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.

Luke 24:13-35

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" He asked them, "What things?" They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him." Then he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

We’re nearing the end of our “On the Road Again” series, so it’s fitting that today’s story is about Jesus’ last road trip before his ascension. This Emmaus road story is probably a familiar one, especially since Pastor Mark preached on this story a couple months ago. But this time the story hits me in a different way--as a message of hope and a reminder that God is always speaking to us.

I want to begin by telling you about my watch. A couple Christmasses ago my wife bought me a Garmin smartwatch. I don’t utilize 10% of what it is capable of; I just use it to tell time and keep track of my daily steps.

I quickly allowed that watch to determine my worth as a human being. Each night before I got into bed I would check my watch to see if I hit the magic total of 10,000 steps. Anything under 10,000 and I felt like I was a failure. Anything over and I felt like I couldn’t have possibly been a more fantastic human being that day. As far as measures of a man go, it was a pretty weak one; but at least it was quantifiable (unlike those other measures like character and relationships).

It should be noted, I did employ some mind games in relation to my daily step count. I noticed that I was not getting credit for steps when I mowed the grass (I guess that’s because I have a push mower and my hands are steady the whole time). Same thing when I went grocery shopping with a cart...no credit for those steps. So, on those nights when my count was under 10,000 I would mentally bridge the gap with whatever arbitrary value I needed.

What really hurt was when I discovered that the opposite was true; that is, my watch was giving me credit for steps that I knew deep down I did not earn. This was made explicitly clear following a drive to Chicago. I left early in the morning, not having gone for a walk before I left. I stepped out the car, glanced at my watch to double check I arrived on time, and noticed my step count had surpassed 5,000 for the day. Apparently my car needs new struts because the vibration convinced my watch I had been walking while in the car. I ended up with over 10,000 steps total that day; and as much as I tried to own it, I heard the little voice inside my head tell me my steps were a lie!

This watch is incapable of giving me an accurate reading of my actual steps, but it is pretty accurate with regards to my soul. Ever since I have owned and worn this watch, a little voice in my head has been telling me that not only was the step count not accurate, but also that it was counting things that ultimately didn’t matter. That’s not to say movement and activity is unimportant, but that certainly does not correlate with character.

I think about this when I read about the two Christ-followers who were on the road to Emmaus, all the while accompanied by Jesus himself, though they did not know it. The two characters were so focused on the wrong things (namely their disappointment and grief) that they missed the presence of Jesus. And yet, once Jesus was revealed to them in the breaking of the bread, one says, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"

You see, we all have little voices and burning hearts desperately trying to crack through the surface of our thoughts, but our egos go to great lengths to keep them submerged. These little voices and burning hearts are one of the significant ways that God speaks to us. God gives us permission, even encourages us, to pay attention to the whispers of our own burning hearts.

In the story about my watch, my little voice and burning heart-whispers were telling me to stop lying to myself about the steps; that they were not a measure of my success or value as a person.

In the story of the Emmaus road, the little voices and burning heart-whispers were telling them that Jesus was still among them, physically and materially, even though he had died.

I am confident that each one of you has a little voice and a burning-heart whispering profound, beautiful, and God-given truths to you. I am confident that each one of you, like me, and like those two on the road, usually fail to hear or heed them, often because you are too busy paying attention to the loud voices of your selfish desires or distorted impressions of yourselves.

Think back to a recent argument or conflict in which you were engaged with someone else. At any point did you hear a voice whispering, “You can let this one go; you can walk away; you can be right and not have to prove it by tearing the other person down.” But instead your pride and ego took hold, your heels dug in, and the conflict lingers still today. Please tell me I’m not the only one this happens to!

Think back to a recent time in which your thoughts were stuck on all the ways you are a failure or a disappointment. Maybe your first reaction was to numb yourself from that pain by watching another hour of television, scroll mindlessly through social media, stuff yourself with junk food, or pour yourself another glass of alcohol. In the midst of that, did you ever hear your burning heart whisper the truth that you were actually a beloved image-bearer of the divine and worthy of love and respect?

For some reason our negative and damaging thoughts carry more weight in our minds than positive ones. That is as true for us as it was back in Biblical times. The Emmaus travelers had faith in the good news that Jesus was alive; however, their disappointment and focus on the situation at hand kept that truth buried. It’s easy to let the bad stuff build up on the surface of our lives so much that it is all we end up noticing.

But hear the good news: those “good news” whispers became shouts and their burning hearts became raging fires of the Spirit through something as simple as the sharing of a meal after a long journey.

The two travelers had ventured far enough away from Jerusalem, far enough away from the center of their disappointment and pain, that Christ was able to break through to them through something as ordinary as a shared loaf of bread.

It took those travelers a 7-mile journey on foot. It took me a 200-mile shaky car ride. I don’t know how much distance you will need to put between yourself and all the lies you tell yourself; but I do know that God will break through the surface and fan the flame of your heart that had all along been burning with the knowledge and love of God. I’m not suggesting that you need to run away from your problems to solve them; but a little road trip often yields just enough perspective to see things for what they really are.

Amen.

Wheat, Weeds, and Hope

On the Road & Burning Hearts