Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

It is a general rule that the longer any one of us is a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, the fewer non-Christian friends we have. Knowing that general rule, this exercise might prove a little difficult for some of us. The exercise is to think for just a moment of what you think or what you believe or what you know to be the number one reason so many people in this world are not believers in God or why so many people who were raised as followers of Jesus Christ have walked away from their faith.

It maybe comes as no surprise that the most common underlying reason that most people do not believe in God or have wandered from their faith is the problem of pain, the problem of evil, the problem of problems, the problem that belief in God does not guarantee a person a perfect, beautiful life. Maybe you’ve heard the questions that go like this: “If God is so good, why did He allow that to happen?” “If God is so great and powerful, how can He permit so much suffering in this world?” “If God is love, why is there so much hate in this world?”

Let’s be honest for a second. I don’t think it would be untrue to state that those questions are not just asked by unbelievers or by those who have walked away from their faith. I don’t think it would be untrue to state that those questions have probably at one time or another ruminated around in the minds of or rolled off the tongues of most os us followers of Jesus Christ. Let’s face it. Life can be downright unfair. Life can sometimes not make any sense. Life can often seem to have a very weird sense of humor.

So how about it? How do we deal with and how do we answer questions like “If God is so good, why did He allow that to happen?” “If God is so great and powerful, how can He permit so much suffering in this world?” “If God is love, why is there so much hate in this world?”

To most people who allow those questions to keep them from believing in God or for those who have allowed such questions to lead them away from God, the automatic, easiest answer to all those questions is that God must indeed not be good or great or powerful or love because if He were any of those things He would not allow the things that happen in this world to happen.

Today’s Gospel tells a little different answer to those questions. The Parable of the Weeds explains a lot. Imagine the horror of the servants who were likely charged with the responsibility of watching their master’s possessions – including his crops and his fields – when they saw weeds growing alongside the wheat. Notice their initial reaction. Not wanting to be at blame for not doing their job of watching over those fields, they automatically blame their boss, their master: “Sir, didn’t you purchase and sow good, quality, top-of the line, Grade-A seed?”

Once that little matter gets resolved, with the blame rightfully placed at the feet of evil enemies intent on financially destroying the landowner, then surfaces the question, “What now?” “Do you want us to go out and pull up all those weeds?” “No, let them grow for now because I don’t want to further hurt or damage or compromise or destroy any of my crop. We’ll deal with the weeds later. You can count on that.” What motivated the landowner to delay destruction of the weeds? Was it a lack of love for his wheat? Was it some sick, perverted plan? No. It was precisely because of his great love for the wheat and for wanting to better protect it and better strengthen it that the landowner delayed the destruction of the weeds, allowing the two to co-exist, never overlooking the weeds, never forgetting about the weeds, never forfeiting the plan to destroy the weeds.

Now, with that in mind, apply and interpret the parable like Jesus did. Jesus is the landowner, the master, the sower of the seed. The field is the world. The wheat crop are believers in Jesus Christ. The weeds are all the minions of the devil. The evil enemy who sowed the weeds among the wheat.

That very simply explains this world and the events that happen in it. God often gets the blame for pain and problems, for disease and death, for all the “weeds” that make life in this world so unpleasant. The automatic assumptions is that if God allows that stuff, He, at the very least, must be powerless to do anything about it and, at the worst, He must condone – and even be a co-conspirator – in what He sees in this world. In the minds of many people God is to blame, plain and simple.

The Parable of the Weeds gives us a different perspective, God’s perspective:

1) Our God CAN do something about the weeds in this world at any time He desires, but if He were to do so there would be immediate consequences for you and for me, consequences that may even be worse for us than living with weeds around us throughout our lives.

2) Our God DOES NOT CONDONE the weeds. If He did, He would not have pronounced what is often called the first mention of the Gospel in Genesis 3:15 but which is also the first written pronouncement of punishment – that He would send a Savior and that Savior would totally crush and destroy evil.

People think that the presence of pain and evil, for disease and death indicates an absence of God in this world, indicate a lack of care and love for this world, but that’s simply not the case. Instead we have a God Who did not just look over His corrupted field from a long way off and shake His head in disgust and walk away, intent on starting over and doing better somewhere else. No, we have a God Who so closely identified with us and Who so deeply loved us that He Himself took on our flesh and entered our very world. He did not steer clear of problems during His earthly life nor was His life pain and problem free. He knows how painful and inconvenient are the weeds in this world and that is why on Calvary’s Cross He spoke words that made the sky darken, those words that made the earth shake as every evil received it’s final verdict: “IT IS FINISHED!”

That promised destruction of evil enduring power was shattered. The devil may have struck Jesus’ heel and the devil may strike our heels. But the devil’s head has been utterly crushed, shattered into powerless smithereens, by Jesus’ Words and by His actions.

That’s why whenever we gather here to say goodbye to the body of a fellow wheat stalk in the world, we say “Thanks be to God Who gives us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” Are we saying that life was easy for that wheat stalk? No. Are we saying that life was pain-free for that wheat stalk. No. But we are saying that God is not powerless. We are saying that God does indeed care. We are saying that God is love and that He is faithful and true to His promises, that He indeed weeds out everything that causes sin and all who do evil and that His righteous ones will shine like the sun, perfect, redeemed, saved.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena