July 31, 2005 - First Thoughts

July 31, 2005

Genesis 32:22-32
Psalm 17:1-7, 15
Romans 9:1-5
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

First, it's necessary to state that I've deviated from the Lectionary this summer. Because of travel plans and guest speakers, I decided to let the Psalms, OT, and NT lessons carry straight through, and shift the Gospel lessons to accomodate somewhat for my travelling. While this changes the pairings of lessons, that's not altogether a bad thing, and some new interesting pairings have been made. This week we will look at Proper 13, except that we will be looking at the Gospel lesson in Proper 11. We'll get back on track by Proper 27.

Second, since I've been out of the pulpit a fair amount (we had a revivalist for two weeks, my assistant for two weeks, and a guest missionary for one week), this message does not necessarily connect to any message or series from the weeks prior. In fact, I will probably launch this sermon by talking about my missions trip to Ecuador, and then from this sermon move into a study the next several weeks on Jesus' parables and miracles. In particular, we will note the way in which Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God breaking in among us. We desire to be part of the movement of the Kingdom of God on this earth.

As I look at the text, I continually am drawn back to my experience in the dump in Ecuador. As I think about those 300+ people, I realize that they are considered "throw aways" by their culture. In fact, they may even be considered a hopeless cause by most Christians. And yet, the message of this Gospel lesson seems to be that "God don't make no junk." In fact, there are no "throw away" people until the final judgment. God is a god of second chances, one who doesn't want any to be lost...not even the weeds that threaten the wheat.

Aren't we all too ready to cast judgment and sort out the wheat from the tares now? We'd like to make the decision of who can live and who should die. I'm reminded of Gandalf's exchange with Frodo in the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring -

Frodo: It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill him when he had the chance.
Gandalf: Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.

While we might never try to "throw away" the children of the dump, we might ignore them in hopes that they would go away. We might give up on them. While we might not say that all non-Christians should simply be destroyed, we have essentially given up on them by failing to share the Gospel message with them. Our own actions betray our desire to bundle up the weeds and throw them away. Our own inaction speaks much, much louder than our words. All it takes is a visit to a mission field to see how ripe the harvest is to realize how ineffective our methods of North American evangelization are. We have become far too content in our comfortable churches, and are no longer patrolling the gates of hell to keep one more lost child from being found. Lord, forgive us, for we have sinned.

‘Not called!’ did you say? ‘Not heard the call,’ I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters, and servants and masters not to come there. And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world.
- William Booth

Grace and Peace,

PastorJon