Every once in a while, it would be nice if Jesus would show up to clarify a few things. I have a number of questions that would be greatly simplified if he would just come back for an hour or so, maybe a day, possibly a month, okay a year would be nice.
One of the first places I would have Jesus start would be with this particular parable and its explanation. This parable is recorded only in the Gospel of Matthew, and, as such, it has some particular importance for us. After all, if it is only recorded in Matthew, then it must really be important for understanding Jesus’ ministry as it is recorded for us in Matthew’s Gospel, right?
This parable has some good things for us to think about, but the explanation of it is particularly troublesome. Yet as a commentator I listen to points out, “This is the first of many judgment parables in the Gospel of Matthew, so if you think that you can duck it now, you will have to deal with Matthew’s reporting of Jesus’ judgmental side eventually.”
So, today I want to talk to you about what it is that makes us Lutheran in the midst of this judgmental stuff. The term in Lutheran speech is simul justus et peccator which means simultaneously saint and sinner. Luther used this phrase to describe our relationship with Christ. We are always in the state of grace, that is, made right with God, already forgiven of our sins through the ministry—life, death, and resurrection—of Christ, and sinner, that is, always in a state of needing to be forgiven. It is not a 50%-50% proposition. It means that we are 100% saint and 100% sinner. We are both the good wheat and the weeds.
A few years ago, I called a master gardener at the UW—Extension because the word for weed in the Greek translates as darnel. Wanting to know more about this plant, I thought to challenge the specialists. The master gardener I spoke to had actually written a paper on the darnel plant and was more than happy to talk to me about it. I can’t thank him by name because I have lost my notes, but what he told me that day has stuck with me. This is what I learned.
The darnel plant is particularly troublesome because it looks just like the wheat plant. It is virtually indistinguishable from the wheat. The problem is that the darnel plant is toxic. It will at least make you sick and in high enough concentrations it can kill you. This is why it might be important to get rid of it. This is the bad news.
The good news is that darnel matures shortly before the wheat plant does. When it matures, the head of the plant turns black or dark brown and the head droops. It is at this point in the life of the plant that workers need to go into the field and cut the darnel out. Then, when the workers are done cutting the darnel out, the wheat which is golden in color can be brought in.
The master gardener said that he was not aware of any good use for the darnel plant, but there are several varieties of it that are still around today. However, the work of the people in Bible times was so successful that the darnel plant of Scripture has been eradicated.
A few years ago, the Left Behind series of books was popular. It talked about the rapture and what was going to happen. First of all, let us remember that this series was fiction. As it turns out, the story line was sort of fun, but the entire series is predicated on a false assumption. The series opener begins with the premise that the saved people are whisked away to heaven while those who need to work on their relationship with God are left behind.
Matthew is much clearer about what is likely to happen. The ones who are left behind are the good seeds, the wheat. The ones who are taken away are those who are toxic to the world. So, the writers of the Left Behind books present a judgment time that is opposite of what Matthew proposes.
In the context of this parable, the Son of Man sows good seed in his field. The field is the world. An enemy, the devil, sows weeds, children of the evil one who are eventually destroyed. The ones who are left behind are the righteous children of the kingdom. The children of the evil one have been gathered up. The source of their evil doing, the causes of sin, have been taken away, not by the righteous people, but by the divine agents of the Son of Man, angels. The weeds, children of the evil one, are cast into the furnace of fire where there is great weeping and gnashing of teeth. All of this will take place at the time of the harvest, at the end of the age. Note: It is important to recognize that Matthew does not record Jesus as saying that this will happen at the end of time. It happens at the end of the age.
You may remember that a couple of weeks ago we talked about cycles of time. Each of these cycles can be thought of as a generation, a time of recognizing new social needs, or even an age. This is not the end of the world, but only a chapter of the world’s history. So, it is, that the righteous will shine like the sun in the Father’s kingdom.
In the language of the cycles of time, a movement in history was started with good intentions, but, through the shenanigans of some who want to hold privilege for themselves and a few others, the welfare of the whole culture is subverted and perverted. A struggle takes place between the wheat and the weeds for dominance, and then the larger culture makes a decision about the value of the work of the founders of the movement. The people seeking personal power are set aside, possibly sent to prison where they repent of their selfish behavior. In the meantime, time moves on and new leaders are needed. Those with wisdom enough to be able to recognize the needs of the people rise up out of the older power struggle and show the way into the future. They are the righteous ones who shine.
Once again, this is not a scenario of the end of time, but the beginnings of a new way of living in the world, in the Father’s kingdom, in the world that God created and creates. It is a story of reconciliation and redemption. It is the story of living in God’s presence as both saint and sinner simultaneously.
It would be wonderful to be a pastor who was able to say, “Don’t worry. Be happy. God is going to save everybody.” But the harsh reality is that we know that not everybody is going to be saved. Still the wheat and the weeds helps us understand how it is that we are to live with one another.
Notice the slaves, the servants of the master’s house, are not the ones who are the reapers of the harvest. That job is reserved for the divine agents of the Son of Man. In our Lutheran way of looking at the world, we say that the judgment of who is able to be saved is not our job. We can point the direction we need to go. We can be leaders of the way we need to go. We even have the authority to decry the evil acts of the world, but we do not have the authority to say that someone is or is not worthy of salvation. Only God and God’s divine agents have that authority. Our job is to live with the people alongside and among us, respecting and honoring each other as if they are already saved.
As Lutherans, we say, “Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God determines that all should be saved, but by actively turning away from God’s grace and mercy, there will be some who lose the gift that God has given.” Who is not something that we can know. It is God’s divine wisdom that determines this. Far too often we find that we want to go out into the field and rip up the weeds only to discover that we are destroying perfectly good wheat. It is best to wait for the harvest and have the fullness of the harvest be revealed to us in God’s own time.
In Lutheran language, we are fully both weed and wheat, redeemed and needing to be redeemed. We are saint and sinner. Yet in God’s great mercy, God, revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ, intends that all should be saved, for God only plants good seed, but, in our own human self-interest (those weed seeds) some will choose personal gratification over our relationship with God and one another.
Those who are gathered out early will be thrown into the furnace of fire and burned up, but, before we leave this gruesome judgment scene, let us hear the cries of repentance, the weeping and gnashing of teeth and recall the two ways of purification—washing and drowning, as in baptism, and burning as in the refiner’s fire. We remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: how they were thrown into the fire, but, because of their purity of faith, an angel came and stood with them until they were able to walk out into the presence of the king. We also recall the fire of Pentecost itself and the purity of word for God’s people that was translated into the many languages of the people.
So it is that we hear the weeping and gnashing of teeth as they realize their sinful behavior. Are they saved after that? We are not told. What we are told is that the righteous will come forth after the time of judgment and show themselves as the leaders for the new way of living.
Let us go out into the mission field, the world, in the confidence of the Son of Man’s good seed, as the children of God, proclaiming God’s goodness to all that we meet, shining like the sun in the kingdom of our creator and savior. Let us be the beacons of light showing the way of God’s new way of living, not trying to determine who the weeds are, but celebrating our life together; maybe even recognizing our own weediness, celebrating life as saint and sinner, giving thanks to the one who gathers us into his barn.
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