Hymns:

The Reign of God like Farmer’s Field ACS 952

What Does the Lord Require of You ACS  1057

O God Beyond All Praising ELW 880

Many and Great O God ELW 837

Are you a glass half-empty or a glass half-full sort of person? Maybe it is hard to be entirely honest with an answer to that.  Maybe because it is hard to be honest with ourselves.  Don’t we all want to be positive and hopeful, and to be known as such? But don’t we find ourselves expressing pessimism many times?  I can hear this parable as advice to remember that so much of life is neither half-empty nor half-full.  In human events there is always a mix.  In a way, I can hear the parable of the wheat and the weeds much like a wisdom proverb, coaching me on expectations to keep me realistic. Being a person of faith does not mean that we get to avoid disasters, or dangers or diagnoses we fear. Bad things do happen to good people. Good people do fall into bad circumstances or decisions. And bad people are made of the same star dust all others are. A good and bad binary is just too cut and dried to adequately describe life. It is too easy, simplistic, inaccurate and risky to judge the situations of others or ourselves as if we or they are deserving of the punishment or the blessing they receive. We just aren’t qualified to sit on that bench.  We can never know all the extenuating circumstances, nor can we foresee the outcomes. 

Jesus has just described a field that has both good and bad seed.  He in fact adds that the bad seed was a deliberate action of an evil intent.  But with his parable he also cautions against trying to make judgements and attempting to eradicate the bad.  Our judgement is limited.  God is the judge.

This is hard.  It is hard for us to let go.  We make judgements all the time, In fact, we need to make many judgements throughout life.  Not all choices and paths are good and beneficial. There are people who are trying to get you to make decisions or changes that will harm you and benefit them. The explosion of scams made more deceptive by AI are but a recent case in point. We need to be wise, and that means practicing good judgement. However, the caution against making judgments remains. Quick judgments can result in easy solutions, mistakes, scapegoating. Blaming can be a shallow and dangerous form of judgement. We have seen in recent years how an administration can employ a scapegoating playbook reminiscent of the days of authoritarian autocrats a generation ago.  We see it in other countries around the world.  Now we are shocked to see it play out in our own cities. The evil actions of a few are inflated to be the guilt of entire communities or entire ethnic groups, who become scapegoats and projections of the evil of the scapegoaters. Not only do the people in charge of our government do this: we do this as well individually when we view others through the racial biases and the othering habits our upbringing conditions us to use. We confess our sins, however, and ask God to save us. Living in our society, it is incredulous that our own government has profiled entire groups as evil, calling for them to be deported.  And all this happens while there is a systematic attempt to erase from our national history the sins of slavery, Jim Crow, and the many sins against Native Americans. The hypocrisy, the deliberate erasure of historical truth is astonishing.  More than that, it is alarming as this craven effort seeks to roll back the progress made toward a more perfect union. But Jesus still cautions me.  I may be angry, but I am not the judge. I risk snap judgments and blame painting with too wide a brush. I need to get off that bench.  It is not good for me and my soul. Let God be the judge.

What are we to do then?  We are to be who we are planted and cultivated to be – the children of the kingdom – destined to shine with the radiance of the Son in the kingdom of God.  We are to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.  That prescription from Micah 6 is a big enough challenge for anyone. That intent of that challenge is for the healing of all.  We live with the uncomfortable truth that selfishness, greed, jealousy, and hatred have deep roots in God’s good creation. And when we are honest, we recognize that this seed has been sown in our own hearts and we need to be vigilant, praying to the God of harvest. There are movements and indeed there have been great advancement toward greater goodness, righteousness, justice, and peace in the course of human history. We have celebrated advancements in civil rights for increasing numbers of people. We have seen progress toward recognizing the dignity of every person.  We have made great strides in recognizing the injustices of environmental degradation, and the necessity of freeing ourselves from fossil fuel dependency. We have seen rivers flow clean, forests planted and preserved.  But we also are well aware of pushbacks by forces and spirits of sin. Bad seed is spreading. We see pushbacks against voting rights; we see roll backs allowing PFAS chemicals in drinking water, and re-defining of toxic pollutants in our air. This sin gets expressed against all peoples and their habitations. Like a cancer, this greed and avarice eats away and fouls the environment, leaving future generations of all creatures to deal with a fractured and poisoned creation.

This parable does not leave us staring at a glass half-empty, however. The story projects forward to the harvest of hope. As we receive the message, we also receive the Messenger.  God’s way among us as Christ, the incarnation, forever reveals God’s love for the world and forever restores and revives our love for God’s world and for one another. Through God’s eyes, we are able to see the wonder and dignity of all people in the great diversity God designed.  Through God’s love for ALL the world, we can see the wonder and beauty of the created order. We can seek to restore the ecological balance God created.  Be the child of God you are born and baptized to be! If God so loved the world, if in Christ the walls of hostility are being dismantled, if Jesus encouraged us to see Christ in the face of the stranger and the needy, then we let go of the fear of the other that leads to division, discord, and destruction.  Rather we live together as God lived among us, recognizing the dignity and needs each child of God has as their birthright.  We leave judgement to the One on the bench, whose steadfast love and mercy, whose grace upon grace lifts us to be our better selves.  In the meantime, we have plenty of work to do.