Father Gary’s Sermon

Inspired from Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Proclaimed on July 17, 2005

After my ordination the good people of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church called me to serve as their priest. This little church was located in Childersburg, Alabama. Though it was a very small town, their high school had a very long and proud tradition. As with all traditions, this one was founded by a single man -- Coach John Cox. He not only initiated the first football team, but he stayed with it for over thirty years.

During his tenure he built their high school football stadium. The story goes that when they planted grass on their new field, some prankster snuck in during the night and planted turnip green seeds with the grass. Before long the football field was green with turnip greens. Coach Cox was furious. However, when someone asked him about plowing the turnip greens under and starting over, he responded, “No. Let it grow. Maybe something good will come out of this.”

When the turnip greens came to fruition the high school students harvested and sold them. So popular were these turnip greens that they made more than enough to pay for a new field of grass. Indeed, additional money was raised to pay on the new stadium. Coach Cox proved to be a very wise man.

This is the same lesson that is in the Gospel reading today. It is a wonderful lesson about God’s generous patience, but also a patience with definite limits. A farmer plants his wheat. His enemy sneaks in at night and plants tares. The wheat is a plant that is nourishing and good to eat. The tare is bitter to the taste and causes dizziness and vomiting when ingested. Clearly for human consumption one is healthy and good to eat, while the other is poison and an evil for the body. So what is Jesus’ recommendation? Let them grow up together until harvest time. The reason for this is simple. When wheat and tares sprout they both look alike. At this point you cannot weed out the tares. By the time they grow tall one can tell the difference between them. However, by this time the roots of the wheat and tares have become intertwined. To pull up the tare would necessarily pull up the wheat. Only after the harvest can the wheat and tares be separated, and only then with great discerning labor. You see both seeds are very similar in size and shape, except that the tares have a grayish color. But the separation must occur. Then the tares are taken and thrown into a fire so that they will not contaminate another crop.

What does this parable mean to us? Jesus is urging us to be more patient and to have more forbearance. He is strongly suggesting that if we act too soon on our judgments of other people, we may end up doing more evil than good, and not only destroy the lives of other people, but also needlessly destroy our own in the process. He is saying that all people are like wheat and tares; we must leave all of them alone to grow up together. Then when the time is right God will do the appropriate separating, and God will do what is right. But it is so hard to trust God to do what is right. For it means that God will either be more merciful than us, or even that God may not be acting at all. How much easier, yes, even better if we just act on our judgments ourselves!

Or is it? What would happen, or should I say, what does happen when we decide to act upon the immediacy of our own judgments. Henri Nouwen, a popular Roman Catholic priest, tells this little story that may enlighten us. It is a story of a little girl, the daughter of John Fraser, a correspondent for the Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s leading newspapers. When this little girl was four years old, she found a dead sparrow in front of the living room window. The little bird had killed itself by flying into the glass. When the little girl saw its little body, she was both deeply disturbed and greatly intrigued. She asked her father, “Where is the bird now?” He answered that he didn’t know. “Why did it die?” she asked. “Well,” he answered with some hesitation, “because all birds return to the earth.” “Then we have to bury it.” she said.

She found a little box and laid the small bird in it. A paper napkin was added as a shroud, and their whole family began a procession outside. Her daddy carried the box, while the little girl walked in front, carrying a homemade wooden cross. After the bird was buried, her father asked if she would like to say a prayer. “Yes,” she replied firmly. Instructing everyone to hold hands, she began her prayer. “Dear God, we have buried this little sparrow. Now you be good to her--or I will kill you! Amen.” As they walked back into the house her father stated, “You didn’t have to threaten God.” The little girl then answered, “I just want to be sure.”

Stated in another way, each of us is made up of both wheat and tares. When another comes along and attempts to weed out our tares, they cannot do it without also destroying the wheat within. The same is true when we attempt to weed the tares out of the lives of others. We simply end up doing far more harm than any good we can conceive. As observed by the great psychiatrist, Carl Jung -- “The brighter our halos, the smellier our feet!”

In many ways we are like the little kid who one day played baseball by himself. Equipped with his ball and bat, the little guy went out into his front yard. Tossing the ball into the air, he attempted to swing his bat at it as it came down. He missed. “Strike one,” cried a little kid across the street. Embarrassed the boy picked the ball up again, repeating his previous motions, only to hear, “Strike two!” Feeling both frustrated and angry, he tossed the ball again, only to miss hitting it again with his bat. “Strike three, you’re out!” screamed the unwanted umpire, who then added, “You’re a lousy hitter!” Undaunted, the boy stuck out his chest and marched over to the other boy. Yelling back, he shouted, “I’m not a lousy hitter; I’m a great pitcher! I just struck myself out!”

Once we realize that we are at once both lousy hitters and great pitchers, all at the very same time, we can truly be thankful that God is as merciful as God is. For in waiting God is not just being overly tolerant of others, but God is being overly indulgent of us as well.

This does not mean that we then turn a blind eye to evil wherever we find it! For indeed, the farmer in the parable was well aware of the tares in his field. It means that we do not act in any way that might destroy the good as we point out the evil. Furthermore, we must also become more active in cultivating the wheat within others and ourselves. We must learn to be more patient with one another, as well as with ourselves, trusting that in the end God will take care of everything.