WHEAT OR WEEDS?
by Bob Wickizer
Scripture: MATTHEW 13:24-30, MATTHEW 13:36-43, PSALMS 86:11-17, ROMANS 8:18-25
Wheat or Weeds?
Rev. Bob Wickizer
Psalm 86:11-17; Romans 8:18-25; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
18 July, 1999
As a youngster I have fond memories of driving trips from our home in southwestern Missouri to Denver Colorado with my grandparents. We usually spent the night somewhere in western Kansas and got up very early the next morning to drive across eastern Colorado and into Denver. The visual image that stuck with me more than the spectacular Rocky Mountains was the golden wheat fields of eastern Colorado in the late August early morning sun shining against the dark backdrop of the Rockies in the distance. Wave upon wave of golden wheat just gleamed in the reflected early morning sunlight promising all the excitement of a new day in a new place.
Today we are confronted with another gospel involving seeds, weeds and an agricultural parable. Unlike last Sunday where the people were the soil, this time we are the seeds themselves and we fall into one of two categories -- weeds or wheat. While the black and white nature of weeds and wheat may seem harsh, our society has always been based upon the idea of weeding people into one category or another. For example we constantly separate people into two groups such as those fit for Harvard, Duke or UNC and those who are not, those who make the football team and those who don't, and of course THOSE PEOPLE who are sinners and those of US who obviously are not. The whole process of selecting people, of judging them and weeding out those who are not fit for a particular purpose is so ingrained in our culture that somehow we have come to think of this process of weeding people as OUR God-given right. ----------- WRONG! The Gospel clearly tells us that God will collect the weeds of the kingdom and burn them while those whom God saves from this burning will shine like the sun.
So if God decides who is wheat and who is a noxious weed, what are we to worry about? And what can we do about it? Plenty. We have before us baby ...
Rev. Bob Wickizer
Psalm 86:11-17; Romans 8:18-25; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
18 July, 1999
As a youngster I have fond memories of driving trips from our home in southwestern Missouri to Denver Colorado with my grandparents. We usually spent the night somewhere in western Kansas and got up very early the next morning to drive across eastern Colorado and into Denver. The visual image that stuck with me more than the spectacular Rocky Mountains was the golden wheat fields of eastern Colorado in the late August early morning sun shining against the dark backdrop of the Rockies in the distance. Wave upon wave of golden wheat just gleamed in the reflected early morning sunlight promising all the excitement of a new day in a new place.
Today we are confronted with another gospel involving seeds, weeds and an agricultural parable. Unlike last Sunday where the people were the soil, this time we are the seeds themselves and we fall into one of two categories -- weeds or wheat. While the black and white nature of weeds and wheat may seem harsh, our society has always been based upon the idea of weeding people into one category or another. For example we constantly separate people into two groups such as those fit for Harvard, Duke or UNC and those who are not, those who make the football team and those who don't, and of course THOSE PEOPLE who are sinners and those of US who obviously are not. The whole process of selecting people, of judging them and weeding out those who are not fit for a particular purpose is so ingrained in our culture that somehow we have come to think of this process of weeding people as OUR God-given right. ----------- WRONG! The Gospel clearly tells us that God will collect the weeds of the kingdom and burn them while those whom God saves from this burning will shine like the sun.
So if God decides who is wheat and who is a noxious weed, what are we to worry about? And what can we do about it? Plenty. We have before us baby ...
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