In the Name of Jesus
Matthew 13,24-30
5. Sunday after Epiphany (5. Sonntag nach Epiphanias)
Dorothea, Virgin, Martyr at Caesarea in Cappadocia 287.
Amand, Pastor and Apostle to the Franks in the Low Countries. † 675.
6. February 2011
1. Set us free, O Lord, from the bondage of our sins and give us, we beseech You, the liberty of that abundant life which You have manifested to us in Your Son our Savior Jesus Christ (Book of Common Prayer 164), for we are good wheat that has grown from Your gospel sowing throughout the world. Nevertheless, we run the risk of being choked out by the weeds in our midst, coerced to the false doctrines of the devil, and at times outnumbered by false teachers and false Christians, so that we resign ourselves to despair. Now pour out upon us Your Holy Spirit so that we are renewed and encouraged, and renewed and encouraged we go forth with boldness to the task of spreading the gospel of Christ Jesus so as to raise up new Christians in the world and to thwart the evil designs of the devil so that Jesus Christ and He alone is proclaimed and adored as our crucified and risen Savior. Amen.
2. Our sermon text for this morning, dear brothers and sisters, is from the Gospel according to St. Matthew where the holy evangelist writes: 24Jesus put another parable before them, saying, „The reign of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ 28He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’“ This is our text.
3. Jesus’ Parable of the Weeds of the Field is the first of three parables that Matthew records in chapter 13 that teach that the reign of God is now happening in Jesus’ ministry in an unspectacular way that the unbelieving crowds find unsatisfying (Gibbs 694). When Jesus retires for the day, He interprets privately for His disciples the Parable of the Weeds of the Field. The meaning of the parable is: »The field is the world. The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the good seed is the children of the reign. The enemy who sowed the weeds is the devil, and the weeds are the sons of the evil one. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of Man will send His angels, and they will gather out of His reign all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the reign of their Father« (13,36-43).
4. With the arrival of Jesus, the Heavenly Father has begun to take back His fallen creation under His divine will and rule. The Jewish crowds, and even Jesus’ disciples, have a preconceived notion of how this would unfold in history. First century Judaism expected the promised Christ to be an „anointed one“ from the royal line of David. This Christ, however, was not seen as God Himself or the Son of God, but as a mighty, victorious ruler who was not eternal but would live for several hundred years and die (Voelz). The Prophet Isaiah was ignored who described the Christ as a suffering servant who would die for His people, and therefore Jesus’ peers had no concept of a resurrected Christ from the dead. This re-imaged Christ of the first century was expected to restore good order to creation, and this meant first and foremost that He would restore Israel’s fortune. Practically, Jesus’ peers understood this to mean that King Herod and his family (who were Jewish half-breeds and lovers of the Greco-Roman culture) would be tossed off the throne and a true and proper royal descendant of David would rule Judea as king. Next this Jewish King would sweep the Romans out of Palestine, secure the traditional borders of Israel, and usher in a golden age in the spirit of David and Solomon’s reign.
6. By Matthew 13 this anticipated power shift had not occurred. Herod’s family still ruled Judea. The Roman pagans still occupied the Promised Land. Israel’s fortunes were not being restored as the people hoped and expected. To be sure, Jesus proclaimed Himself to be the Christ and the Son of Man, He did indeed heal the sick and rightly teach the people, He was fulfilling the Christological prophecies, but Jesus is not merely confining Himself to the chosen people of Israel, for He is reaching out to the pagan Gentiles and also gathering them into the reign of heaven. In the minds of most Jewish people (the disciples included), Jesus is not the Christ they were looking for. At the end of chapter 13, Jesus returned to His hometown of Nazareth where He is summarily rejected by the townspeople. As his Gospel progresses, Matthew informs us that the religious leaders and rulers of Israel also reject and condemn Jesus.
7. Such a response is not the way things were supposed to pan out. The Christ was supposed to usher in an age of peace and prosperity, not resentment and rejection. With today’s parable, Jesus teaches us that His ministry unfolds according to His will and not our will. What Jesus teaches about His ministry is: After the Son of Man sows the seed of the gospel, the devil comes along in the night and sows the seed of dissension. The Apostle Paul told the Galatian Christians that there is only one gospel, that of Christ crucified, but that false preachers proclaim a false gospel that is not centered upon Christ (Galatians 1,6-9). Martin Luther once quipped, „Where God builds a church, the devil puts up a chapel next door“ (Luther). The gospel yields Christians who receive the forgiveness of sin freely without any merit on their own. The seeds of dissension yield people who seek to work out their forgiveness through works righteousness and legalism. The obvious response would be to root out these dissenters from the field of the world and the Church so that we can finally achieve peace and prosperity, but Jesus commands that both be allowed to grow until the harvest is reaped on the day of His second advent. It is tempting for us to engage in Christian versions of jihad, inquisitions, and witch hunts, all with pure motives, mind you, but Jesus forbids us to undertake such actions because in our zeal we will inevitably uproot and destroy innocent Christians. Lest any child of God be lost, Jesus is willing to put up with the weeds the devil has sown among His Christian people. Jesus desires to bring in the entire harvest and not lose a single Christian.
8. In this parable we see the Epiphany theme in which the glory of Yahweh manifested itself through Jesus. We cannot expect Jesus to make decisions that necessarily conform to our twenty-first century ideas of conventional wisdom. Rather than focusing on uprooting the weeds of the devil, Jesus would have us dedicate our service to continue to sow the gospel seed. As the gospel is sown through the Word and the Sacraments, the Holy Spirit will raise up new Christians.
9. Nevertheless, such a methodology will make being the Church and Christians increasingly more difficult and more discouraging. Our time on this earth will not be one of ease and peace, but rather it will be one of discord and conflict with heretics, charlatans, false teachers, and false churches all of whom challenge Christ and His Church. On this earth, charlatan churches seem to thrive and expand while Christ’s beloved churches seem to be wilting and fading. We look abroad to the Middle East and discover Christian brothers and sisters under the thumb of the weeds. Coptic Christians in Egypt suffer violence. Iraqi Christians are persecuted. Turkish Christians are forbidden to evangelize. Such is the Church’s existence in the world in Jesus’ day and in our day, even in America who prides herself as the land of religious freedom and tolerance. Jesus, however, would have our eyes focused not on the present day but rather on the last day. In today’s parable, Jesus lays deliberate emphasis upon the final goal toward which the reign of heaven will inevitably press (Gibbs 708). His purpose is to reassure us (Gibbs 708). The day will arrive; the age will reach its consummation (Gibbs 708). On that day all things will be set right (Gibbs 708).
10. In this parable, Jesus encourages us to take the long view, and set our hope on the day that will certainly arrive (Gibbs 709). That tension must not be destroyed, and we must accept that fact (Gibbs 710). Life on this earth will be one of conflict between the children of the gospel and the children of works righteousness. Christians will struggle with the religions and philosophies that were sown by the devil. Both will grow and live together in this world. The difficulty will only be resolved by the angels on the last day (Gibbs 710). „Yet the hope remains. The day is coming. It will be the Son of Man’s day, and His angels will do the sorting. God may seem slow, but He is never late“ (Gibbs 711).
11. The end, the last day, is worth the struggle and the patient waiting. We are the children born from the sowing of the gospel. Christ’s death on the cross purchased our forgiveness, and His resurrection from the dead is the promise of our own bodily resurrection. We are destined for a heavenly harvest: The righteous will shine like the sun in the reign of their Father. Jesus has promised us this glorious existence. Just as wheat is harvested and bound for making bread and other foodstuffs for the benefit of mankind, so also Christians will be harvested and delivered to our Heavenly Father where we will enjoy everlasting life in the presence of the Triune God, the angels and archangels, and all the company of Christians in heaven. Christ’s ministry is about bringing us to heaven, and His gospel is sown to create Christians who will enjoy that eternal life. The weeds in this earthly life are a mere annoyance compared to the glorious fellowship being prepared for us right now in Yahweh’s heavenly realm. Amen.
12. Let us pray. O Lord, whose steadfast love is poured out upon the earth, send us patience and steadfastness as we struggle on this earth as the Church militant so that we may praise You now as we await the last day when we will reap the harvest of everlasting fellowship in Your Divine presence as the Church triumphant. Amen.
One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you!
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the New Testament Greek Manuscripts, Matthew © 1995 by Reuben Joseph Swanson.
Book of Common Prayer, The. Copyright © 1990 Oxford University Press.
Gibbs, Jeffrey A. Matthew 11:2 – 20:34. Copyright © 2010 Concordia Publishing House.
Löhe, Wilhelm. Seed-Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians. Wartburg Publishing House, Chicago circa 1912. Concordia Publishing House; Concordia on Demand.
Voelz. Issues, Etc. „The Confession of Peter“. 18. January 2011. Copyright © 2011 Lutheran Public Radio.
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