Weeds and Wheat

I always find any text that creates or has been interpreted to create a distinction between insiders and outsiders particularly difficult to preach on. However- when I wrote the sermon for today's texts- somebody else supersedes the weeds and the wheat

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So, why would God allow wheat and weeds to grow up together? Why do good and evil exist in God’s creation? Or perhaps we should reframe the question. Why questions usually do not provide us with satisfactory answers.

What difference does it make? What difference does it make that this is God’s realm? This is the kingdom of heaven that Jesus tells a parable about. God created the heavens and the earth. God will deal with good and evil. God will take care of it on the earth, in us.

And what difference does it make who is telling the parable? Jesus, sitting in a boat on the sea, speaking to a crowd of his followers tells them about the realm of God. Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth tells these people the ways of God, or at least gives them a really tough riddle about God.

But, Jesus, this Jesus, this teller of parables- he is the son of God, he is the one sent to this creation, God’s heaven and earth, the one where good and evil exist. And this Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, he took bread. He took bread, made from wheat, the good stuff of the earth, that grain that nourishes and fills us up. He took that bread; he blessed it and he broke it.- and he said this is my body. He broke the bread and said this is my body broken for you.

For you, for you who are good and evil. For you who live in a world rooted with good and evil intertwined to the point that we cannot tell the difference. He takes other wheat, he takes bread that becomes his body. His body that will die upon a cross. His body that will go into the earth, the earth intertwined with good and evil, buried in the ground. And his body will be raised up on the third day, declaring life to this creation. This resurrection of Jesus Christ declares life for the realm of God, the kingdom of heaven, God’s creation- the heavens and the earth- life for all of it.

What will God do with the wheat and the weeds? What will God do with good and evil? God transforms it through Christ. God transforms what we see as good and evil into something we cannot even fathom. Out of death, God gives life.
Out of broken bread, we receive the promise of salvation and life.
From a small town in Palestine, born in a homely manger in a barn comes the salvation of the world.
Good and evil have nothing on this holy one.
The holy one comes to the earth, the holy one takes us up into his arms, his merciful, ever loving arms. The holy one comes and says here- my kingdom for you. This bread, broken- it is for you. Eat it. Smell it, taste it, savor it. Eat it, it is for you.

For you- for us- you and I are the good and the evil; we are the wheat and the weeds; we are God’s creation, we are god’s realm, we are the kingdom of heaven. Jesus gives us the parable. Perhaps we get it; perhaps we don’t. But, Jesus also gives us himself. Take this, my body, it is for you. He is the wheat, he is the farmer, he takes us up into himself, we receive life.