Wheat and weeds growing together.

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In our first lesson today, Jacob is on the way from Beer-Sheba to Haran to find a wife.  In the midst of this journey, he lays down to sleep and has a dream.  In this dream the Lord renews His Covenant with Jacob.  The promise had been given to his grandfather, Abraham, and to his father, Isaac during their lifetimes, but here God renews that covenant with Jacob.

One of the things that we learn from this is that inclusion in God’s kingdom is not automatic.  Just because your parents or grandparents were faithful believers doesn’t mean you get an automatic pass into heaven.  Each person has to affirm or renew his or her own covenant with God.

And if you believe in him, look at what God promises, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land…”  That is God’s promise – we never have to be alone… he will be with us – regardless of where we go – or what we do.  

Our second lesson tells us “The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God…”  We are revealed as we accept the covenant of God’s promise in our own lives.

So we come to the gospel and find a parable – not unlike last week’s parable.  Like last week this parable is about the planting of seeds.  And once again Jesus has to explain the parable to his disciples.  As much as some people want to tell us that these are stories that the normal person could understand, that’s just not true.  If it were, Jesus wouldn’t have to keep explaining the parables.  Parables are about the Kingdom of Heaven and how it differs from the world around us.  Jesus has to explain the parables was because they didn’t make sense from the world view.  If you’ve ever raised a garden of vegetables, you know that one of the things you do is to get out there and weed – get rid of the crab grass and other undesirables that choke out the growing seeds.  And that’s exactly what the servants thought also – get out and pull those weeds – but the master says “no.”  And the wheat and tares grow up together.  So what does this mean?   The parable actually operates at three different levels.

First, we look at the wheat and the tares in the world around us and say, “Oh, I understand – this describes the world as it really is today -- there is really some bad stuff going on out there in the world today – but God’s going to allow it to exist and cleanse it at the end.”  Now I know that there are times when we want to say – “to heck with freewill – God take care of those crazy people – make them do right…”  But God is so much more gracious and loving and patient than we are.  We are all allowed to grow side by side and – unlike the rotten apple in the barrel, -- the good can influence the not so good and there is hope for all people.  We are all given every opportunity to come to God.

Second, we find this might even come closer to home.  Let’s narrow our world view and look around the church today.  There are those people who act honorably in serving God and in trying to be productive Christians.  Then there are those who you wonder why they are there – and some people want to judge them…

But who is it, do you suppose, who desperately needs to hear the Word of God – is it those who have a firm belief and are committed to Jesus – or is  it those who are searching for meaning in their life;  those who are lost and looking for a way out of their pain, or their grief, or their confusion.  In Matthew 9, Jesus tells us, “But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."  The church is not a hotel (or club) for saints – we are not all perfect.  

The church is intended as a hospital or rehab for sinners.  Jesus does not turn people away regardless of who they are or what they are doing with their life.  He allows them to grow side by side without judgment.  Judgment belongs to him alone, and that doesn’t come until the end of the age – until death.  We don’t know enough, and we can’t see into the heart of anyone other than ourselves in order to pass judgment.

The problem is that when we are divided against each other, we always see ourselves as the wheat and the others as the tares.  Whether its Jews or Christians against Muslims, or the Catholics against the Protestants, or the conservatives against the liberals in today’s church.  We always see ourselves as the wheat.  But Jesus does NOT tell us to go root out the evil among us – he says let them grow together – let the tares grow along side of the wheat -- and at the end of the age, the angels will sort it out.  That’s not our job.

Actually, we do each have to stand before our God at the end and account for ourselves – our actions as well as our beliefs.  And this is the third way we can look at this parable.   We come even closer to home when we consider this lesson – and look at what is inside each of us.  

Whether you want to admit it or not, there is both good and evil inside each of us.  Not everything we do comes from God.  Many of us react poorly in certain circumstances – or sometimes we can’t get past various hurts – or preconceived notions – to be as gracious as we should be at all times.  And even within us, God allows the good and the bad to grow together – not willing to condemn our whole person because of a few flaws – and that (people of God) is grace – amazing grace – that we are allowed to grow and mature in God’s love and in our interaction with the world around us.  We are allowed to come to our own understanding of who God is and what that means to each of us.  We are allowed to grow and change – we are given every opportunity – we are not judged until we have completed this life.

There is a children’s song that talks about this:  

“God’s still workin’ on me,  To make me what I oughta be.  

It took him just a week to make the moon and stars, 

The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars

How loving and patient he must be,  

‘cause he’s still workin’ on me.

It may be a children’s song, but it’s true of all of us at any and every point in our lives.  God is still working on us.  And he allows each and every one of us to grow and his promise is that he will be with us – through thick and thin – through good and bad – uphill and down -- he will not withhold his presence from us.  Even when we are not walking with God, he is still walking with us – for better or worse – for richer or poorer – in sickness and in health – God will never leave us.  

Sharing the load with Jesus

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A fifth grade Sunday School teacher was teaching on this Gospel text and asked her class if they knew what a “yoke” was.  Most of the class agreed that it was the yellow part in the center of an egg, but one child had a different idea.  He said, “It’s a collar you put around a horse.”  The teacher wanting to go deeper asked him, “Then what would be the yoke of Christ?”  He thought a minute and answered, “I suppose that’s when God’s got you by the throat.” 

I wonder – as a whole – how well we understand this scripture…”Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  

Like our young boy said, it’s a kind of collar – and more often than not it is used on oxen.  Normally two oxen are “yoked together”  - and therefore called a “yoke of oxen.”  But the point is that they are paired – they share the load, whether it is pulling a wagon or plowing a field.  So, when Jesus says, “take my yoke and learn from me…”  he’s telling us to partner with him in whatever the job is that we have to do.  He is going to help us shoulder the load, whatever it is that is weighing us down in the life.

Several years ago, there was a popular bumper sticker that said, “God is my co-pilot”.  Soon after that a new one came out that said, “If God’s your co-pilot, more over.  The wrong person’s driving.”  One that said, “God is my navigator” might be more accurate.  So yoking ourself to God is allowing him to help shoulder whatever your burden is and helping you to navigate rough waters.

My meditation this morning was on this verse.  It said, “Whatever burden you have to carry, God will shoulder the better part of it.  God will take the greater portion of your struggle on himself.  He will bear the extra weight and move with you to resolution.”  - - -  Now, I can pick up this bottle of water, and it’s not very heavy.  But if I hold it out there long enough, it will become heavier and heavier until it’s too much to hold any longer.  

We all have things that are burdens to us – they might be emotional, they might be personal, they might be physical, they might be business related – but whatever they are, they can eventually weigh us down.  These are the burdens that Jesus is willing to help us carry.

This is an invitation to rest in the Lord, trusting him to be sufficient for our needs.  I think we sometimes have a hard time living into that trust.  All those self-help books tell us is that we need to be sufficient for our own needs.  So some people have trouble believing in God’s ability (or willingness) to help us.  

Jesus starts out this passage - to what will I compare this generation?   I think every generation has said that about the next generation.  

My mother couldn’t stand the “rock and roll” music that we listened to and loved.  Her parents didn’t like the jitterbug she liked.  Then when my kids were growing up, hard rock was all the rage, and I guaranty I didn’t like that.  I’m not too fond of rap music either, but an early fore-runner was the opening number from “The Music Man” and I liked that. 

In the days of Abraham, marriages were arranged.  Today’s first lesson is about procuring a wife for Isaac.  Abraham didn’t want Isaac marrying any of the local Canaanite women, so he sent his servant back to his home land to find a wife from among his kin folk.  Some of you may remember “Fiddler on the Roof.”  In this movie, the daughter of Tevye informed her father that she wanted to marry for love. Even in those days, marriages were arranged, but times were changing, and Tevye had to learn to change with them.

Society today is strange.  Everyone you meet is different from everyone else.  There are so many different types of people  -  some are proud and vain, some are timid and shy, some inflated with their own self-worth and others are trying to prove their self-worth.  Some people don’t need or want help from anyone.  Some are so needy that they can’t (or won’t) do anything for themselves.

As a people, we often stray away from our relationship with God.  I moved away from God during my late teens and early twenties.  It’s wasn’t really a conscious decision, but I just had other things to do with my time.  And once you’ve strayed away, it’s hard to get back.  Some people get embarrassed; others feel undeserving, some make excuses, but in any case they often find it hard to return to God. They may fear that reconciliation is beyond them, that they are not worthy, that they can’t live up to a commitment with God.  

But our God is like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son.  The father did not pursue the younger son, he let him go.  But he did leave the gate of home unlocked in case he returned.  And that’s what God does with us, He always leaves the gate open, so that when we make the first step to come back, we will find the path unobstructed.  And although reconciliation with God is unearned, it is nonetheless predicated on our desire for a restored relationship.  We have to know when we need help and be willing to accept it, but we must always remember that this is God’s free gift, and not our right.  

Part of this problem may have to do with our underlying need for self-esteem – our need to understand our value as a human being.  Some people feel like they have to prove their worth, and I realize now that was me some years back.  In some ways, I kept apologizing for my existence and trying to prove that I had a right to exist.  Other people are over-inflated – and it’s not hard to get to that point either.  Both views are off-balance.  We need God’s love to help us realize that we are created in His image and simply being born into this world means that God wants us to be and that he takes delight in our existence.  

Life is something of a balancing act - living into God’s standards or falling to the ways of the world.  Paul talks about that in today’s lesson. He states, “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”  It wasn’t easy for Paul, so why should we think it will be any easier for us?   

The grace of God is later revealed when Paul tells us, “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do; sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh…”  Jesus in the likeness of mankind redeemed us for all time.

Jesus starts out telling us, “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, `He has a demon'; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, `Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'”  Sometimes you just can’t win in this world of ours.  I think this was Jesus’ way of saying that regardless of what we do, there are always going to be people who are going to oppose us and complain about us.  And that may be part of the burden that he wants to help us carry.

Jesus calls us to come and rest…  Rest is the condition God creates to allow us the opportunity to be still and know our God.  We can’t touch God in the noise and busy-ness of our lives.  We need the stillness and the quiet to hear the voice of God when he calls us.  Jesus establishes this condition of rest for his followers and gives them examples of prayer and quiet time – times of just being with God.  Prayer is allowing Jesus to take from us our burdens and to give us rest in full confidence of God’s love for us.  Prayer is giving rest to the weary, refreshing and renewing their spirit for the journey.  

Let us pray:  Heavenly Father, we come to you, some weary in spirit, some heavy of heart, some wrestling with indecision.  Lord, quiet our minds and fill our hearts that we may be still and know that you are God.  And we pray that you will renew and refresh us, guide and direct us, giving us strength for facing the world and the days ahead of us.  Lord, keep us always in your presence and when we stray, call us back under the shelter of your wings.  We pray this in the name of your son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Trusting in the promises of God

As preachers, we are told to always preach the good news in scripture, but sometimes its hard to find.  Our first lesson is one that is hard to listen to, and to talk about, but it is a lesson about faith, faithfulness, and trusting in God’s promises. Some say this is a pre-figuring of God’s giving of Jesus to death on the cross.  Some say it is about Abraham’s obedience.  Some say its about letting go.

If you will remember, Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born and Sarah was about ninety years old.  This was the promised child.  In chapter 15, God promised Abraham that his own flesh and blood would be the heir of his estate.  And God told Abraham that through Isaac, he would be the father of more descendants than the stars in the sky.  And if you go back and read chapter 17, it says that Sarah will be the mother of nations.

Abraham had another son – Ishmael, born of Hagar, an Egyptian maidservant.  We talked about Hagar and Ishmael last week.  God promised that Ishmael would also be the father of nations, but that the covenant with God would be made and continued through Isaac.  So the promise that Abraham had received was that Isaac would be the source of unnumbered descendants and of the covenant with God.

So Abraham hears God tell him to take Isaac, the son he loves, the one who is to be the father of numerous descendants and the continuation of the covenant, and to sacrifice him on the mountain.  And Abraham, full of grief and yet fully confident that somehow God will do exactly what he said he would do – he takes his son and starts out.  Isaac asks him, “Father, here is the wood and the fire, but where is the lamb?”  And Abraham says, “God himself will provide the lamb for the offering…”  

Have you ever been in a situation that seemed like a train racing along at breakneck speed headed for disaster?   One you felt helpless to derail or put off on a siding?   Where you feared the expected outcome, but yet still hoped in the Lord for some kind of reprieve?  That was Abraham – step by step moving toward the moment he dreaded – trusting that somehow, someway, God would redeem the situation. 

This may be to remind us that life choices are hard.  Sometimes in our life, we come across those places where we have to make choices and there doesn’t seems to be any good option.  Some of those times that come to mind have to do with end of life issues - the decision to take a family member off of life support, or issue a “do not resuscitate” order.  These are times where often the answer is not good, anyway you go.  

When difficult times come in this life, sometimes it’s enough to just be able to sit down and cry in the midst of extreme drama, at how unfair life seems to be at times.  Sometimes God redeems those situations and sometimes He doesn’t.  Sometimes His way of redeeming a difficult situation is to simply take us home.  For God, death is not a tragic end - it is a crossing over where He brings us to new life; where he rids us of every illness, strife or unpleasantness that plagues us in this life.  

At least one theologian has said that this is about letting go of that which we have placed above God.  When our grandson was born, it was almost two months early.  At a weight of 3 pounds, he spent at least 6 weeks on life support in NICU.  I remember Andy calling me one night pretty much in tears because the doctors wanted to try some special treatment that he wasn’t sure about.  And I remember Andy telling me, “Mom, I didn’t know it was possible to love this much.”  We do love our children - this is often the place where we begin to get a glimmer of just how much God loves us - to give us something that precious, that dear.  But it is possible to get an unhealthy attachment/love for someone or something, and at that point we are asked to let go.

Now I don’t like to think Abraham’s love for Isaac was necessarily unhealthy - or that God was just ‘testing’ Abraham, but there does come these times in life that we don’t want to face and this was that situation for Abraham.  Abraham, who loves his son and is filled with dread for what he is doing,  heads up on that mountain with Isaac, hoping against hope that God would redeem this situation.

And God did – He provided the lamb for the sacrifice.  And in doing so he clearly demonstrated that human sacrifice as a burnt offering was not an acceptable sacrifice to our God, Yahweh.  

Because of Abraham’s faith (that God will provide) and his faithfulness (following through even though he couldn’t bear the obvious outcome) and his trust in the promises that God had made to him – for those reasons, God deemed mankind worthy as a whole - because of Abraham’s obedience.  And so we know that when we follow in obedience to God, he will provide the sacrifice for us.

And that sacrifice as we know was Jesus Christ, God’s own son.  Jesus was the sacrifice that was given for us.  Our Psalm today says, “I put my trust in your mercy; my heart is joyful because of your saving help.”  That was Abraham’s victory on the mountain, he trusted in God’s mercy and rejoiced in God saving help.

In her book, Challenging Prophetic Literature, Julia O'Brien writes: this questioning faith, this mourning about the tragedy that all too often permeates life occurs in a space framed by the underlying belief in the goodness of God who does not want suffering for God's children; a God who will provide. Genesis 22 after all is a story of life coming into a situation of death; a story of redemption; a story of faith in the midst of extreme trauma. It is true that it sometimes is difficult to see God's provision and goodness in desperate situations when tragedy strikes. Nevertheless, the text calls upon us to look up and see God's goodness breaking into situations of despair. The true act of faith on the part of Abraham thus is not the blind faith that often has been the dominant message emerging from this text, but rather the ability to recognize God's provision in the ordinary, especially in those circumstances when everything appears to be futile.

Just as a follow up, yesterday as Sam and I were leaving a family party, Jareth called out across the pool, “Bye, Mimi,” in this low voice that really took me by surprise.  That little baby is now beginning to show signs of the young man he will become.  So glad God works in miraculous ways.

Our Collect today asks that we be made a holy temple, acceptable to God.  It is through obedience and faith in God’s providence that we are becoming that holy temple fully acceptable to Him.