“The Good Gardener” The Sermon for SUNDAY, July 23, 2017 - 7th Sunday after Pentecost

He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed 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?' But he 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.'" Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field." He answered, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

~ Matthew 13:24-30, 13:36-43 (NRSV)

“The Good Gardener”
by David Roth
Zion Lutheran Church
Owensville, Missouri

May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts, be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Here it is, mid-July. The flowers, the crops, the vegetables, all are growing. But in the flower beds and the fields, the weeds are growing, too. The farmer zaps those weeds with Round-Up, or some other herbicide. The gardener pulls the weeds away from the flowers, and hoes them out of the tomatoes and vegetables. In the Gospel for today Jesus tells a story, a story about a garden. From this story we learn that Jesus is not only our Good Shepherd, but that He is the Good Gardener.

This garden parable is the second of three agricultural parables. Last Sunday we heard the parable of the sower and the four soils. Now Jesus is speaking of the wheat and the weeds. The third is the one about the mustard seed. All of these are kingdom parables, that is – they start with the phrase, “the kingdom of heaven is like …. “ So the purpose of the parable is to tell us something about God’s kingdom.

Knowing about the kingdom of heaven – that is, the kingdom or reign of God - is helpful to you and to me. As baptized Christians we live in the kingdom of heaven, for we live under the reign of God. Yes, we are still living in this world, but we are no longer part of this world’s kingdom. Christ has redeemed you. You and I live in His kingdom. So it is that we pray, “Thy kingdom come,” that the kingdom of God may come among us also.

We can be sure of the meaning of this parable. We do not have to guess, speculate, or puzzle it out. Jesus Himself tells gives us the explanation in verses 36 to 43. What does He tell us? First, the soil, the garden as it were, in this parable is this world. Last week, the parable had four kinds of soil. That is not in this parable, so we must be careful not to mix them up. This story has one soil, the garden of this world.

In this garden there are two plants. There is the wheat. It grows from the good seed planted in the garden by Jesus. The wheat are the sons and daughters of the kingdom of God. The wheat is you, and it is me. There are also other plants in this garden – the weeds.

The weeds are the sons of evil, and they are sown into the garden by the enemy. They are not put into the garden by God, for God is not the source or cause of evil.

The servants of the gardener, the angels, see the weeds growing in the garden. The angels know that the weeds should not be with the wheat. They also know that the weeds can make it difficult for the wheat to live and to grow.

You and I know that, too. Evil makes life difficult for us in this world. Difficult is hardly the word to explain it. It is only a beginning. Just as weeds are domineering, prickly, and invasive, the evil around us is domineering, prickly, and invasive.

The evil of the world is constantly bumping up against us. We feel the pain from its pricks and thorns. We wonder, “Why, Lord, don’t you do something, and get those weeds outta here. That’s what a gardener ought to do, you know.” But Christ is more than a gardener. He is a master gardener, The Good Gardener.

He knows that the weeds are hurting the wheat. Christ knows that sting of the thistles in your lives. He knows the pain of loss. The loss of health, the loss of job, the loss of your loved ones.

Christ also knows how the weeds are domineering. He knows how the evil of this world doesn’t just grow in its own patch, in its own space in the garden, with the weeds over there, and us over here. No, the weeds are mixed in with the wheat, and the evil of this world surrounds us. Evil is continuously trying to overtake our lives. It is not content to do its own thing. Evil wants us to do its thing.

“Don’t pray,” Evil demands. “You might offend someone and it certainly offends me.”

“Come to the Lake on Sunday,” the weeds invite. “It’s the best time, and you want to be seen there by the boss.”

“Do it my way. I’m the way of the world.”

The weeds are invasive, too. They spread and grow, filling every nook and cranny of the garden. Those weeds – and evil – are so tenacious, they grow in spots where it seems impossible for anything to grow.

The stress of work and of home tries to invade every corner of our lives. It seems to draw the life up out of us, just as weeds steal all the water from the good plants. Evil wants into every corner of our minds, too. Evil not only surrounds us, it wants to get into us. “Watch the shows and films I watch, and listen to the songs I sing,” Evil says. “Think the way I think, do what I do, be the way I am.” Yes, the weeds and evil are prickly and painful, domineering and invasive.

So why does the Good Gardener, Jesus, not rip those weeds out? Because He loves us: He loves you and He loves me. How can this be love? Listen to His words. “Let them both grow together, lest in pulling the weeds you uproot the wheat, too.”

Jesus is not ignoring the weeds. He is not ignoring the pain in our lives. He is not letting the weeds get by, either. For in the Last Day, the weeds will be taken and bundled, to burn in eternal fire. Jesus is concerned about our final outcome. He wants us to be part of His eternal harvest. He knows that if He pulled the weeds now, it would actually harm some of the wheat.

He knows how the roots of the weeds are long and entangling. He knows how they interweave into the roots of the wheat. So to pull up the weeds will hurt the wheat, too. To pull up the weeds now, to get at all the roots of evil, would be harmful to the wheat, harmful to us.

Christ also knows that He – unlike any gardener on this earth – can and does convert weeds to wheat. You and I are wheat in His kingdom. But that was not always so. We were born in sin. Sin so deep, that it is rooted into our human nature. Christ has redeemed us. We are under His reign, we are His kingdom people. But the root of that sin, of evil, still afflicts us.

In our daily life, we grow impatient. We say, God, can’t you get that weed out of my life. But we do not know what the Good Gardener knows. What looks like a weed to us today, Christ will redeem and convert to wheat tomorrow. Christ has patiently and graciously redeemed and converted you and me. We are wheat of the kingdom. So we wait and pray that He will also convert the weeds of the evil one we see around us.

St. Paul’s words from Romans explain our lives in the garden of the kingdom of God. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18) There is suffering now, but there is glory to come. The time of harvest will come. The Lord will return. Then the weeds will be pulled and cast into the fire. And the wheat, you and I, -- what does Jesus say? “The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”

God created a perfect world in the Garden of Eden. But sin – evil and weeds – entered into that garden. Christ came into that garden, that is, into this world. Born as man, he suffered and died under Pontius Pilate. In the garden of Gethsemane He bore that mental strife, the stress, the anguish, that the weeds and evil inflict on us, and more. He knows that weeds are prickly and painful, His Head was crowned with thorns. He knows too, that evil sucks the life from us, leaving us weak and dry, for He cried, “I thirst.”

And He knows that the weeds crush and kill us, as He died and was buried in the garden tomb. Three days later, on that beautiful morning, Mary saw the risen Christ. She asked where the body of the Lord was, for she thought him to be the gardener.

Although she did not recognize Jesus, she was also right. Christ is the gardener, The Good Gardener. He took the weeds -- the pain, the evil, and sin – into Himself, so that He might redeem a weed like me, like all of us, and convert us, you and me, into wheat in His kingdom.

As that wheat, we live fully dependent on our Good Gardener. We cannot change the world around us any more than a plant can water itself, or tend its own garden. But we know, Church, we know that our Good Gardener shall return. We know that He shall bear us into His harvest home. And in that world to come, there will be the Tree of Life, and we will have no need of sun, for the Lord shall be our Light.

So our present sufferings are not like the glory to be revealed. And we have sure hope, though we have not seen it. We wait patiently and confidently for the Lord, our Good Gardener. He is tending and caring for us now. He will return and bring us into His new garden in His kingdom forever.

Amen.

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New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The New Revised Standard Version Bible may be quoted and/or reprinted up to and inclusive of five hundred (500) verses without express written permission of the publisher, provided the verses quoted do not amount to a complete book of the Bible or account for fifty percent (50%) of the total work in which they are quoted. Sermon shared by Rev. Malcolm Rogers on Apr 23, 2016. Contributed by David Roth on Jan 26, 2015.