Unity Lutheran Church + Chicago
follow us
  • Welcome
  • Who Are We
    • Eternal Flame Saints
    • History of Unity
    • Affiliated with
    • Welcome & Vision Statement
    • Constitution & Bylaws
  • Our Faith in Action
    • Concerts at Unity
    • Green Space
    • Social Justice
  • Space Sharing
    • Calendar
    • Picture our Rooms
    • Space Sharing Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Donate
    • Offerings & Gifts >
      • Unity Special Funds
  • Community Resources

Sermon by Rev. Fred Kinsey, "Living Together"

7/29/2017

0 Comments

 
Readings for July 23, 2017 the 7th Sunday after Pentecost
  • Isaiah 44:6-8 and Psalm 86:11-17  
  • Romans 8:12-25  
  • Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

"Living Together," Pastor Kinsey
Everywhere I drove in Iowa last week, on my vacation to a family wedding in Iowa City, I passed fields of corn.  Beautiful, healthy looking corn, already quite mature and tall.  The wedding took place a few miles outside of town in the bride’s home parish of “St Peter’s Catholic Church,” literally in the middle of acres and acres of corn!  A new community center across the street had a beautiful view of the rolling hills of corn as we watched the sunset on Friday night. 
 
Iowa is the corn capital of the US – followed closely by Illinois, of course.  Part of the reason the corn I saw looks so healthy is, there are no weeds.  No enemy of corn is able to take hold, because 93% of Iowa corn is GMO, genetically modified.  You buy the seed from the corporation who match it with their own certified pesticide, and who spray it on your crops as it grows, and like magic, no weeds, no critters, will come near.  Perfect crop every time! 
 
And what about the 7% of Iowa farmers that don’t go the GMO route?  Most are organic farmers. Organic farming recognizes that the plants, and weeds, grow together.  And that weeds aren’t necessarily all bad.  In fact, sometimes what we call weeds, used to be food, depending on what time, or what part of the world you live in.  For example, what we call pigweed is known as amaranth in Asia, South America and the Caribbean, and is a nutritious and tender salad, a beloved soup, or a tasty sauté. 
 
Which raises up the question, “What is a weed?” A standard definition is, that it’s a plant in the “wrong place at the wrong time.”  For example, a soybean plant in a soybean field, is a crop, but a soybean plant in a cornfield, that’s a weed!  So, in many situations, the so-called weeds are actually doing a lot of good. Weeds often have two or three times the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium as domesticated plants. This means they make good fertilizer when they break down.  You just have to make sure you cut them down before they go to seed – which is a pretty labor intensive way to farm.  (cf. www.christiancentury.org/article/2014-07/when-weed-weed)
 
And, if I read it right, this means that modern farming is not an equivalent to Jesus’ allegory of the wheat and the weeds – either GMO farming, or organic.  The first one, doesn’t ever have to confront weeds, killing off the enemy before he can even introduce the weeds, and the other considers them wayward foreigners that have lost their way and cuts them down to recycle their inherent nutritious value. 
 
Jesus assumes the weeds will be pulled, making it much too risky for the wheat, which could all too easily be pulled up at the same time.  Only at harvest can you separate them and also assure that the wheat will be fully mature. 
 
And, this assumption – that the wheat and weeds grow up and co-exist together – is what feeds the main point of the parable.  That allegorically, the fields – or “the world,” as Jesus says – are full of good and bad, of children of the kingdom and children of the enemy.  We all grow up together, for better or worse.  The sun and rain fall equally on the good and the bad – that’s how the world is!  Our world is a rich diversity of peoples.  In fact, we all, to a greater or lesser degree, fulfill that description of people who are individually a mix of both good and bad, of being well-intentioned and misinformed, privileged and bullied, discriminated against and extremely motivated, nerdy and sports minded, have done something foolish and got a break, cheated to get ahead and helped a friend in need, put a rival out of business and donated to a worthy cause, and so on. 
 
How do you separate out the wheat from the weeds when we all look so alike?  which is just what biblical commentators have pointed out – that one of the most common weeds that invaded wheat fields back Jesus’ time was the darnel weed, which looked nearly identical to a stalk of wheat!  And how easy it could be to cut down the wrong one! 
 
Jesus himself, was tragically cut down, in the assumption that he was a weed, an enemy who had infiltrated the field of the Roman Empire.  Jesus the Innocent One,
was crucified as an invader of the ‘kingdom of this world,’ ruled by strict hierarchy, with a merciless undemocratic iron fist, and by an endless machine of scapegoats that had been offered-up to keep the peace.  Jesus offered himself up, on purpose, with the knowledge of the Father, to bust through that old kingdom “since the foundation of the world,” as Matthew describes it, and to open our eyes and ears to “the kingdom of heaven!”  “Let anyone with ears listen!” as Jesus concluded our gospel reading today. 
 
The parable of the wheat and the weeds is not meant to teach us about farming.  Nor, on the other hand, is it to urge us to be complacent with the way things are – that since we can’t cut down the weeds now, we should just wait till the eschatological end of the age, when all those other bad apples will be righteously discarded in the furnace and, we’ll be saved.  No, the apocalyptic nature of this parable about the kingdom of heaven is an allegory of how Jesus the Christ has broken into our world, and the kingdom of God is now available to us, today.  This is about our lives now!  And it has consequences.  The good news is, we can choose today, for the kingdom of heaven. 
 
The gospel writer is illuminating an alternative understanding of the world, one that would directly oppose the Roman Emperor’s kingdom of Jesus’ time.  Our choice is, whose kingdom do we want to prevail?  Whose empire do we want to participate in?  (http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3350)
 
The structure of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus brought, limits how we can respond.  That is, we cannot conquer the enemy, using the enemy’s weapons of violence, bullying, and fear.  We are constrained by the cross and resurrection to love, as we take aim for an equality of justice.  But we are not constrained by the false structures of the kingdoms of this world whose purpose is to trick us into inaction.  We are not simply wheat or weeds, but children created by God in God’s image.  The structure of God’s kingdom is a life-giving one that can and will conquer the death-dealing of the enemy – that is our mission and ministry, even now. 
 
Therefore we reject all structures that sacrifice the wheat, in the name of burning up the weeds before it is harvest time – like racism, in all its forms; and capitalism, when and wherever it put’s profits above people; sexism and gender-norms, whenever it denies people for who they are; and war, whenever it claims it can falsely make peace, especially as an offensive weapon. 
 
When Jesus insists that we must live together, as wheat and the weeds, it is a prophetic word of wisdom that goes beyond our worldly knowledge of the way things work.  Jesus offers us an opportunity in this Good News, to re-create ourselves and our world with each new day, each new Son-rise.  This is the power of the resurrection in our world, and the in-breaking of the kingdom of heaven. 
   
So, let us grow strong together, that the harvest may be plentiful,
 and the feast to come, unending!  
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.