Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43

Today Jesus tells another parable about sowing seeds, but this time there are two sowers. One sows good seed that will become wheat. The other, under cover of darkness, sows weeds among it. It’s all about telling the difference between weeds and good plants. So, for a few moments, I'm going to pretend I'm an expert on gardening. God help us—literally!

A little bit of botany might help us understand the story. Matthew uses the Greek word zizania, which most scholars think refers to darnel, a common weed in Israel. The problem is that, in its early stages, darnel looks almost exactly like wheat. You can't really tell the difference until the plants mature and the ears appear. The ears of real wheat become heavy and bow down. The ears of darnel remain upright.

That's important because it explains why the master tells his servants to leave everything alone. At first glance they simply can't tell which is which. When the servants discover the weeds they are horrified. "Master," they ask, "did you not sow good seed in your field? Where then did these weeds come from?" The master replies simply, "An enemy has done this."

Immediately the servants have a solution. "Do you want us to go and pull them up?" It sounds like such a sensible suggestion. Find the problem. Get rid of it. Root out the evil. Clean up the field.

But the master surprises them.

"No. If you pull up the weeds now, you will uproot the wheat as well. Let them both grow together until the harvest."

It is every bit as surprising today as it must have been then.

Because if we're honest, we rather like pulling weeds.

I'm sure we've all questioned why God allows evil to grow and thrive. We've all had moments when we've looked at the world and wanted somebody to do something about it. Sometimes we want God to act. And, if we're honest, we'd quite like to act ourselves.

We like the idea of separating the good people from the bad people. The righteous from the unrighteous. The wheat from the weeds. But Jesus says, "Not so fast."

One reason is simply that evil is often much more subtle than we imagine. Like darnel growing among the wheat, it isn't always obvious.

The other reason is that beneath the surface the roots are intertwined. Pull one up carelessly and you damage the other. The cure may end up causing more harm than the disease.

Later, when Jesus explains the parable to his disciples, notice the servants are not told to separate the wheat from the weeds. The angels are. In this parable, final judgement belongs to God.

Some scholars think Matthew's own church may have been struggling with people who wanted to purify the community by deciding who really belonged and who didn't. Whether that's true or not, it has certainly been a temptation for Christians ever since. Churches can become very good at weeding. We decide who is in and who is out for all sorts of reasons. But Jesus' parable warns us that every attempt to root out the weeds risks damaging the wheat as well.

I think we should thank God that the final judgement isn't entrusted to us. Our calling is to cultivate the wheat.

But perhaps the parable is even more uncomfortable than that.

At first it sounds as though Jesus is talking about two groups of people—the good and the bad. I think it's much more subtle.

The Russian writer and Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned in a Soviet labour camp and eventually exiled from his country. He experienced extraordinary cruelty. If anyone had reason to divide the world neatly into good people and evil people, it was him.

Yet he wrote these remarkable words:

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between (social) classes, nor between political parties, but right through every human heart... This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil… If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”

We would much rather believe that the weeds are always somewhere else—in someone else.

We like to imagine that evil belongs to another political party, another nation, another generation, another family. But Jesus won't let us think like that. Perhaps that's why he taught us to pray every day, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

Not because evil is only out there somewhere. But because our own hearts are not always pure. We don't always say what is kind and we don't always do what is loving.

There are weeds growing in our own hearts as well.

Perhaps that's why we find life so confusing.

We often live with the assumption that if we work hard, try to be kind and generally do the right thing, then life ought to work out as we'd planned.

That seems to be the servants' assumption too. When we ask "What happened?" "Who's responsible?"Jesus' answer is remarkably brief.

"An enemy has done this."

That's all he says. He doesn't explain the mystery of evil. Instead, he tells us that this is the reality of life in this age. Our world is a field where wheat and weeds grow together.

And perhaps they stand side by side within us too.

A man was stopped at a traffic light, waiting for it to turn green. When the lights changed, he was distracted and didn't move. The woman behind him gave a little toot on the horn. Nothing happened. She honked again. Still nothing. Before long she was leaning on the horn, shouting, gesticulating and pounding the steering wheel.

Just as the lights turned amber, the man woke up and drove through the junction. She was left behind, absolutely furious.

At that moment there was a tap on her window.

A police officer stood there.

"Madam," he said, "you're under arrest."

She was taken to the station, fingerprinted, photographed and put in a holding cell.

Several hours later the officer returned.

"I'm terribly sorry," he said. "It was all a misunderstanding. You see, when I pulled up behind you, I noticed the fish sticker on your car and another sticker that said, 'What Would Jesus Do?' Naturally, I assumed the car had been stolen."

Our lives are full of wheat and weeds. On the outside we may look like healthy wheat. But our inner thoughts, our impatience, our prejudices, our gossip, our resentment, our harsh judgements of others—well, sometimes they're rather more weed-like than we'd like to admit.

The point of this whole thing is that the field is complicated.

Our world is complicated. Our hearts are complicated.

Yet despite all those weeds, the Kingdom of God is still here.

The weeds do not overcome God's Kingdom. They do not make it disappear. It may not yet be the Kingdom in all its fullness, but it is the Kingdom nonetheless. Christ is still at work.

The good seed is still growing and we should cultivate it. Where we discern weeds are obvious, we can take them out.

But Jesus, interestingly, seems much more interested in growth than extermination.

He is patient and He nurtures the wheat.

And if we are to become more like him, perhaps our calling is not to become better weed-pullers but better wheat-growers.

To nurture what is good. To encourage what is true. To overcome evil with good.

At first sight, this can seem like a strange parable. It almost sounds as though Jesus is saying, "Just leave evil alone."

But I don't think that's quite what he's saying.

He is telling us that if we devote all our energy to hunting weeds, we'll miss the far more important task of growing wheat.

If we concentrate on becoming people who are rooted in Christ, filled with his Spirit, growing in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, then goodness begins to crowd out evil.

I think the other message this Gospel has for me is that Jesus loves the field of my life, even though my heart is full of weeds and wheat and, rather like my own back garden, I don't always know the difference. He doesn't abandon the field.

He watches me grow, he watches you grow. He is patient and believes that the good seed he has planted will bear fruit.

And that is incredibly good news. Because it means he loves us, not when we've finally sorted ourselves out, but while we are still growing.

He also loves the field of this church.

Even though this congregation, like every congregation, is full of wheat and weeds, he lets us grow together.

And perhaps it also invites us to love one another with that same patience.

Church life is not always easy. From time to time we prick one another like thorns and sometimes we can simply get on each other's nerves.

But perhaps instead of constantly looking for the weeds in one another, Jesus invites us to look for the wheat. To notice the goodness that is growing. To encourage the gifts we see in each other.

The line between good and evil does indeed run through every human heart.

But that is not the end of the story.

The end of the story is not the weeds.

The end of the story is the harvest.

Christ has planted good seed in his world.

He is patient while it grows.

He has not abandoned his field.

And one day, when he comes again, the weeds will be no more, and "the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father."

May we be people who spend less time pulling weeds and more time growing wheat. And may God, in his patience and mercy, continue to grow his good seed in each one of us.

Amen.

An unlimited banquet. You don't have to worry about how much you've had because someone else has already paid. There is no little sign saying, “Sorry, you've reached your limit.” The food keeps coming. You might think, “Well, I certainly don't want to waste this opportunity!”

But imagine that, having been told everything is included, you then turn to the person sitting next to you and say, “I'm sorry, you've had enough. You can't have any more.”

It seems rather unreasonable. You've been given something without limit, yet you are trying to put a limit on what someone else can receive.

And that is, in a much more serious way, what Jesus is getting at in today's Gospel. It is a story about unlimited forgiveness.

Peter comes to Jesus with what seems like a very reasonable question: “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? As many as seven times?”

Peter probably thought he was being generous. Seven times is quite a lot! If someone had upset you once, twice, or even several times, surely there must come a point when you say, “Enough is enough.” But Jesus answers, “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

Jesus isn't suggesting that we should carry a notebook and keep a tally. “That's twenty-three times forgiven—only fifty-four to go!” No. Jesus is telling Peter that forgiveness isn't something we measure and ration out carefully. It is more like an unlimited banquet. There is no sign saying, “One helping only.”

Jesus then tells a story to help Peter—and us—understand why.

A servant owes his king an enormous debt, far more than he could ever hope to repay. When the king calls him to account, the servant falls to his knees and begs for patience. But instead of simply giving him more time, the king does something extraordinary: he cancels the whole debt.

Imagine how that servant must have felt. One moment, he was overwhelmed by something impossible. The next, he was free. The burden had been lifted. He had been given a fresh start.

But then the story takes a shocking turn. That same servant goes out and finds someone who owes him a much smaller amount. Rather than showing the same mercy he has just received, he demands payment and refuses to forgive.

He has enjoyed the unlimited banquet—but he doesn't want the person beside him to have a seat at the table.

Jesus' message is challenging because it is easy to enjoy God's generosity for ourselves while finding it much harder to be generous towards other people. We are grateful that God forgives our mistakes, our wrong words and the things we wish we had done differently. But when someone hurts us, it can be much harder to let go.

We remember the unkind word. We hold on to the argument. We replay what happened in our minds. Sometimes we say, “I can forgive, but I can't forget.”

And we should be honest: forgiveness isn't always easy. Jesus isn't asking us to pretend that something painful didn't happen or to suggest that wrong things don't matter. Forgiveness doesn't mean saying that hurtful behaviour was acceptable. It doesn't mean that trust is automatically restored or that there should be no consequences.

But forgiveness does mean refusing to let bitterness have the final word. It means placing our hurt and our desire for justice into God's hands and allowing God's grace to begin its work in us. Sometimes forgiveness happens quickly; sometimes it is something we have to return to again and again.

The longest-running musical in the West End is Les Misérables. Some people love it, while others perhaps find it a little too long! But at the heart of its story is a powerful message that connects closely with today's Gospel.

Jean Valjean is a man hardened by years of suffering and rejection. When a bishop offers him shelter and kindness, Valjean steals his silver and runs away. When he is caught and brought back, he expects punishment. Instead, the bishop shows him extraordinary mercy. He tells the authorities that the silver was a gift and even gives Valjean more. It is a remarkable moment of grace.

Valjean expected condemnation but received forgiveness and a new beginning. That one act of mercy changes the direction of his life. The kindness shown to him becomes something that begins to shape the way he lives and the way he treats others.

This is the challenge Jesus places before us. When we truly understand how much we have received, it should change what we are prepared to give.

The servant in Jesus' parable had forgotten almost immediately what the king had done for him. Jean Valjean, on the other hand, is transformed by the mercy he receives.

The question for us is: which response will we choose?

Every time we gather for worship, we are reminded of God's generous love. We come not because we have earned our place at God's table, but because we have been invited. God's love is not something we can buy or deserve. It is given freely through Jesus Christ.

We are all guests at the unlimited banquet of God's grace.

And when we receive that grace, we are called to share it. Not to keep it for ourselves. Not to put limits on who deserves kindness, compassion or another chance. We are called to be people who reflect something of God's generosity in the world.

That might begin with something small: letting go of a minor irritation, choosing not to hold a grudge, saying sorry when we have got something wrong, or giving someone the opportunity to make amends.

Sometimes it may mean taking a first step towards reconciliation. Sometimes it may simply mean praying for the strength to let go of resentment, even if the relationship cannot be repaired in the way we might wish.

Peter wanted to know where to draw the line. “How many times, Lord?”

But Jesus moves the line completely. He invites Peter to stop counting.

Because God's forgiveness towards us cannot be reduced to a number. His grace is abundant. His mercy is generous. And the forgiveness we receive is not meant to stop with us.

So perhaps today we might picture ourselves sitting at that unlimited banquet. The table is full. There is enough for everyone. The invitation has already been paid for by someone else.

The question is not, “How much grace can I get for myself?”

The question is, “Having received so much grace, how can I share it?”

There may be someone we need to forgive. There may be someone from whom we need to seek forgiveness. There may be a hurt that we have carried for far too long and which we need to place gently into God's hands.

Whatever it is, we do not have to do it alone. We can ask God for the courage and strength to take the next step.

In the kingdom of God, forgiveness is not a limited resource. There is no point at which God says, “Sorry, you've reached your allowance.”

Instead, we meet a God whose mercy is abundant, whose grace is generous and whose love always has room for one more at the table.

Amen.

Romans 12:9–21

I wonder what comes into your mind when you hear the word love. For some people, it is flowers, chocolates and romantic music. For others, it is a cup of tea appearing at exactly the right moment without anybody having to ask, and then, of course, there is family love. Family love is a wonderful thing. It is also the reason why some people can say, “I love you very much, but if you put the milk back in the fridge empty one more time, I cannot be held responsible for my actions.”

And church is rather like that too. We sometimes talk about church as being one big happy family, which is lovely until we remember what families are actually like. We have different personalities, different opinions and different ways of doing things.

For good reason, I suspect, Paul, writing to the Christians in Rome, says, “Let love be genuine.”

Paul does not say, “Have warm feelings towards everyone.” He does not say, “Try to be vaguely pleasant if you can manage it.” Instead, he gives us a picture of love with its sleeves rolled up. Love that honours one another, serves, perseveres when life is difficult, gives generously, welcomes strangers, rejoices with those who rejoice and weeps with those who weep. And then, just when we think Paul has asked quite enough of us, he says: “Bless those who persecute you… Do not repay anyone evil for evil… If your enemies are hungry, feed them… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Romans 12 begins, “In view of God’s mercy…” Paul is not saying, “Do all these things and perhaps God will love you.” He is saying, because God has loved you, this is what love can begin to look like in your life.

So this morning I want us to think about three things: loving one another genuinely, loving people when life gets difficult, and loving even when it is not returned.

First, Paul calls us to love one another genuinely. Genuine love is not pretending that everything is wonderful when it isn’t. It is not smiling sweetly at somebody during the Peace and then criticising them before you have reached the church door. Genuine love means wanting the good of another person. It means noticing them, taking an interest in them and being willing to give something of ourselves for them.

The spiritual writer Thomas Merton said, “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves.” That is harder than it sounds, because sometimes we would quite like the people we love to be themselves, but perhaps a slightly improved version of themselves. But genuine love begins with recognising that another person is not here to become our project. They are a child of God. And that applies in our families and it applies in the church.

Paul says, “Outdo one another in showing honour.” Now, as you know, I like a competition! Imagine this. Not, “Who has the best ideas?” or “Who has been here the longest?” or “Who has done the most?” But who can be the first to encourage somebody else, notice the person sitting on their own, give somebody else the credit, or simply say, “Thank you. That was wonderful”? This is genuine love. It is love which recognises that we belong to one another and that other people’s flourishing does not diminish our own.

Perhaps that is one reason why the death of Dolly Parton this week has caused such widespread sadness. Of course, she was a hugely successful singer and songwriter. She was funny, talented and had a larger-than-life personality. But people did not only admire Dolly; they felt affection for her. She seemed to have the rare ability to cross all kinds of boundaries and still leave people feeling that she was on their side. Her friend and colleague Jenifer Lewis called her “a general in the army of LOVE”, and I think that says something about why people felt her loss so deeply.

She had a memorable way of talking about love. One of her best-known songs, I Will Always Love You, was itself a song of parting without bitterness, written when she left a difficult professional relationship. Its great line, “I wish you joy and happiness, but above all this, I wish you love,” perhaps says something about why people felt they knew her. She had a way of speaking about love as something bigger than possession or agreement: a willingness to wish the other person well.

That leads to Paul’s second point: love people when life gets difficult. He says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.” In other words, be present to one another’s lives. Sometimes love means celebrating with somebody, but sometimes it means sitting in the difficult place with them. And both can be surprisingly hard. When somebody else’s life seems to be going wonderfully while ours is difficult, can we genuinely be pleased for them? And when somebody is grieving, suffering or facing something we cannot fix, can we resist the temptation to rush in with an answer?

Sometimes the most loving thing we can say is simply, “I’m here.” That sounds simple, but it is not always easy.

And we must also love when others don’t love us. It may be the brother or sister we have not spoken to for years. It may be the adult child who has hurt us, or the parent whose words still echo in our minds. It may be a difficult neighbour. It may be somebody in the church family who seems to have a particular gift for irritating us. In those relationships, Paul asks us a difficult question: what would love look like here?

Sometimes it will look like reconciliation. Sometimes it will mean saying sorry. Sometimes it will mean accepting an apology. Sometimes it may mean taking a first small step rather than waiting for the other person to take one. But sometimes love will also mean setting a boundary. Christian love does not mean pretending that abuse is acceptable or putting ourselves back into danger. Paul himself says, “If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” That is a wonderfully realistic sentence. If it is possible. We cannot control another person’s response. We cannot force somebody to apologise. We cannot make somebody want reconciliation. But we can ask: what depends on me? Can I stop feeding the resentment? Can I refuse to pass bitterness down to the next generation? Can I pray for the person I find difficult, even if the first prayer is simply, “Lord, you know I don’t really want to pray for them, but here we are”?

That brings us to the final and hardest part of Paul’s teaching: love even when it is not returned. “Do not repay anyone evil for evil… If your enemies are hungry, feed them… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Paul is not asking us to be doormats. He is not telling victims to remain in dangerous situations. He is not saying evil should not be named or that justice does not matter. He is saying something different: do not let somebody else’s behaviour determine who you become.

That is the danger, isn’t it? Somebody hurts us and we hurt them back. Somebody shouts and we shout louder. Somebody is unkind and so we become unkind. Somebody spreads gossip and, before long, we are contributing another little piece of information which, of course, we only mention so that people can pray. And before we know it, evil has reproduced itself. Paul says: stop the cycle here. Do not allow evil to create more evil through you. Do not let the wrongdoing of another person steal your own capacity to love.

There is a wonderful biblical picture of this in Joseph. His brothers betray him, sell him into slavery and spend years living with the consequences of what they have done. Eventually Joseph is in a position of enormous power over them. If anyone had an opportunity for revenge, Joseph did. Instead, when his brothers come to him hungry, Joseph feeds them. That is not weakness. It is extraordinary strength. Joseph refuses to allow the evil done to him to become the thing that defines him.

We do not have to become great saints of forgiveness overnight. We simply have to ask what Paul asks us to ask: where is there an opportunity, in my ordinary life, for good to be stronger than the evil or hurt I have received?

First, love genuinely. Look for practical ways to honour, encourage and care for the people God has put in your life, especially in your family and in the family of the church. Second, love when life is difficult. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Do not imagine that love always has an answer; sometimes love simply stays. And third, love even when it is not returned. Refuse to let the wrong that another person has done determine the kind of person you become. Seek peace where you can, forgive where you can, protect yourself where you need to, and refuse to allow evil to have the final word.

Because the great truth beneath all these instructions is this: we love because God first loved us.

And so, by the grace of God and in the strength of Christ, let us not be overcome by evil, but let us overcome evil with good.

Amen.