With our routines and world upended by the Shelter in Place Order that affects all of California, we are looking for ways to stay connected during a mandate to physically stay apart from one another. This is a continuation of our time together, even though we’re in different spaces.
Opening Hymn • Come Ye Thankful People Come • Chalice Hymnal, 718
Opening Prayer
Lay Leader: Victoria Thomas
Special Music • Be Not Afraid • Mary Jo Renner
Reading from the Hebrew Scriptures • Wisdom of Solomon 12:13, 16-19
Lay Leader: Victoria Thomas
Epistle Reading • Romans 8:12-25
Lay Leader: Victoria Thomas
Tithes and Offerings
Checks can be mailed to:
Grace Community Church
C/O Rene Horton
P.O. Box 368
Auberry, CA 93602
Gospel Reading • Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Lay Leader: Victoria Thomas
Children’s Time | Special guest appearance by the aggressively affectionate KitKat
Families: You should have received mail from me last week with an activity packet and seeds for your children to plant. If you did not, please email me and I’ll make sure to get one out to you. If you are not in the Grace Church directory but would like to request a packet of seeds and activities email me your address and I’ll get it in the mail right away!
Church at Prayer and The Lord’s Prayer
All are invited to email me prayer requests for next week’s prayer, or to get in touch any time during the week. We are in the midst of an unprecidented global event, and I am available as a compassionate ear if you find you need to talk through what’s going on.
Hymn • In Christ, There Is No East or West • Chalice Hymnal, 687
The Message
Sermon Transcript
A few nights ago I was out on my walk, and I remembered how the sidewalks in my neighborhood were covered in chalk with inspiring notes of encouragement in those early days of Shelter in Place. You know, back in April, even though it feels like five years ago. People had signs in their yards that read “separated but together” or “Kings County Strong” and there was a unified sense of “we’re in this together” that seemed to connect everyone, even though no one was personally getting close to one another. The chalk has all washed away from the last rain shower we had in May, and homes have gone back to being individual entities, the construction paper hearts in the windows have faded or have been taken down completely. In the months in between early March and now we have divided again, and perhaps even more than we had before Shelter in Place. I desperately wanted to write in chalk my feelings on this on the sidewalk in front of my house, but how to even put into words succinct enough for the passing jogger to catch as they run by? I wanted it to be at once a rallying cry for us to support one another, and an apology for my own contributions to the division. But I also wanted it to be true, and how could I not be divisive with my own lawn sign that reads “we believe that…” and then it lists everything from black lives matter to listening to science. Taking a position is polarizing because we aren’t creative enough not to see everything as a binary. Division seems like its part of the way our brains are coded.
In the meanwhile, things are not getting easier, or better, or less stressful. People are still being infected with and are dying of COVID-19 at an alarming rate. There are things taking place in our country which we should be very worried about, the limiting and controlling of scientific information or unmarked vehicles picking up protestors are just a few. And we are divided. Intense debates on whether to open schools or begin the school year online. And we are divided. Which lives matter. And we are divided. I could go on, but you’ve all felt where the divisions pop up in your lives, among your families and friends, in your community. I hardly need to harp on them. But we are in a mess, and we’re so upset with our neighbor that we have a hard time loving them.
And it is with this sort of environment all around us that we approach today’s Gospel text. Last week we talked about soil, and making sure that our own soil was being tended to so that as the seeds, which are parable-speak for The Word of God, are scattered, we are ready to nourish and flourish, and so that we will weather the hard times, the good conditions and the droughts. From what I’ve already spoken about this morning, at least for me, it sure feels like we’re enduring a less than ideal time for growth. Maybe these are the rocky ground, or these are the thorns. Perhaps it’s drought. To continue with the theme of gardening, this week’s Matthew text introduces a different seed parable. The weeds and the wheat. On first reading, it feels a bit ominous. It is a bit ominous. The owner of the field sows wheat, and when everyone is away from the field, the enemy shows up and scatters the seeds of weeds, mixing them in with the good seed. Anyone who has gardened and is watching seeds sprout all at once knows the difficulty in at first discerning the weeds from the wheat, and then the difficulty in pulling those weeds, with their tangly, hardy roots up from the ground without uprooting the seed closest to it. The owner of this field wants to make sure that all the wheat has a chance to grow, and so it is given the less-than-ideal growing situation of making it to harvest among weeds. Greedy, water-sucking, nutrient-stealing weeds. At harvest, the weeds will be pulled and disposed of, and the wheat will then be harvested, living out its fullest purpose.
Jesus then explains that the owner of the field, the one who sows good wheat is the Son of Man. The field is the world. The good seed are the children of the kingdom. The weeds are…and this is the part I struggle with, because it has heavy and judgmental implications, the children of the evil one. The devil is the one who sowed them. The harvest is the end of the age, the reapers are the angels.
Okay, does anyone else hear a record scratch at this? It feels pretty heavy. Pretty, like, I dunno, how do we know which ones are the evil little weed-children and which ones are…us? This may be a harder parable for any of us who have been told by someone that we are not living up to Biblical standards, to those of us who have been called sinners. Where are we supposed to read ourselves in this parable with such baggage? And when we come to this with the baggage of the difficult growing conditions we’re experiencing, how does this parable affect us? What does it mean for us? How can it give us hope or foster our growth?
First, this is a story that reminds us that we are not the judges. This is good news, because no matter where you fall on the “called out as a sinner” scale, the judgment of others is not gonna stick. It ultimately is the work of God and of Jesus to do this. As we know from the Wisdom of Solomon reading, God judges with mildness, God is fair. We also know this isn’t a free pass to go out and oppress people willy-nilly or to do harm, because in the same breath we hear from that text that we are to be kind, this is part of the give and take. God is good to us and offers repentance and second chances and unending grace, but in return we are to be kind. A little side-bar about kindness. It is also easy to say that since we should not be the judges ourselves because that’s not in our job description, that this severely curbs our ability to seek justice. Being kind isn’t always being nice. Sometimes kindness looks like hard truths. Being kind takes more guts than being nice. Being nice can gloss over gross problems and smile like they were never there, which is harmful to those who are on the other end of those problems. Being kind takes more discernment, requires navigating conversations truthfully in order to create better outcomes. We are not judges of others based on what we perceive to be their sins, and we are to be kind (not nice!) because God is a redemptive, saving, powerful God. God will be the one who separates the wheat from the weeds. Our job description as children of the Kingdom, or if you like to use a term that is less kyriarchal, kin-dom, is not to judge, but to work, and work hard at reconciliation. There are some deep divides, but what if not everything was an either/or binary? What are the small ways we can begin healing conversations that are still truthful, but don’t alienate. How do we grow our field toward a plentiful harvest without succumbing to the energy-stealing weeds around us?
And then in our present situation, it’s not just people that feel like the weeds around us. If we look at everyone as someone who God loves deeply and dearly, it’s easier for us not to play judge. But let’s look at what we’re mired in. A certain amount of it is out of our control, I mean, there’s a pandemic taking place! We’re stuck in centuries-old institutionalized systems of oppression which benefit some and harm others. There’s a lot that feels out of control. Weedy. Last night I had a conversation with my daughter about her anxieties over this pandemic never ending, us never going back to normal. Never going to an art gallery without masks on again. It’s a real fear, and the weeds around us are fertilized and nourished by it. Our roots are becoming entangled in the roots of the weeds of all of these things happening. However, God is not willing to risk losing any one of us. God is our advocate, is our attentive gardener. If, in these months we’ve asking why God lets these things happen, this offers a word of explanation. Here we are, entangled, interwoven, stuck with the weedy reality of COVID-19, of injustice, of fear, of indifference. To pull it out would be to effectively pull our roots as well. There’s too much at stake for God to be the divine weed-puller so early on in our own development. So God monitors the situation. God tends the crop. Just because we’re saddled with an overabundance of goatheads, fiddlenecks, and foxtails doesn’t mean we can just sit back inactive. We can bear witness to the kin-dom of God even in all this, the presence of weeds doesn’t destroy all the wheat. The presence of evil, of impossible situations, does not destroy God’s goodness. Instead of being self-righteous judges as we put on our gardening gloves to pull some evil weeds, Walter Wink reminds us we can instead move forward by “naming” “unmasking” and “engaging” the “powers that be”—you know all those institutions and systems that we’ve talked about before. Knowing we aren’t the judges allows us to be kind, to do this work with love and accountability.
We won’t be in the weeds forever. The divisiveness, the sense of yuck, won’t last. God is watching, tending the garden, and will one day free us from the weeds. Amen.
Closing Hymn • Sent Forth by God’s Blessing