We are forever making things clean. Many of our activities are about putting things back in order. We often believe that things can not be clean enough. We talk about them being sacred even. I am not here to tell you not to clean I am afraid, but I want you to think about this in the proper context.
The first thing to understand is there can be too much of a good thing. As a child of the seventies it is rather funny to know that my favorite food of the time is extinct. I loved the bananas then more than anything. My birthday cake had to have them, but over the years the cakes would never be the same. They got very good at growing bananas.
We got so good at growing bananas we created new types of nations: the banana republic. This phrase people like to throw around, but it really is tied to the extinction of my banana. This wonderful system they had relied on clones for one thing. They would take parts of the banana plant and replant and make new plants. Well actually they would make identical copies. A fungus came along and found one plant it liked and it found it liked all the plants around. Monoculture was the problem.
There were many lessons learned from this experience yet what they did was find another banana and do the same thing. That banana we eat today may change again soon. How does this relate to cleaning? They tried to clear away everything from their field that they thought would not make them money. They wanted more and more of what made them money. Good was good so more would be great.
There are reasons that this is not true. There are pros and cons. Yield maximization, easier to manage, and higher revenue vs higher pesticide use, soil degradation and fertility loss, higher use of fertilizers, high water use, decrease in biodiversity and impact on pollinators, economic risks,. So monoculture is super popular.
In most subsistence farming practices, crops are grown and harvested to feed a family or local community. In monoculture agriculture, however, the crop is produced for commercial purposes, which gives an oppressive aspect to the whole process of using farmlands to grow monoculture crops.
Once the harvest is reaped, it will be transported long distances to a large number of destinations.
Our scripture today comes from two sections of Mathew 13 and it paints a clear and difficult picture. Despite all our efforts when we try to do too much we create worse damage. As we read this scripture we are going to think deep about the words weeds and good seed. I will read Matthew 13:24-30 from the Amplified Bible: Weeds among Wheat
24 Jesus gave them another parable [to consider], saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.
We have a story here of practical application. We begin with judgement. There is good seed and there is something else. The confounding thing is they produce things that resemble each other. Well the assumption we make is the seed that is not good is simply of no use. The good seed is so defined by what it is eventually used. If it fills the belly of a warrior. If it fills the belly of a widow. If it fills the belly of a king. If it falls as a scrap and fills the beggars belly. These are not closed stories Jesus is telling, but like this life they are confusing.
Back in verse 13 Mathew informs us why Jesus is talking in parables.
13 This is the reason I speak to the crowds in parables: because while [having the power of] seeing they do not see, and while [having the power of] hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand and grasp [spiritual things]. 14 In them the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,
‘You will hear and keep on hearing, but never understand;
And you will look and keep on looking, but never comprehend;
15
For this nation’s heart has grown hard,
And with their ears they hardly hear,
And they have [tightly] closed their eyes,
Otherwise they would see with their eyes,
And hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart, and turn [to Me]
And I would heal them [spiritually].’
Already a sad story. Our scripture continues:
25 But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds [resembling wheat] among the wheat, and went away. 26 So when the plants sprouted and formed grain, the weeds appeared also. 27 The servants of the owner came to him and said, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? Then how does it have weeds in it?’ 28 He replied to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants asked him, ‘Then do you want us to go and pull them out?’ 29 But he said, ‘No; because as you pull out the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “First gather the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
There is a political question here for the church about who planted the weeds. They are talking about a specific plant that looks like wheat but has no value. We often think of weeds as plants we don't like. Here we have something more. A mimic almost a parasite. There is also a practical question here that I find more relevant today. The church has long wrestled with interpretation. Many churches don't speak to each other much..
It is a mixed bag. There are so many that resemble each other. It is an odd word to use but there is an evolution of religion. In the past you can be assured there were more types. In the future there will be less. It was so with us. Where ever we look in the past we find similar things. There have been many types of people. If you look into tradition there are more types than can be counted. If we look with a scientific eye we find new continuously. We learn about the future and the past if you think about it. We are currently looking at early galaxies that seem too complex and wonder if the universe might be twice as old as we think.
Would explain the stars that seem to be older than the universe for one thing. The Catholic church once said time started October 22, 4004 BC. Today the same institution now speaks of the big bang 13.7 or perhaps 26.3 billion years ago. Nobody seems to really care anymore what they think.
The way to respond to problems is usually to do something, but for practical purposes there really is nothing we can do in certain cases. To the people who heard only half our scripture today this would almost be a depressing message. There is nothing to be done. Good when sown will grow but it would seem also will evil. This scripture almost foreshadows the entire darker side to the churches history. Often people have tried to rip up whole types of people. What they found at the roots was they were too intertwined to take apart.
Ecclesiastes 4:12 And though one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Matthew 19:6 Amplified Bible: 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Mathew takes us deeper with the disciples in 13:36-43 again from the Amplified Bible
The Weeds Explained
36 Then He left the crowds and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him saying, “Explain [clearly] to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
What a blessing to be able to ask the great teacher a question and what a blessing to have this response here:
37 He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, 38 and the field is the world; and [as for] the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the weeds are the sons of the evil one; 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. 40 So just as the weeds are gathered up and burned in the fire, so will it be at the end of the age.
Again to the practical first we see these sons resemble each other. Even if we could tell them apart we would not be able to separate ourselves from the great battle of our time. Of every time. As we actively work to make the world better there are people who actively work to make the world worse. Why they do is less relevant than they do. In the end all they have to do is change, but for us there will be no shortage of work.
41 The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend [those things by which people are led into sin], and all who practice evil [leading others into sin], 42 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping [over sorrow and pain] and grinding of teeth [over distress and anger].
It is easy to see why the apostles wanted to believe this would all happen in their generation. In the ways that are important it happened during their generation: they fought the great fight. In the ways that are important it is happening in our generation and your generation and my generation: we fight the great fight.
43 Then the righteous [those who seek the will of God] will shine forth [radiating the new life] like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears [to hear], let him hear and heed My words.
The good seed in the end in not in danger. The righteous seek the will of God. There is something over simplified as if the world was back and white. We like to believe that so much our intuition tells us more good is all we need, but when we look at the context again we see a more complex picture. Where we manage to create black and white like those banana fields it always takes oppression. Along with the comical aspects of the banana republic the foundations are truly dark.
Reality has more color and most of the world reflects this fact. I have this sense when people talk about the third world this is what they are really talking about. This need to make the world black and white. To rip out the color is not to understand what is white light: all the colors together. There used to be a first and second and third world. The second one was this two camp theory of the world and included all the communist countries on alternate development paths. Poland in 1963 is a pretty fair example of a second world country.
So you see there really no longer is a second world yet people still talk about the third world. There is something in common that is not easy to name, but when I look around the world I see these places of color. Practical difficulties created by the great fight. Where people separate themselves there is this oppression involved. There is really no way around. A place of white that wants to separate itself out. The flaw in white supremacy is that all the colors are present in itself.
When we go out in the field we must understand there is going to be some confusion. We can equally understand that there is good reason. People working towards different ends resemble each other. God would not lose one. There are people working towards our extinction. The great battle is happening in every generation so yeah I am sure they don't feel wrong.
Let Us pray
Creator of All
We seek your will
We find ourselves confused
Your son told us we would be
We glorify the one who uses even our confusion
We ask your help in all we do
Continue to guide us we ask in the name of your son Jesus Christ
Amen
Benediction
In your community you will find confusion
This another sign to glorify our Father in Heaven
Rejoice in your confusion and know you are not alone
Go be community
Nottingham UMC 7/23/2023
