Readings:
Sermon:
I’m quite conscious that, in this sermon, I’m going to be dealing with an agricultural parable. Our diocese, by area, largely consists of rural communities; but I’m very much a city-boy. Indeed, Stourbridge, with 57000 residents, is the smallest community in which I’ve ever lived.
My agricultural knowledge largely stems from TV shows; and I’m aware that within the industry there’s a certain amount of eye-rolling directed at programmes like ‘Countryfile’ and ‘Clarkson’s Farm’. I don’t pretend to understand much at all about farming, but I am quite interested in technology and gadgets.
In the latest series of ‘Clarkson’s Farm’, Jeremy acquired a robot which I found fascinating. The robot was solar-powered and could plant seeds and weed a field. Whilst planting, the robot would record the exact position of every seed it planted. It would then continuously monitor the field, and, knowing where all the seeds were, could remove any weed that started to grow between them. Should such a robot have existed in Jesus’ day, it would have totally ruined his illustration!
Jesus talks about a field where a crop has been ruined by an enemy. The good seed sprouts and grows, but weeds also grow within the crop. The owner of the field is keen to protect every single grain of goodness in his field, so he instructs the workers not to do any weeding. Instead, come harvest time, all of the plants are gathered and sorted, so that none of the goodness is lost.
Henry Alford, referring to this parable, in his 19th-century harvest hymn, ‘Come, ye thankful people, come’, declares that “All the World is God’s own field”. An image is provided of the world being a mixed bag of good people and sinful people, who will be sorted out at the end of all things. The prayer is, “that we, wholesome grain and pure may be”.
Many of Jesus’ parables about the Kingdom of God describe fields, and they can be looked at in this way: that there are two types of people in the world, the ‘wholesome and pure’, and ‘the rest’. Honestly though, rather than the world being a mixed bag, it is we, ourselves, who within us contain both the pure and tarnished, the good seed and the weeds.
Paul’s epistle to the Romans is full of hope and full of promise. He teaches that although the world does contain a fair amount of very obvious evil, the children of God are anxious for the complete revelation of God’s heavenly kingdom. We wait in patient hope, with an eager longing, for the revelation of God's harvest; when, free from evil weeds within the crop, the true glory of Jesus’ harvest is revealed.
Although each of us is loved by God, forgiven by God, redeemed in the name of Jesus Christ, we still harbour within us a certain weediness. Each week, as we come to worship, we spend time reflecting on that of which our hearts are afraid, longing for it to be plucked out, wanting to be the people that we believe God made us to be, and that we desire to be.
God did not make a mistake when he created you to be less than totally perfect; but nor did God sow weeds amongst the good seed in your life. God will never condemn you; indeed, Jesus came not to condemn the world but to save it, and we long for the full revelation of the salvation for which we have hope and confidence.
At this point, we need to remember how God sees time. None of us wants to wait to get ourselves ‘fixed'. We are impatient for everything to be great, and resolved, and redeemed, right now.
Remember that God sees all of time, at the same time.
God is in all of time, in just the same way as God is in all of space.
I expected that you have no trouble imagining God being present with our Australian or American brothers and sisters right at this moment, even though they're on the other side of the world. In the same way, we can imagine that God is with our brothers and sisters tomorrow, or next week, just as he is with us today. God is with us, as much as he is with all our brothers and sisters of yesteryear. God is in all of time, all of the time; and that means that the end of time, for God, is just like today, as much as it will be at any point in time to come.
So as we wait, with eager longing, for the fulfilment of the ages, we can imagine the fulfilment of God’s promises actually taking place today; because that is how God sees it. God is reaping and perfecting, and cleaning and forgiving, without condemnation, all of the time. That which he created in the beginning is being made perfect in this moment. Do not consider the weeds to be choking your life (to borrow from another field parable). Consider, in this moment, the weeds are being taken out of your life, disregarded, and destroyed, to leave the great harvest for which God created you.
So keep growing, keep working on weed suppression - like Jeremy’s robot, you know where those weeds are. See how, even today, God will be removing the weeds and blessing the seed of your life - and give thanks for the harvest in Jesus’ name.
Questions:
- Which other of Jesus’ field parables can you remember? How does thinking about yourself as the field, or thinking about ‘all the world’ as the field, change the meaning of the parable?
- As Kingdom People, we are people of Love, Justice, Compassion and Freedom - what practically is your church/group doing to free your community of weeds?
- Can you think of a weed, that used to grow in your field, which through faith in Christ, you’ve known to be plucked out of your life? Share the story with your group.
May God bless the harvest