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This Week's Sermon The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost 20 July 2008 "The Church Is Not a Peaceful Place" Matthew 13:24-30,36-43 LSB Series A Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

There are no fields or gardens anywhere in the world where only flowers or grain grows. There are not any fields that do not contain weeds and other noxious plants which would choke out the desirable crop. Farmers and gardeners spend a considerable amount of time keeping these enemies out of their fields and gardens. Vast sums of money are spent on herbicides and pesticides.

Take a drive out into the country and one sees fields growing grain and other crops. Look at homes with lovely gardens in the yards. All looks peaceful, but that's only because we can't see the war going on beneath the surface. If the Science Channel were to do a story on this, it would focus on the conflict going on in the soil itself. It would get the cameras with macro lenses down into the soil and show us the tremendous activity happening among the roots of the plants. It would show us the microbes and insects which attack the plants. We could see the enemy weeds getting started and popping up--literally overnight-to strangle the plants. It's a constant battle. It's just as the Apostle Paul describes it in our Epistle today:

"For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now." (Romans 8:20-22, ESV)

All of this is a picture of the Church. Last week's Holy Gospel told about the seed that has been planted, which is the Word of God. It is good seed. God intends growth and a good harvest, but there is another factor in the equation, and that is our old enemy, Satan. Satan tries to undermine and ruin the good things of God. It has been that way from the beginning. Satan wants to drag away with him as many as he can of those who hear the Word.

Every year when we drive north from Florida along I-65 I look for a billboard in central Alabama. You may remember that I've told you about it. It sits on private property and reads: "Go to church or the devil will get you." It's all in red on a white background. The owner has added a devil with a scythe, not a pitchfork. Ignoring the fact that one doesn't scare people into heaven, he's missed a very important point which our Gospel illuminates, namely, that one is not safe inside the church from the attacks of Satan if one equates the matter of church-going with being in the Church by faith.

It surprises many people to find that the Church is not a peaceful place. She is very much like the field where wheat and weeds both grow. These people think that there should be no weeds in the Church, but that would be impossible given that evil is a very present factor in the world. Where God plants his Word there you can be sure that you will find Satan most active. From the outside it might look peaceful, but we know that there is conflict and unrest. Satan sows his seeds of discontent and evil. They sprout and grow and begin to choke out the good thing God has planted, namely, faith in Christ.

One of the things that most people in the church growth movement fail to take into account is that not all growth is good. If it is growth of any kind, then one certainly could have a field full of growth. The trouble is, it would be mostly weeds and not much wheat. The bad stuff always grows more rapidly than the good stuff. The weeds in your lawn grow much faster than your grass. The weeds in your field or garden grow much faster than your plants. Cancer grows faster than healthy cells.

What Jesus describes here is sabotage. An enemy tries to ruin another man's crop. The Romans had a law that made it illegal to sow weeds in another's field because it would bring financial ruin to the unsuspecting farmer whose enemy secretly ruined his crop. By the time the farmer realized that his field had been sabotaged, it would be too late. He couldn't recover. But that's how Satan acts. He continues to try to pull people away from Christ. He's content to let other religions flourish because they are, after all, his own creations. Counterfeits we might call them. They might look like they produce wheat but they produce only noxious weeds.

Sometimes it all seems futile. No matter how hard we try, there are still weeds in our gardens and fields. No matter how hard we try, there are still weeds in Christ's Church. Sometimes those weeds in the Church are prickly. Just getting near them is painful. They choke out good growth. How many people have been driven away from Christ and his Church because of prickly people in the Church? If there were no "weeds" in the Church, I think the Church would easily grow much, much larger. We'd have to have larger sanctuaries and there would be an abundance of resources to carry on the work of the Gospel, but that seldom happens. The weeds keep choking out the wheat. It is the work of God's enemy.

The problem for us is that we can't always tell the difference between the weeds and the wheat. Most experts think that Jesus was using the darnel as the example of the weeds. It looks like wheat at the beginning. Casual observers would be hard-pressed to tell the difference, kind of like certain weeds that pop up in our flower beds at home. At first I don't know if it's a weed or another shoot from a desirable flower. Then it seems that literally overnight this new shoot has wrapped itself around the good plants. Now it has become more difficult to eradicate.

One could always spray Roundup® over everything, but then it would kill the good stuff, too. One must be careful. I know a man who sprayed vegetation killer over his grass when he thought it was broadleaf weed killer. He killed the grass too, and for a long time! The workers asked the master if he wanted them to pull up the weeds, but he told them to leave them alone lest they pull up the wheat with the weeds. That's always the risk in the Church, that removing a weed might take some wheat with it.

Rather, we are to wait with patience for God to grow his crop. After all, it isn't up to us to do the separating. God will do that himself. He'll send his holy angels to gather the wheat into the barns. They won't make any mistakes. The wheat will go to God's barn and the weeds will be burned up in hell with the one who planted them. The man in Alabama who has the devil with a scythe just doesn't know the Scriptures. The reapers are not the "grim reapers," but God's holy angels.

God is incredibly patient with us. He says, "No, wait until the harvest." Why is he so patient? It seems that there is something else at work here that transcends the created order. Here in this world weeds remain weeds and wheat remains wheat, but in Christ's kingdom weeds can sometimes become wheat. The Apostle Paul would certainly fit that description. A more toxic person to the Church could hardly be imagined. He was responsible for the deaths of many Christians, but God converted him, changed him from a weed into wheat, so to speak. It is still the day of grace!

The Church is seldom a very peaceful place. Satan is most active among those who hear the Gospel. He wants to destroy them, but God the Holy Spirit is not deterred because he continues to nourish and sustain his wheat by Word and Sacrament. Here in the Divine Service is where God tenderly cares for his people. Here he sustains you in this time of stress by feeding you with his grace. Here he protects you from the assaults of the evil one. Here he also causes new growth. It may seem slow but he will have his harvest, and by his grace you shall be part of it. I love the way Martin Franzmann put it in his hymn, written for seminary graduates who might be likened to the farmer:

6 Preach you the Word and plant it home
And never faint; the Harvest Lord
Who gave the sower seed to sow
Will watch and tend His planted Word.

Text: © 1971 The Franzmann Family Used by permission: LSB Hymn License .NET, number 100010193.
Created by Lutheran Service Builder © 2006 Concordia Publishing House.