“Growing Together” Orange Congregational Church UCC, July 19, 2026, (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43) Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

When living in Lexington, Massachusetts, I often went grocery shopping right after worship on Sunday mornings.  As I was waiting in the checkout line one time, the man in front of me spotted a friend in the line next to us.  They struck up a conversation, and it wasn’t like I could go anywhere with my shopping cart full of groceries, so I heard them catching up and begin complaining about how crowded the store happened to be.  The man in front of me said, “I should have known better than to come shopping on a Sunday since you have to deal with all the holy rollers who just got out of church.”  And then both of them (no kidding) looked right at me.  I couldn’t think of anything to say and wondered if I missed a Scarlet Cross emblazed on my chest or something, self-consciously contemplating how they even knew that I had just come from church!  It wasn’t as if I was still wearing my robe and stole at the grocery store.  I internally cringed to think how these men would react if they knew that I was an ordained minister who had just led a worship service for a bunch of holy rollers (apparently). 

On the short drive back to the parsonage, all these snappy responses came to me of what I could have said.  Does that ever happen to you?  You think of the perfect thing to say after the fact?  The best response may have been the old joke, “Oh right, because in the Church we’re just a bunch of hypocrites?  Well, there’s always room for one more!”  Though with the perceptions of Christianity out in the world, we may want to first step back and contemplate why the negative view of Christians as apparently self-righteous holy rollers in the first place. 

For younger generations in particular, the view is often that Christians are anti societal progress.  Anti-science.  Anti-social justice.  Anti-women.  Anti-gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.  Anti-environment.  You name modern movements focused on human rights and protecting the Earth—the Christian Church may be against them.  This is unfortunately an all-too-common perception among younger generations.  There are many folks who identify as “spiritual but not religious” or state they have no religious affiliation.  Though let’s face it, many denominations and groups of Christians live up to those preconceived notions of being rather judgmental.  So is it any wonder that some people have stepped back or even stepped away from the Church if that is the only image of Christianity they are seeing and hearing?

Though hopefully you were sitting in your pew or watching from home and thinking, well that’s not us.  That’s not Orange Congregational Church UCC.  That’s not welcoming, inclusive Open and Affirming churches within the United Church of Christ.  And you are right, that does not reflect our beliefs in general.  But what happens when we do not tell people or show people that there is a different way of being Christian?  Because we are not a Church where you must check your mind at the door when you walk into the sanctuary.  Though how will people know that we exist, that we are real and that we are here for them?  Now, I could have said something to those two men at that grocery store in Massachusetts.  Truthfully, I got flustered.  It’s hard to defend our welcoming Christian faith when people already seem to have their minds made up about all of us.  However, our Christian witness increasingly matters in these increasingly divisive and complex times.

Now for long periods in our collective Christian story, we in the Church have sometimes emphasized who or what we are against and that it is all about us.  Our good works, our pure lives, our perfect way of being, our judgments about society and other people.  But we would do well to remember that grace is God’s gift.  We can’t earn it through being perfect or even by doing everything in our power to make this world a better place.  None of us need to boast about how awesome we are because it’s not about us. 

If we sincerely accept God’s gift of grace, then we will do good works because we just can’t help it!  Because ultimately, it’s not about us, it’s about God.  God is the giver of grace.  God is the giver of new life and second chances, and there is nothing we can do to earn that.  “Come, O Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing your grace.” [1] We are invited to open our hearts wide enough to receive God’s grace, and that will transform us in the end.  Our lives will not be the same.  

Part of the reason that the parable we heard this morning is difficult is because it appears to be about “us” versus “them.”  It plays into that perception that Christians are super judgmental.  We are the wheat (the saints).  And those terrible unbelievers out in the world (or in the line at the grocery store on a Sunday morning) are the weeds (the sinners) just ruining everything.  That feels incredibly harsh.  But what if there is a different way to understand this Parable of the Weeds among the Wheat?

Some New Testament scholars are not convinced that the “interpretation” section of the parable (verses 36-43) comes directly from Jesus himself.  Or maybe these words came from Jesus with heavy edits from Matthew.  That section of the parable that outlines that the sower is Jesus, the field is the world, the good seed is the children of the kingdom, the weeds are the children of the evil one, the enemy is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels?  This could be Matthew explaining Jesus’ parable.  That might be a better (and more historically accurate) way to read this Gospel text.  Due to the circumstances at the time Matthew was writing his Gospel, he did sometimes articulate the idea that “sinners” would get thrown into the outer darkness where there would be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  Matthew uses that phrase six times in his Gospel, though it’s only found in one other place in the entire New Testament.[2]  This would seem to explain why this parable seems overly harsh.  Because the explanation section has Matthew and his theology written all over it even including a typical Matthean refrain as opposed to Jesus explaining that people will be thrown into the furnace of fire “where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”[3] 

The words we can most confidently trace to Jesus himself—the words of the parable —actually emphasize patience.  It is a similar sentiment to what we heard last Sunday in the Parable of the Sower—that sower going out to sow and spreading kingdom seeds with abandon knowing that we cannot know the effects of our loving actions in Christ’s name and how seeds we scatter may grow in time with God’s help.  Because here’s what would happen in real life—these weeds were a troublesome plant whose Latin name is lolium temulentum.  These weeds that grew among the wheat were difficult for the farmer to deal with because they were so similar in appearance to the wheat.  These weeds can only be identified as such when they are ripe.  And if this weed was harvested with the wheat and the two plants were milled together to make flour, the flour would end up spoiled.[4]

In this parable, Jesus teaches that the weeds and the wheat are supposed to grow together.  Just let them be for now.  At harvest time reapers come along to gather the weeds and wheat separately.  Judgment is not for us.  New Testament scholar Arland Hultgren explains, “If indeed the kingdom is coming into being, or is imminent, it seems that the ingathering of persons into ‘a holy people’ should be taking place, and sinners should be driven out.  The teaching of this parable is that, no, the followers of Jesus are a mixed group, and they will be that way up to the end.”[5] 

Perhaps Christians are a mixture of weeds and wheat/saints and sinners.  Sometimes good people do bad things, right?  Sometimes if we are honest, we separate ourselves from God, from one another, and from who God is calling us to be.  None of us are perfect.  So maybe it is not simple to label people as “weeds” or “wheat” anyway (even if we have an impulse to do so sometimes).  The weeds and wheat grow together in the same field in the parable.  Maybe people are neither totally good wheat nor totally bad weeds because we are a mixture.  Maybe it’s not so easy to sort out “us” versus “them” at all.  And maybe that is the whole point of Jesus’ parable of the weeds and wheat growing together.  So maybe we can be slower to judge and quicker to love especially in the Church.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] “Come, O Fount of Every Blessing,” The New Century Hymnal #459.
[2] Arland J. Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary, 292-303.
[3] Matthew 13:42, NRSVUE.
[4] Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus, 296.
[5] Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus, 300.

Photo by Vlad Stawizki on Unsplash