On Being Gardeners for God

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

July 20, 2008

Text: Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43

Growing up in dry land farming country I was made conscious of the wise use of water. You wanted the cantaloupe not to have to compete with Johnson grass for the little moisture there was in the soil.

One of my favorite stories of my grandfather, Gene Hall, known to us as Paw-Paw, has to do with water. He had moved into town in his later years and, even into his late 80s, had a vegetable garden. One dry, hot summer day, he was using a hose to water his plants, when he fell and broke his collar bone. He could not get up off the ground for a while, but he crawled over to where the hose was----which was pouring out water on the yard grass----then crawled with the hose back over to his garden, to make sure none of the water was wasted. (I never knew him to waste water squirting it on yard grass: it had to fend for itself.)

I was taught early on how to “weed” a garden. I can remember my granddad telling me to weed the row of black-eyed peas. When he later came to check up on me, I had shown my ignorance by uprooting the peas and leaving the weeds. I couldn’t tell them apart. Such was the danger of turning a 10 year old loose with a farm implement.

I suppose almost every one of can remember planting a bean in a jar and waiting until it sprouted, and then watching the roots grow down as the plant grew up. We also learned that the soil had to be moist, but not drowned, and that the bean would sprout a healthy green---instead of a sickly yellow--- only if there were enough sunlight.

There is a renewed interest in gardening as a hobby----a healthy development in a world in which most of us are so far removed from the land and its produce. We might get the hint that we are dependent on the earth, even the parts of it that are not paved over or built upon. Whether we are vegetarians or omnivores, you and I have a stake in conserving and wisely tending to the garden-Earth which is our only home (so far!) in this vast universe.

So many of Jesus’ stories and parables were about ordinary life: planting and reaping, investing and collecting, baking and fishing. Profound truths were signaled by simple, suggestive metaphors.

So it is with the parable of the weeds and the wheat.

Good wheat seed is sown, “broadcast,” into the field. The hope was that the grain produced would feed the whole extended family, with some left over for others not so blessed. But an enemy---someone who wished the family and community harm---came and sowed weeds in the same plot of earth.

You may have had similar experiences. You have some topsoil brought into your yard; you spread it, and then you sow good grass seed. You water it and wait. And then you discover that that topsoil had lots of bad weed seed in it as well. (All those weeds could not have come from your neighbor’s unkempt yard!)

What to do? In Jesus’ parable, the hired hands come to the owner and proposed that they go in and weed the field. But the problem was that, in this case, the weeds in question looked very much like the wheat plants at that stage of growth. And, they might end up digging up as much wheat as they did weeds. “Let them both grow together until the harvest,” he says. “At harvest, we will separate the weeds out and burn them, and bring the wheat in for ourselves.”

When Jesus taught of the forgiveness and mercy of God freely given; when he reclined at table with the impure, the flagrant sinners; when he dared to touch the untouchables; when he called ordinary people to be his disciples, he was harshly criticized by those who had attained a degree of religious goodness. So the band of followers was a motley crew. They found in Jesus words and actions newness of life---like starting all over, with hope and love. But there was risk in opening the doors of discipleship so wide! The seed that Jesus planted in them was good seed. But maybe some of these followers brought weeds with them----maybe even were weeds themselves! By the time of the early church, they may have been tempted to bring out the weed-eaters. “Let’s have a neat garden (church), filled only with pure disciples.”

I had never thought about it before I read it recently: Unless I am mistaken, Jesus never drove any of his followers away from his fellowship----not even Judas! Yes, he told some to go back home instead of follow him; and he made sure people knew that following him would bring them hardship and suffering. But he never turned anyone out.

To be fair, he also taught the disciples that there would be occasions when they would have to cut people loose from their fellowship. You may remember the passage: If someone sins, go to them directly by yourself; if that doesn’t work, take with you one or two others; then, if the erring brother or sister is still unchanging, take them before the whole church----hoping for repentance and reconciliation at each juncture. But take notice: Even this careful instruction of how to discipline a member is preceded by Jesus story of the shepherd seeking the one sheep that was lost; and it is followed by Jesus’ teaching to forgive seventy times seven! (See Matthew, Chapter 18)

Gil Rossing, a Lutheran pastor in San Angelo taught me the true meaning of Matthew 18. The responsibility of the church or the pastor, he said, is to teach the requirements and standards of the church, to protect the “little ones” from being led astray; to win back the erring if possible----but never to mete out punishment or eternal judgment about their destiny. The latter is God’s job, not ours.

I have been looking for a pure church all my life and haven’t found it. (There are more apparent weeds in some than others.) But when I get to thinking that the church ought to be more rigorous in purging the rolls of bad seed, I realize what the field-hands in Jesus’ story were told: I, too, am not a very good judge of which are weeds and which are wheat. I cannot know what is truly in someone else’s heart. Or, to put it differently, some who look like weeds now may, by the miracle of God’s grace in their lives, be wheat tomorrow.

There were three boys in a particular Presbyterian family. The first two were model church youth. But the third was a stinker! The church couldn’t get anyone to teach the junior high class with him in it---so the pastor decided to give it a try himself. The first thing he did was recruit the stinker to help him set up for the class. He had a way of bringing the boy into the circle of redemption, to everyone’s amazement. This stinker grew up to become a Presbyterian minister----and was responsible for starting the Logos/Youth Club after school ministry in hundreds of churches----so that other stinkers (weeds) could grow into wheat in the loving fellowship that is the Church.

When we took our son, Bob, to Emory University for his freshman year, Emory administrators gathered all of us parents into a big auditorium. They gave us lots of good advice, but one thing stuck with me. The Dean told us that “every year we bring in a bunch of freshmen who, if they were fish, would be carp. But it is amazing to watch these carp grow over four years into magnificent rainbow trout!”

Patience: attentive patience is what it takes to be a gardener in God’s field----- in the big church and every smaller grouping within it; in the garden as family; in the garden as community. We must remember that hope, faith and love are like tender plants. Their growth in our lives is usually imperceptible----and we can harm the produce if we are stuck with following our time-line----- or if we try to play God by thinking we know fully what is in someone else’s heart. No one is fated to a “weed.”

Yes, it matters that followers of Jesus Christ are received into the fellowship with care; and that they prepare themselves for the commitments they are making---just as those who marry ought to spend at least as much time preparing for being married as they do on the 30 minute wedding!  It is essential that persons are not rushed or manipulated or tricked into making decisions for Christ.

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus “explains” the parable to his disciples (in verses36-43.) This explanation may more nearly reflect the situation in the churches of Matthew’s time than the teachings of Jesus in his time. I am always suspicious when Jesus’ simple stories are made into allegories, where each character stands for something or someone else. Nevertheless, we should not shy away from the point: Jesus did teach that there will be a harvest----a time of answering for the decisions we make in this life. “The righteous [right-wised by the mercy of God, not their own accomplishments] will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their heavenly Father.” And those who choose evil will know the pain of separation from their heavenly Father, though we must understand that Jesus is speaking metaphorically, not literally of weeping and gnashing of teeth! The main point is that God is the judge, not us.

Carl Michaelson said in the 1960s that the advantage of the person with faith in God is the knowledge that the “goal is guaranteed.” “Already we have a foretaste of its victory in Jesus of Nazareth.” He goes on to say that we live between D-Day (as in the invasion of Normandy in WWII, and V-Day, the day when the war in Europe was won. D-Day “was the turning point where we [knew] after the battle that we [were] fighting on the winning side…..Christians have a right to live in that expectation and to have the wholesome psychological advantages of knowing that we are fighting and working and living in a cause that is fated to prevail.” Note that Michaelson does not say that it is our cause, or the Christian religion, or the Christian Church that is to prevail. But God’s cause, which transcends us, and which we serve, will come to pass.

We really are invited to believe that God’s name will be hallowed on earth, that God’s dream of the world will one day be fully actual on earth, and that God’s will for Shalom in all its beauty will be made real on earth, as it is in heaven.

For a people living in the awkward in-between of Jesus first and second coming, such faith may just give us the patience we need to be faithful gardeners in God’s field. Our focus must be on God’s overflowing graciousness, mercy, and power to become new persons and to be good seed.

We wait for the Lord, and keep to his way, hoping and trusting that we will, some day, “shine like the sun” in the Father’s kingdom.

“Fret not yourself because of the wicked, be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good….Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37)