8th Sunday after Pentecost – July 23, 2023

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

The American writer E.B. White…who wrote the children’s book Charlotte’s Web…once offered this observation:

“Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better…but the frog dies in the process.”
The same thing is true of the many parables Jesus told.
Parables are a little like poetry or song lyrics in that there usually is not just one explanation of their meaning.
And it is no secret that these interpretations can vary widely and wildly.

When reading and hearing parables we bring along our current condition and situation so that as we read the parable the parable also reads us.

It speaks to us in ways that may be remarkably different from the way it speaks to other people.
Because those other people are not experiencing anything like what we are going through now.
It’s not that nobody knows what Jesus’ words mean in the parable of the Wheat and the Tares.
It is that everybody knows what they mean.
And each person has a different answer…even if the answer is a puzzlement.
Parables…at least as Jesus used them…are not meant to provide us with one single truth to be adopted by all hearers.
They are much richer than that.

In our reading today we have what is known as the parable of the weeds or tares.

The tares and the wheat are growing together in the same field.
Servants ask the landowner if they should pull out the tares…but the owner says no.
It is better to wait until the wheat is ripe and then gather both the tares and the wheat at the same time.
And only then separate them.

An experienced farmer knows that in its early stage of development…this weed…also known as bearded darnel…closely resembles the wheat plant.

As the plants start to grow…hardly anyone can tell the difference…including knowledgeable farmers.
Also…the roots of the tares and the roots of the wheat get intertwined as they grow.
So…if you try to pull out just the tares…you will uproot the wheat too.
And as a result…lose almost the entire crop.
That is why you wait to harvest both wheat and weeds together.

The following is one of a hundred stories I could share with you.

After all…this past June I celebrated my 49^th year in the ordained ministry in the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church In America).
His name was Bob Moore.
He was sentenced to a correctional home for juvenile offenders in the town where I was serving.
Knowing the director of the home well…I would often cover when they were short a house staff counselor.
Bob was a tough kid…a real challenge…a weed!
Just getting him to go to school…he was a tenth grader when he came to us…was a challenge.
For three years we ministered to him.
And gradually he began to come out of his wicked funk.
He became part of the community and began to thrive and flourish.
He was smart and talented and creative.
Well…in his senior year he was named young man of the year by the State of Wisconsin’s Education Association.
But wait…he was a weed and should have been removed.

We see here that the followers of Jesus who heard him tell this parable were confused and asked him to explain what he meant.

So…Jesus provides an explanation that sounds as if it could be reduced to this single stark conclusion:
Righteous people will be saved for residence in heaven while wicked people will go to hell.
But the simplicity of that interpretation may be a good clue that Jesus is just giving his followers what the apostle Paul…in 1 Corinthians 3:2…calls “milk…not solid food”
Because Paul’s hearers “were not ready for solid food.”

And we know from countless examples in the gospels that the disciples of Jesus often did not understand him.

They were not ready for solid food.
So…in Jesus’ explanation of this parable…it is fair to say that he was simply offering his hearers theological milk…not meat.
Jesus reduced the parable to a two-dimensional story about heaven and hell.
But Jesus’ parables are always richer and more involved than they at first seem.

Well…OK then…the world is full of weeds.

In other words…there are people and powers who seem driven toward destructive ends.
Not unlike the weeds in the farmer’s wheat field.
How else do we explain so much of history…
Which the great French philosopher Voltaire once described as:
“Hardly more than the history of crimes”?

Like the weeds and wheat in their early stages…

It is hard to distinguish who is in a full and healthy relationship with God and who is not.
Put in terms of the heaven-hell division often drawn from this parable…
It is hard to tell who is going to heaven and who is going to hell.
Think about it.
Most of us have been through a kind of living hell sometime in our lives.
And we know others who are currently living in a hell on earth.

Well…it is not our job to draw conclusions or make judgments.

What Jesus wants us to know through this parable is simply that we are responsible for our actions and thoughts.

And that at some point we will have to explain ourselves to God.
Our job…Jesus insists…is to open ourselves up to receive the grace of God so that…as he says…we may “shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father.”

The Bible contains history…poetry…allegory…metaphor and wonderful challenging stories that are to help guide our lives today.

This is why Jesus insisted at the very beginning of his ministry that the kingdom of God has drawn near.
And that we can live in that kingdom today.
Even as we recognize that it has not yet come in full flower.

We will miss a lot of the beauty and challenge in the parables of Jesus…

And his many other teachings if we insist that there is only one way to understand them.
The word of God is deep and rich and worthy of our time.
It is full of truth and beauty for you and for me.
And we would do well to find out how others hear them.

Finally…let me say…that if I explained this homily to you…