Bible Text: Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43, Genesis 28: 10-19a | Preacher: Rev. Berlin Guerrero | Series: 2020 | The thread that runs along our Lectionary Reading this Sunday speaks about God’s compassion. And God’s compassion is based upon God’s own unquestionable righteousness and steadfast faithfulness. Being so, for all human beings and all creation, God is to be acknowledged as sovereign.

 

Jacob said “Surely the LORD is in this place–and I did not know it!” (Gen 28:16) And to mark his encounter with God, he set up a pillar with the stone on which he laid his head in his sleep and called the place Beth-el – in order not to forget that there is a Sovereign power, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and now his very own.

 

Humankind tend to negate, if not forget God altogether. We turn and run away from the One who created us. Yet we cannot escape the ever-present and ever-loving God, prompting the Psalmist (139:1-12, 23&24) to say:

 

O LORD, you have searched me and known me.

Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.

Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

 

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he points out that all are led by the Spirit to be God’s children, joint heirs with Christ in suffering and awaiting glory. According to Paul, the world groans in labor pains about to give birth to a new creation, a new world with persons reborn in the Spirit. And in this promise the people have hope.

 

Yet in all of God’s power and grace, might and compassion, people remain unconvinced and questions God’s capacity to rule and judge. People judge God and other people as well. Can we rely on our capacity to judge between right and wrong, good and evil, moral and immoral and so on? Yes, we can, but oftentimes we make narrow, self-serving judgments. Sometimes, it is easier to make judgments on the mistakes of others that on our own.

 

As I grew up and learned about interpreting the Bible, I was surprised to know that imagining was in fact one of the appropriate ways of studying the Bible. Of course, more tools are needed to understand the Scriptures. One is called the critical-historical approach. This means learning about the particular socio-economic situation of the narrative. Another is the literary method which studies the particular form of literary expression, spoken and written, used to convey a certain idea or teaching. In the case of the parable of the weeds, we are dealing with the era of Roman occupation of Palestine where the people are made to work to supply the needs of the Empire even as they are forced by law to pay tribute or taxes to Caesar.

 

Farming and fishing were the main economic activities in order to sustain Roman territorial expansion. The needs of the local people were secondary. It is the peasants and fisherfolk who bore the heavy burden. No wonder that it is to these casts of people that Jesus identified with. He was born into the world as one of them, his mother being a young peasant woman.

 

As one of his many farm-based parables, Jesus taught that “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field” and the enemy sowed weeds among the wheat and as the wheat grew and bore grain, the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seeds 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 and gather them?’

 

I know a lot of us do gardening. We know pretty well what to do when weeds grow alongside your garden plants. We pull them out or apply weed-killers. I did some mowing ang weed-pulling this Wednesday…

 

This was quite the same answer the slaves were expecting from the Master to say. And this was what those listening to the parable were expecting Jesus would say. But what did the Master in the parable tell the servants?

 

The Master 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.’

 

In interpreting the parable, it is easy for us to fall into a trap by saying, “We Christians are the wheat and they (non-Christians) are the weeds.” “We will go to heaven, they will go into the fire.” Or using the words of Paul, we may be tempted to say, “We are God’s children, and they are not.”

 

In explaining the parable to the disciples, Jesus tells them that the one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. And why did the sower, who is also the Master did not let the slaves gather the weeds? It is because the determination between weeds and wheat belongs to the Master (kingdom of heaven), the act of collecting the weeds is reserved for the reapers, or God’s angels.

 

It is not for you or for me to determine who the wheat and the weeds are. It falls under God’s sovereignty. It is for God to decide what the final outcome might be in the Day of Judgment.

 

We can remind ourselves of three things as we continue to reflect on this parable:

 

One, God is the Judge. Let us leave to God the judging of who are righteous and who are not. God’s ways are not our ways. God’s thoughts are not our thoughts.

 

Second, let us trust God’s righteousness and compassion, which gives God the final say in all things. God is just even as the Lord is merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

 

Third, let our lives be always in the scrutiny of God. Let us ask ourselves, is my life lived in the way of Christ? Is my life a story in itself that speaks about God’s compassion, redemption and liberation?

 

And let this be our prayer:

 

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my thoughts.

See if there is any wicked way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.

Amen.