Sunday Homily - July 19, 2020 - Can You Tell the Difference?

Seedlings for Gardens [Old Farmer's Almanac]

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah 44:6-8

Psalm 86:11-17

Romans 8:12-25

Matthew 13:24-30,36-43

I.

Ever since the COVID-19 virus has been present in the U.S. in mid March

 and most of our lives have been spent at home since then,

  there has been one particular thing that has been a constant source of joy

   for all members of my family:

    our family garden. 

Gardens are magical.

Just think about it:

 even with all the wonderful produce you can get at Walmart or Harps,

  there is nothing like a garden-fresh snap pea

   that comes fresh from the plant. 

    In fact, I remember vividly as a kid

     when I had one of my first snap peas from the garden,

      I was like, "There is NO way this is a vegetable. It tastes too good."

I used to think my dad was nuts for how much he liked tomatoes.

 Even through college, tomatoes were only for cooking in dishes.

  Fresh ones were just weird...

...and then I had an Heirloom Tomato,

 which is a tomato from an older species that used to grow more widely in the Americas,

  and it was like I was eating a completely different vegetable.

   Again, I was like, "There's no way this is a tomato. It tastes too good."

But gardens do a whole lot more than just make food.

 Making food is the final product.

  The lead up to it is just as incredible,

   if you take the time to pay attention.

For example, 

 when we started our little square foot garden, 

  we had to make the plot and condition the soil.

Thankfully, we have a lot of gardening places around to help with that,

 and we got our little garden plot all carefully measured out and ready.

Then comes the seed planting and the growing season.

 As my daughter will tell you,

  seed planting is exciting!

   But it takes a slight bit longer to get the final produce

    than we sometimes might like at first.

In the meantime, however,

 we wait.

And then, suddenly, one day,

 a little green leaf shoot appears. 

  We get excited because there's something growing!

    I didn't even have to tell it to grow,

     it just did it by itself!

But, there comes a time in every amateur gardener's life

 when a sneaky question starts appearing in your mind:

  "Uh...is that a snap pea plant or a weed?"

As exciting as it was for us to watch our little plants poke up with their first leaves,

 there were more than a couple of times where I was like,

  "Boy, I sure hope those are the plants we planted!"

Because there is another, less exciting part about gardening:

 and it is a little activity called "weeding."

  Its when you have to pluck all of the other things that want to grow in your nice garden bed

   to make sure you have plenty of room for your garden vegetables.

Weeding isn't very exciting.

 It requires that you know a little about which plants you planted

  and, more importantly, 

   how to spot which plants you DIDN'T plant. 

It takes practice, 

 research (thanks, Google!)

  and careful attention.

But in the end,

 when you commit to weeding, watering, and tending,

  your little garden plot will produce magical items,

   such as tomatoes and snap peas that taste like a completely different thing

    than the ones you might find at the grocery store.

For an amateur gardener,

 weeding out the invading plants from your planted vegetables

  isn't too terrible a task,

   as it is usually pretty easy to spot a maple sapling in the middle of your radishes.

    They look pretty darn different.

But there are some invading plants that look so similar,

 that even the expert gardener has trouble with them.

II.

Let me introduce you to one of the more infamous plants in human history:

 lolium temulentum. 

  Also known as "darnel,"

   or "cockle,"

    or, perhaps its most famous name,

     "tares."

Yes, it is very likely that the same plant that Our Lord Jesus brings up in his parable

 is this little plant that looks so much like wheat

  that in some regions of the world,

   is is called "false wheat."

    [Craig Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, pg. 387]

In fact, wheat and tares look so much alike

 that an ancient Greek botanist Theophrastus theorized that wheat transforms into tares,

  and that is why wheat fields often yield this pest plant [De causis plantarum, 8:7 §1].

   Thankfully, Theophrastus was wrong about this,

    but it shows just how similar these plants looks!

But the danger isn't just that the plants look alike.

 It is in the fruit they produce.

Whereas wheat produces the precious kernels that are used to make bread,

 the staple food on the dinner table,

  tares often get infected with a fungus

   that turns the fruit produced by tares

    into a deadly substance that mimics drunkenness. 

     In fact, the French word for tares decends from the Latin word "ebriacus"

      which means "intoxicated."

       [Leroi, Armand Marie. The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science. Pg. 296–297]

One plant produces food for the hungry.

 One plant intoxicates and kills.

It is really important to know which one is which.

But the use of these two plants takes on even greater significance this morning

 in the way that Jesus tells the parable.

  Because Jesus isn't just talking about plants:

   he is talking about the Kingdom of Heaven!

And it is really important to note the wisdom and mercy that Jesus explains

 in the parable that is told.

  The wise sower of the field, who sowed the good seed

   didn't jump the gun and just rip up his field just because the evil enemy

    sowed the deadly tares.

     Rather, he instructs not to gather until the harvest time,

      and then when the reapers gather,

       the wheat can then be separated from the tares

        by expert gardeners who know the difference between them.

Likewise, Jesus tells us pretty plainly not to get too concerned about the fact

 that there are wheat and tares growing together,

  with the only telltale sign of the difference being their fruit. 

   As Jesus also says in several other passages of Holy Scripture,

    you will know someone by the fruit they bear.

     (c.f. Matthew 7:16 and etc.)

But something that is easy to miss if we pass over it too quickly

 is that during the growing season,

  before the produce in the harvest,

   it is nearly impossible to tell the wheat and tares apart from each other.

 

The little green plants that shoot up initially,

 the leaves growing beneath the sun,

  the care of watering and weeding from other invading species,

   all of that is done for the wheat and tares alike. 

    In the parable, literally no one knows the deadly difference between these two plants

     until you see their fruit in the harvest.

And Jesus teaches us that this is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.

III.

It is so easy to get caught up in the game

 of who is a true follower of Jesus and who isn't. 

This person is a true Christian,

 but that other person, oh boy, don't let them fool you!

This person loves Jesus,

 but watch out for you-know-who!

This happens all the time, you know?

 We all judge other people's eternal destinies

  even though Jesus tells us not to do that. 

We even do that between denominations, right? 

 In U.S. Christian denominationalism (which is objectively unusual in Christian history)

  people can just choose where to go to worship on Sundays.

   And when one place disappoints you,

    U.S. consumerism just says, "Go somewhere where YOU want to be."

     Because if one denomination disappoints you, 

      that means no one in that denomination can love Jesus, right?

How about political affiliation?

 Oooo, yep, I just went there.

  Who are you voting for in the elections:

    those nasty tares or the clearly good wheat?

     

Or do we actually listen to Jesus and Holy Scripture and take caution from this partisan thinking

 because we have to admit that we might not be able to tell the difference?

The whole point of this parable,

 dear friends,

  is to caution us from thinking that we can tell someone's eternal destiny

   based upon our judgment of their lives.

God's job is judgment, 

 because God is perfectly just, merciful, and gracious.

  We, brothers and sisters, ain't God.

And rather than that being a problem,

 it is a profound freedom and release!

Thank God that we don't make that determination,

 because we wouldn't be able to do it justly.

  Thank goodness that Jesus does it.

And since Jesus is the one who does it,

 it is good for us to listen when he tells us what the Kingdom of Heaven looks like.

And here's what Jesus says about it:

The wheat and tares are going to get watered and weeded all the same as they grow.

 Nobody knows the difference between the two until the harvest.

  When the harvest happens, the two will be separated by the One who knows the difference.

    And we are called not to worry about the difference, 

     but instead to focus on our relationship with Christ in holiness.

Grow in the soil and ask God for the nutrients to manifest the fruit of those who love Jesus:

 caring for all people, regardless of who they are,

  giving of our goods to those who have none,

   caring for those who have no one to care for them,

    praying and talking with God every day,

     living into our Baptism by walking in the ways that Jesus calls us to,

      and all the while keeping our hearts on the love of God and Neighbor.

If we focus on those things,

 we need not worry about other people's eternal destinies.

Jesus, the good gardener, will sort us out in the end.

 Our work in the meantime is to grow and produce good fruit:

  good fruit for the Kingdom of Heaven. 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.