Matthew 16:13-20

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist but others Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

We’ve all heard that actions speak louder than words. Talk is cheap. Put your money where your mouth is! But that doesn't seem to be the case for Jesus. Here are these twelve men, who for the past year or two have followed him everywhere he has gone, done whatever he has said to do, and listened to all that he had to say.

They’ve left their jobs, they left their families, and they put off whatever hopes or dreams they had for their own lives. Yet, Jesus still feels the need to ask them, “who do you say that I am”. I’d say that by these actions, the disciples made it pretty clear who they thought Jesus was.

Was this question some sort of litmus test or pop quiz? One where, if the disciples answer right, Jesus will give them a privileged spot close to him in heaven? Or maybe Jesus will love them more than he already does. Yet, that seems kinda silly. Jesus had already chosen them, invited them to walk alongside him, and teach them. He already loved them. None of that is dependent on the disciples saying the exact right answer.

Or maybe, like in any sport or a job or anything you want to do well, this question was practice, a training session. Afterall, there would be a time when the disciples would no longer have Jesus by their side. So perhaps it was preparation for the day when someone asks, “who is Jesus”? Granted they just said to Jesus not but two chapters ago, “Truly you are the Son of God”. But, that was after Jesus calmed the storm they thought would kill them. Just like no one is an atheist in a fox hole, it’s easy to profess faith after your life’s been saved. But Lord knows it won’t always be that easy.

The location for this training is no accident, Caesarea Philippi. The town was one of the most beautiful and luxurious in all Judea. Mount Hermon towers above the city just to the northeast, giving mountain views throughout the whole village. During Jesus' time, the city grew and controlled the areas around it. It was a center for the Roman empire, a largely pagan city with temples dedicated to Caesar August.

And before that it had been a place of worship to Baal.

It bears the name of both Caesar, after Caesar Tiberius the current Roman emperor, and Philip, the governor of the area. Philip also happens to be the son of Herod the Great, who plotted to kill Jesus as an infant, killing the children in and around Bethlehem. Maybe when he was old enough, Mary and Joseph told Jesus why they were refugees who fled to Egypt and finally landed in Nazareth.

Maybe they told him how even as a baby he was a threat to the Roman empire. Maybe they told him to be careful and avoid Roman city centers. Apparently, Jesus didn’t listen well, because of all places, he chose a rather dangerous one to test not only the disciples’ courage, but more importantly their allegiance and their understanding.

Which is what makes Peter’s answer an astounding profession. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Messiah meant that Jesus was the anointed one, the one for whom they had waited, the one who would redeem and restore Israel to her former glory, toppling the Roman government. Adding fuel to the fire, Caesar was known as the son of God. Putting it all together, Peter’s incendiary declaration is in direct opposition to all of the Roman empire. Jesus is the anointed king and true Son of God, not Caesor, not Herod, not Philip. Talk about courage and allegiance!

But Peter’s answer isn’t quite right. Or at least how Peter understands Messiah and Son of God isn’t the same as Jesus himself, as is made abundantly clear next week. Yet, it’s okay that Peter doesn’t have a perfect understanding of Jesus. Jesus still rejoices at this first step, at the courage and allegiance with which Peter answers, and promises to make Peter the foundation of the church.

When’s the last time someone asked you that question, “Who is Jesus to you”? What did you say? How did you answer? Or more likely, how would you answer? My guess is that you can’t remember the last time someone asked you this question, if you've ever been asked before. Yet, it is one we all have to answer.

The question behind the question though might be “why are you here? Sunday after Sunday why do you gather in this place, say these words, sing these songs, and eat that bread and wine? Why do you follow this peasant from Galilee?

This is the most vital question for us as Christians. Not because our answer needs to be perfect or our understanding of Jesus flawless. God’s love for you is not dependent on saying the exact right words or praying a certain prayer or knowing everything there is to know about Jesus and the Bible. Like the disciples, you are already loved by God, invited by Jesus into this life of discipleship, and nothing you say or don’t say will take any of that away. Peter certainly didn’t have it all right; he rebuked Jesus, abandoned Jesus as his time of need, and yet God still used him as the foundation to build the church.

The question is vital because how we answer, “who do you say that I am” says an awful lot about how we live our lives.. how we respond to the grace freely given us.

In a cultural that pines for your attention, telling you that innumerable things are more important than being a part of a faith community: your job, sports, money, comfort.

Do we have the courage to say in word and deed that because Jesus is the love and grace that sustains me, following him and growing in faith are paramount for me and my family?

In a country ripe with political divide and resentment, will we in word and deed proclaim that because Jesus rules and reigns over every power, he belongs to no party and, that as his followers, our allegiance is first and foremost to him.

So many people, pastors, and organizations will try and answer this question for you. Even in a world where nearly every bit of information you could want is accessible at the touch of your fingertips, no one can answer this question for you, not google or youtube or even chatgpt.

You and I have to have our own answer for who is Jesus to me? So consider this your training, your invitation to practice. This is the place where we work with one another to grow in understanding. The place we discern who Jesus is for us here, today, in this place, and in the community. Because the world needs an answer, not only in the profession of our words, but with the actions of our lives.

Amen.

Matthew 13:24-30

[Jesus] put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field, but while everybody was asleep an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”

Parables leave much to be desired. They are often unclear, leaving us with more doubt than certainty on their meaning. They are evocative, yet simple, using common elements from everyday life. Most parables don’t come with interpretations, which is why I didn’t read the one assigned with this text. Interpretations were often added later, much like the one given for our parable today and they can veer from the parable itself, allegorizing or assigning emphasis in a way that it wasn’t meant to. And so if we take the parable just as it is, we wonder “what is it about”?

Perhaps it's about evil. Even without the interpretation, its not a stretch for someone to read the weeds as bad things and the enemy as the devil. Yet, if its about evil, we don’t really get answers to the questions we might have. Surely it's not as simple as God wasn’t paying attention and the devil saw an opportunity. And nowhere in the parable are we told why evil is still a present force. If anything the parable simply confirms our experience in the world, that evil does in fact exist. We see it, we’ve experienced it, and if we’re honest we’ve likely participated in it, knowingly or unknowingly.

So if the parable isn’t about evil, what else then?

Perhaps it’s about who gets into heaven. Are we wheat or are we weeds? That’s what we really want to know after all: am I going to the barn or the burn pile? But this raises even more questions than the problem of evil. Is it eternally decided that you are a grain of wheat or a weed? How can you know? If you are a weed, is there any way to become wheat or vice versa? Science and gardeners would say no. You can’t plant an onion and get a tomato. So how could that ever be fair? If that's what the parable is about, God seems to be nothing more than an unjust gardener.

Yet, I don’t think that’s what this parable is about either..

More than anything, the parable is about ambiguity, decisions, and hope. The sower had a choice: pull the weeds and risk the wheat, or wait and live with the weeds growing right there beside the wheat. We too live in a world full of good and bad, wheat and weeds. And every month, every week, every day we are faced with decisions where the answers or the right choice isn’t so clear.

The parable exemplifies this more than we English readers realize. The word for “weeds” here does not apply to just any old weed, but rather something more specific. In Greek, the word is zizanion which is a type of weed we call darnel. Darnel looks just like wheat.

Take a look at this picture. Can you tell which is wheat and which is darnel?... When both crops are unripe and green, you can hardly tell the difference between them. When they are ripe, the seed of the darnel becomes darker than the wheat. If one consumes a lot of darnel, it is poisonous, causing awful damage to one’s insides, sometimes resulting in death. It can be a deadly error, mistaking weeds for wheat and yet it can be so hard to tell them apart.

The same is true in our own lives no? It can be so hard to tell the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, the just choice vs the unjust. Yet, we still have to make decisions:

Do I take this new job thats full of potential and uncertainty or do I stay in the life sucking, yet stable job that I’m in now?

Do I help my addict family member and if so how? Money? A place to stay? And yet will my family be safe?

Do I continue treatment that's worse than the disease or do I cut my life short?

Do I go to the school that’s the best or the most affordable?

Do I approach that family member, that friend about what they said or did or do I keep the peace?

Some decisions are harder than others no doubt. And often it’ll take time to know if we made the right choice, if we get to know that at all in this lifetime. What we do know is that we won’t always make the right decisions. As a congregation, in your families, and for yourself, we haven’t and we won’t always get it right. In thinking we are doing something good, we will pull wheat instead of weeds. And just when we think our crop is nothing but darnel, the harvest turns out to be the most beautiful wheat.

The decisions we face are difficult. The promise in this parable isn’t that because of our faith we will always make the right decision; Nor is the promise that our decisions are easier for us than for anyone else. And that's okay… because the truth is we aren't saved by our decisions, but by the grace of Jesus. The promise, then, of this parable is that regardless of our decisions, right and wrong, somehow God will sort it all out in the end.

That’s the hope by which we are saved, as Saint Paul says, meaning we need not fret or worry about every decision we get right or wrong. Instead, we are freed by grace: to live in the moment, to make our reverent best guess, and to trust that the only absolute in this life is the absolution we receive every time we confess when we got it wrong, just like we did today.

I am reminded of one of my favorite poems, one by Boris Novak aptly titled Decisions. He writes,

“Between two words

choose the quieter one.

Between word and silence

choose listening.

Between two books

choose the dustier one.

Between the earth and the sky

choose a bird.

Between two animals

choose the one who needs you more.

Between two children

choose both.

Between the lesser and the bigger evil

choose neither.

Between hope and despair

choose hope:

it will be harder to bear.”

Regardless of what decisions are before you or the ones you’ve already made, do not despair.

Choose hope, trusting not in your own decisions, but in the grace of Jesus, and believing that God will sort it all out in the end, judging not with fairness, but with mercy and love. Amen.

The Question we All Must Answer

Wheat, Weeds, and Hope