Sermon Tone Analysis

Where were we last week?

What is a Parable?

Story that compares two unlike things, that is rooted in nature or common life, that is often creative and vivid, and that should spur us to action.

Where were we last week?

Jesus - Kingdom of God

Looked at the Parable of the Growing Seed.

Learned three things:

We must scatter the seed of God’s Word widely and liberally.

God, not us, is ultimately responsible for the growth of the Kingdom

There is a process to spiritual growth and we must give ourselves and others the grace, the time, and the space to grow and mature.

Parable of the growing seed found only in Mark and right after the parable of the sower.

Parable of the weeds in the wheat is found only in Matthew and right after the parable of the sower.

Likely that Jesus told many of these parables over and over again and that Matthew and Mark are recording separate times when the parable of the sower was told.

Once, Jesus followed it with the Parable of the Growing seed and Mark records that and another time he followed it this parable of the weeds in the wheat and Matthew recorded that.

But it is clear that Jesus connects these two parables that we have looked at to the parable of the sower.

It can seem that, since Jesus gave an explanation to the disciples as to the meaning of this parable that it is all over and straight forward.

And that straight forward message is a good one and not one to be missed

But this is one of those times that if we don’t dig a little deeper we may actually be missing the full message that Jesus is trying to tell us.

Fear of Terrorism - all of the things that we do to try and prevent it.

Bioterror

too many zombie movies?

Too many stories about polio outbreaks?

Or wondered why they weren’t still immunization against small pox

Dying at the hand of some sort of bio agent scares me more than just about anything else.

This parable describes a kind of bio-terror

Not small pox in blankets or anthrax or pneumonic plague in the mail,

a form of terrorism none the less.

The parable we are looking at today is a form of bio-terror.

True, it isn’t small pox in blankets or anthrax or pneumonic plague in the mail, but it is a form of terrorism none the less.

See an enemy of some sort has sown weeds in with the good seeds of wheat that the householder sowed in his field.

These aren’t any seeds, however.

It’s not like its dandelions.

The Greek gives us the clue that these are more than likely seeds of darnel.

Darnel is a plant that is not only poisonous in its own right, it also regularly carries a fungus that can be death to wheat.

Additionally, it also looks a great deal like wheat and it is almost impossible to tell the difference before the grains mature.

At that point, the wheat turns a golden-brown color while the darnel turns a noxious black.

The Greek tells us that this is a type of weed called darnel.

poisonous

caries fungus that can kill the wheat

This sort of thing was done widely enough that there were Roman laws against it.

See an enemy of some sort has sown weeds in with the good seeds of wheat that the householder sowed in his field.

It’s not like its dandelions.

Greek gives us the clue that these are more than likely seeds of darnel.

Darnel is a plant that is not only poisonous in its own right, it also regularly carries a fungus that can be death to wheat.

Additionally, it also looks a great deal like wheat and it is almost impossible to tell the difference before the grains mature.

At that point, the wheat turns a golden-brown color while the darnel turns a noxious black.

To sow darnel seeds in and amongst the wheat carried the potential to harm the planter financially by ruining his harvest, but if done in a widespread enough fashion, it could also jeopardize the food supply and even poison someone if the darnel wasn’t adequately separated from the wheat.

These sorts of sabotage were so common, however, that there were Roman laws addressing the problem and laying out punishments for sowing darnel and other weeds in another’s crop.

So while this isn’t on par with a truly devastating terror attack, in in the first century it was something that was taken extremely seriously.

Unlike many of his parables, Jesus offers an explanation to his disciples on this one.

The sower is the Son of Man, the field is the world and the crop that comes from the good seed are the children of the kingdom.

The one that sowed the bad seed is the enemy, the devil, and the crop that springs forth from that seed are the children of the evil one.

The harvest is the end of the age and the reapers are the angels.

The good crop will be reaped and spared while the weeds will be thrown into the fire.

Easy peasey lemon squeezey, right?

That’s all we need, let’s go home!

Not quite.

Even though Jesus provides his disciples, and us, with a framework for understanding the parable, there are still layers to get through.

1) This parable serves as a warning to us both as the Church and as individual believers that there are things, and maybe even people, can grow in our midst and can appear healthy and good, but might be choking the very life out of the good that God has planted for his kingdom.

We all know people like that, right, people that can’t seem to get their act together, that are always letting toxic people into their lives.

They don’t think that the people are toxic.

In fact, they often think, at least at the outset that they are great.

But we all do the same thing, don’t we?

We make decisions that we think are good and healthy but end up being bad for us.

College relationship

2) See the problem is that we are not able to tell what is good from what is bad.

Sometimes hind sight is the only thing that will show us the truth

Harvest time the darnel turns black

How many things in history are there to show us that we make poor decisions in the moment that lead to our own destruction

How many stories in the Bible?

David

Supposed to be in the field with the army

In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army.

They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah.

But David remained in Jerusalem.

Already not doing what he is supposed to.

Continues to make a series of worse and worse choices, but in the moment he doesn’t see how they are going to destroy him and everything that he has worked for.

But that is what happens.

But David still isn’t able to see it until Nathan comes and tells him, well, a parable.

Only then can David see what he has done, how what he has done is evil.

But it still destroys so much.

And in the end actually leads to the splitting of the Kingdom and even the eventual destruction of Israel, Judah, and even the temple itself.

Now David didn’t mean for any of this to happen.

He didn’t see the poison that he was letting into his own life and the life and the nation, but it still happened.

And it was only in hindsight and with the input of Nathan, God’s prophet, that David was able to see what he had done.

But sometimes if we go in and start rooting around in our lives trying to root out what is evil, we will pull out the good instead.

There is a great lie abroad in the world today

I’d say it is new, but it isn’t.

It is the same old lie.

It is the lie that says that we can do it, that we have the ability to figure out what is good and what is not.

Saw an article this week about the “False Gospel of You Be You.”

Until the last few decades, we were, globally and cross-culturally, able to acknowledge that there were some things that were simply wrong.

It was wrong to murder.

It was wrong to rape.

It was wrong to steal.

It was wrong to oppress the least of the these.

Now certainly these things still happen, after all we live in a world twisted and tortured by sin.

But there was still almost universal acknowledgment that some things were beyond the bounds of acceptability.

Isn’t this the ultimate idolatry, foregoing the mark that has been provided for us, assuming that the mark that we set is more fair, more just, more loving, more compassionate, more true, more righteous, just more.

Jesus couldn’t actually mean what he says about turning the other cheek, could he? I’m sure not, I’ll set a standard that is more realistic.