Trust me.

Build your communities.

It'll be a while, but I'll be with you.

That's what they were facing as a culture at that point, as they had just returned recently and built up the city.

Jesus explains this parable to his disciples.

 And as we are living out our lives, we realize we have an enemy doing wicked work in the dark.

I appreciate this because it tells us, it shows us that Jesus and the Christian faith never take life lightly.

They never try and gloss over reality.

 Life is tough.

Life is good, as those little buttons and t-shirts say, but we don't want to idealize life unnecessarily and pretend that it's all endless victories and joys.

We have weeds to deal with every day, right?

Or as I say, do I hear an amen to that?

 We're in the weeds and we want to know what we should do.

As the parable shows, Jesus knows what we face in the world, how screwed up the system is.

How come there isn't better health care affordable to everybody?

How come my boss is such a jerk?

What are my kids doing to us?

How could my friend betray me like that?

 And writ large, why is this country in such a political mess?

The leader's not doing the job they've been elected to do.

The world seems to be, the whole world seems to be at war with itself.

And that's when that John Wayne mindset emerges.

Let's take them out!

Well, that's what the workers ask the owner.

 Would you like us to go out there and gather the weeds, pull them out?

The owner knows better.

Because as they roll up their sleeves and want to destroy the evil influence themselves, the owner knows.

It's all so entwined.

And from the parable, we find out,

 It is not up to us to destroy evil in the world.

God will take care of it His way in His time, and we will have a role to play.

But our role will come from our mighty and sovereign God.

 We realize that we are limited and incapable of discerning good from evil.

And we surmise that that belongs to the Lord in His infinite wisdom.

Because it's so difficult for us to sort out.

And I was thinking about this because it's not only who is evil, but where is evil?

And if we look deep enough, we find out everybody carries good and evil.

 I even am intertwined with the good and the evil.

That's why I'm incapable.

That's why God says, leave it to the owner.

Whenever we try to remove evil and correct it with violence, it never ends well.

 We think back on the Crusades when the church turned militant to destroy the infidels.

We are incapable of doing good by violence without doing a great deal of harm.

That even has a contemporary ring to it, doesn't it?

And so God restricts us from taking out the evil around us.

 But thirdly, God has a purpose for this confusing disorder of good and evil in the world.

You see, his intention is shown where Jesus quotes the owner, let both of them grow together until the harvest.

Think about that.

No, don't go pull out the weeds.

Don't go pull out the evil weeds.

 Let them grow together until the harvest.

Perhaps God is up to creating something we can't see.

I remember reading about some young boys that were out in the park and they noticed some monarch butterflies.

You have a lot of those down here in South County.

And they were fascinated and they watched them fly.

They were so beautiful.

And then they found...

 A monarch butterfly cocoon.

And they watched it.

And they watched it.

And soon it began to wiggle and struggle.

And so they carefully picked it up.

They took it home.

And they took some scissors.

They said, we have to help this butterfly out of this restrictive cocoon.

 And so they snipped away at the cocoon, and out came this bloated body with two tiny wings.

And that butterfly never flew.

It only walked around awkwardly.

Later, they found that God designed the monarch butterfly so as to struggle within that cocoon.

 That was required as it emerged from the cocoon because it released fluid from the body into the wings as it struggled.

And the well-intentioned act of these young boys crippled the monarch butterfly, and it was never able to fly.

But when it can incubate, the result is this gorgeous creation of God.

 There's something that God's working in this mix.

The plan of God is transforming, ongoing, each of us.

Even some of the bad seed, I think, has the potential of becoming good seed in this age.

I wouldn't put it past them.

 He's always transforming life and bringing the good out of the evil and bringing creation out of chaos from the beginning.

But only God can discern what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.

Only the Lord is able to clearly discern, judge, and remove evil.

He will take care of it on His own terms in His own time.

 In the meantime, I believe Jesus is teaching His disciples, we will face this together.

I have things for you to do, actions for you to take up in the struggle, but you must trust Me.

God has done something in sending His Son to suffer.

This table represents the glory of God.

 The blood-stained cross on Calvary is the glory of God.

Jesus knows.

He's been there.

He's experienced the alienation, the betrayal.

He's seen it all.

And God seems always to have a better way that we may not see.

Our only task is to serve Him.

 And He gives us instructions and empowers us always to carry them out.

But the day will come.

This is a warning parable.

The day will come when all things will be made right, and the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

We're a part of that chapter of this history.

 the kingdom has come in the person of Jesus Christ he was unduly crucified for our sins the event we celebrate this morning and he's really he's been resurrected and now for such a time as this at Laguna Niguel Presbyterian Church we prepare we serve communion

 And we see the new pastor coming soon, hopefully.

I hope you'll be here next Sunday for hearing Pastor Ray and confirming, hopefully, his call to serve here at Laguna Niguel.

The times are changing.

God is growing His kingdom, and He's sowing good seed all the time.

 and i envision a healthy time of growth with change coming some of you will likely struggle with the changes it's always the case any church i've worked with but god is at work in each of us in ways we cannot discern at times but hebrews ten tells us

 Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

Well, the parable we've looked at is one of warning.

A day of harvest is coming when evil will be done away with.

 and all will be set right and in the meantime you and I are called to be the people of God his partners doing his work that work calls for us to all be encouragers I encourage you to join the nurturing of God's kingdom seeds

 As we await the harvest in these uncertain times.

And here again, that scripture that we read from the Old Testament book of Isaiah.

Don't be discouraged.

Don't fear.

The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer.

The God of the whole earth He is called.

Amen.

Amen.