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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the world that we live in. Open a newspaper, listen to the radio or television, check your newsfeed or app: faithful Christian men and women are concerned about hedonism in Hollywood, uncertainty in the economy, contention over the coronavirus, gridlock in government, violent crimes of every sort, attacks on authority, and false teaching’s passing itself off as true religion. This is the world that we live in, at least it is the world that we live in for now, or, as we might say in light of what we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, this is the world that we live in “Until the harvest”.
Picking up today right where we left off last week in what is called Jesus’s “Third Discourse” in St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, the second of the seven parables, which we heard Jesus tell today, is what His disciples refer to as “the Parable of the Weeds of the Field”. In the Parable, a man sowed good seed in his field, but his enemy came and sowed a wheat-like weed. When the plants came up and bore grain and the weeds also appeared, the servants of the master of the house wanted to gather the weeds right then, but he said no, for his servants to leave both weeds and wheat to grow together until the harvest, then he would tell the reapers to burn the weeds and to gather the wheat. When Jesus had left the mixed crowd, His disciples demanded an explanation of the Parable, and Jesus provided one, making clear its main point, that just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age with those who are unrighteous, while the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father.
When we consider the world that we live in, we may be like the servants of the master of the house who want to gather the weeds right now instead of waiting until the harvest. Evil seems to thrive at the expense of good, and at times evil might even seem to be eliminating good. Why does God let them grow together? Do we trust Him to protect us and to work things out for our good as He describes? Confident of our own “wheat-iness”, we might impatiently want those whom we are confident are “weedy” political and personal opponents to be pulled from the field that is the world right now. Or, we may be too attached to those who are unrighteous sons of the evil one and not righteous sons of the Kingdom, so that we do not want the close of the age with its eternal separation to come ever. Or, we may not remember that we also cause sin and break the law, and so that, at least by nature, we also deserve to be thrown into the fiery furnace that is hell, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth for all eternity.
Such fiery preaching is characteristic of faithful preachers of repentance, such as not only our Lord Jesus, but also John the Baptizer before Him (Matthew 3:10, 12), and pastors today after Him. In the Parable, the master of the house is willing to wait seemingly patiently until the harvest, and elsewhere Holy Scripture tells us that God is patient toward us, not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9). We should not presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience that are meant to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4). So, we repent now! We turn in sorrow from our sin, we trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, and we want to do better than to keep sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin. God forgives our sin of questioning His plan, of wanting others pulled like weeds now, and of being weed-like ourselves. God forgives all our sins, whatever our sins might be. To paraphrase today’s Psalm (Psalm 119:57-64; antiphon: v.89), we entreat God’s favor with all of our heart, and He is gracious to us according to His promise. We do not have to wait until the harvest, we have God’s forgiveness already now.
Some may prefer to believe in a different god, whom they imagine will not ultimately damn to a fiery hell for all eternity those who reject his salvation, but, as we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 44:6-8), besides the Lord, the King of Israel, there is no God! He alone redeems us from our sins, loving the sinful world by giving His only Son, Who died on the cross in our place, the death that we otherwise would have deserved, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). Jesus is that Son of God and Son of Man Who not only sows the good seed and sends out His angels as reapers, but Who also makes it so we can even be fruitful wheat in His field that is the world. His reign as King in His Kingdom had already begun when He first told the Parable in today’s Gospel Reading, and His reign as King in His Kingdom continues for us today as we hear that Parable and receive in faith His whole Word in all of its forms.
In interpreting the Parable, Jesus does not give an equivalent to the servants of the master of the house. Yet, some interpret those servants as Jesus’s apostles and their successors, pastors today (for example, Scaer, Discourses, 307, with reference to Matthew 9:38). They are the laborers in His harvest, who read and preach His Word to groups like this, and who apply His Word to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar that are Christ’s true Body and Blood, given and shed for you and for me. In Holy Baptism, we are, in the words of today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 8:18‑27), adopted as God’s children, made heirs of His Kingdom. In Holy Absolution, it is not weeds that are released to grow together with the wheat or bound in bundles but sins of the repentant that are forgiven and of the unrepentant that are retained. And, in the Sacrament of the Altar, the family meal of the children of the Kingdom, we receive the forgiveness of sins and so also life and salvation. As we may sing later, “As grain, once scattered on the hillsides, / Was in this broken bread made one, / So from all lands [God’s] Church [is] gathered / Into [His Kingdom by [His] Son” (Lutheran Service Book 652:2).
As we prayed in the Collect of the Day, God rules and governs our hearts and minds by His Holy Spirit that, ever mindful of His final judgment, we are stirred to holiness of living here and dwell with Him in perfect joy hereafter. We patiently tolerate the world that we live in, and, led by the Holy Spirit, we pray for those in it. Like the people in today’s Old Testament Reading, we are His witnesses, declaring what is to come and what will happen. From the Parable in today’s Gospel Reading we can understand that at the end of the age first is not a secret “rapture” of the righteous, but the sons of the evil one are first gathered out of the world and thrown into the fiery furnace of hell, and then the sons of the Kingdom, those who are righteous by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father, as Jesus once did at His Transfiguration (Matthew 17:2). In His eternal presence we are glorified and so confirmed in good, and that glory is so great, as the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul said in the Epistle Reading, that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with it.
This is the world that we live in “Until the harvest”. So, “Until the harvest”, with repentance and faith we live each day in God’s forgiveness of sins that we receive through His Word and Sacraments. We patiently wait for the harvest, confident that its time will come and that in Christ we who are wheat are not truly threatened, or He would not let us and those who are weeds grow together until then. “The Parable of the Weeds of the Field” may focus more on the eternal death of the weeds, but, thanks be to God, it also holds out the sure and certain hope of eternal life for those of us who by His grace are His wheat!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +