The mystery of good and evil
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series V, Cycle A
BRIEF COMMENTARY ON THE LESSONS
Lesson 1: Genesis 28:10--19a (C)
Upon hearing of Esau's plan to kill Jacob after Isaac's death, Rebekah spirits Jacob back to her relatives in her native land. It is an unsettling time for Jacob, leaving home and a fugitive. Jacob stops for a night at Bethel and in his dream God reaffirms the covenant he made with Abraham and Isaac. In the dream, Jacob views a stairway to heaven, probably a ziggurat, with the angels of God ascending and descending. This establishes Beth--el (house of God) as a sanctuary until the time of Josiah.
Lesson 1: Wisdom 12:13, 16--19 (RC, E)
God's sovereign rule and power.
Lesson 1: Isaiah 44:6--8 (L)
The Lord stands alone. There is no god beside him; he is the first and the last, the rock of salvation.
Lesson 2: Romans 8:12--25 (C); Romans 8:18--25 (E)
See Lesson 2 (RC, L) for Pentecost 8
Lesson 2: Romans 8:26--27 (RC, L)
The Spirit of God helps us in our weaknesses by interceding with God on our behalf.
Gospel: Matthew 13:24--30, 36--43 (C, E, L); Matthew 13:24--43 (RC)
The Gospel continues the parables of Jesus, which serves as a logical progression from last week's Gospel where we dealt with the mystery of germination and growth. This week, we are presented with the mystery of the weeds. The parable does not explain the mystery. We still don't know the origin or purpose of the weeds. Thus, this parable does not offer an explanation for the mystery of evil. It's considered a fact of our present existence, though it will be abolished at the harvest time, when the kingdom of God fully comes. Humans cannot uproot the evil without destroying the good; that job must be left to God.
Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 139:1--12, 23--24 (C) - ''Where can I go from your spirit?'' (v. 7).
Psalm 86:11--17 (RC, E, L) - ''I will glorify your name forever'' (v. 12b).
247
Prayer Of The Day
We thank you, gentle Lord Jesus, that you do not deal harshly with us, uprooting the good with the evil, but tenderly cultivate the shoots of faith and love. In Jesus' name. Amen.
THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION ON THE LESSONS
Lesson 1: Genesis 28:10--19a
The Lord stood beside him (v. 13). In Jacob's dream, he saw God standing beside him. Jacob was a fugitive from justice, cut off from home, with dim prospects for the future. God came to reassure him that he had nothing to fear because the Lord would be his protector and would bring his promised blessings to fruition.
A portable God. The ancients had it that each place and people had its god. Gods were considered to be tied to the real estate. Not so, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; he was God of heaven and earth; wherever his people would go, he would be with them to guide and protect (v. 15).
Lesson 1: Isaiah 44:6--8
Is there any god beside me? (v. 8). In our text, this is a rhetorical question. The answer: of course. However, this is a serious question which we can and should ask ourselves. In our lives, is there any god besides the Lord?
The rock. The prophet answers his own question about the existence of other gods. ''There is no other rock'' (v. 8). In our hearts and minds, there might be other gods but they are as sand. Only the Lord is the Rock of our salvation.
Lesson 2: Romans 8:12--25
Refer to Lesson 2 (RC, L), Pentecost 8
Lesson 2: Romans 8:26--27
Prayer beyond words. Many people conceive of prayer as talking to God employing certain vocabulary, syntax and style. In this text, Paul informs us that the Spirit of God prays in us and for us, and that the form that those intercessions take are not always verbal. God is less interested in our words than our hearts and when we get to the end of ourselves, the Spirit takes over.
Gospel: Matthew 13:24--43
The Church is not an English garden. Have you ever seen an English garden? They are so beautiful. The flowers are carefully arranged in rows, fanciful configurations and geometrical designs. You won't see a weed or an unclipped shrub. The garden is striking because it fits the design of its creator and all the parts fit together as one body. The garden is also notable because there are no weeds to detract from the flowers or suck out their life. The world which we inhabit is not an English garden; weeds are everywhere.
How to tell a weed. What makes one plant a weed and another a useful plant? Weeds are wild. You don't have to plant them or cultivate them. What's more, they're prolific. However that alone is not enough to classify a plant as a weed. What makes a weed a weed is that they just take up space. They produce no fruit to eat, generally, no flower of notable beauty. They monopolize space that could be better occupied by a more useful plant. Nature abhors a vacuum. It would rather have weeds than nothing at all.
The grim sower. Death is pictured as the grim reaper, a hooded skeleton figure, with scythe in hand. This parable pictures the Devil as the grim sower, who covertly plants weed seeds where there ought to be wheat.
248
The evil is a facsimile of the good. Evil is often pictured as a wart--faced monster. Actually, evil often puts on a glamorous face. The word in Jesus' parable that is interpreted weed should actually be tare. The tare was the bearded darnel plant. In its immature stages it looked almost identical to the wheat. Only when the tare put on its seed could it be distinguished from the wheat. Jesus said, ''You will know them by their fruit.''
The danger of pulling weeds. In my flower garden this spring, all kinds of little plants were popping up. I knew that some of them were flowers that had seeded themselves from last year and that others were weeds. The trouble was, I wasn't always sure which were weeds and which were flowers. There was a danger in pulling up what I thought might be a weed; I could have easily been mistaken. We may see some people as weeds and attempt to remove them from our lives, only to find that some of these were actually productive plants in God's field.
Holocaust. According to the interpretation of the Parable of the Weeds And The Wheat (vv. 36--43), the weeds will be separated from the wheat at harvest time. The wheat will be gathered to God and the weeds will be consumed in a holocaust. The holocaust by the Nazis destroyed some of the most fruitful of God's garden, but this holocaust, at the end of time, will destroy only the unproductive and the useless weeds.
PREACHING APPROACHES WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
Lesson 1: Genesis 28:10--19a
Sermon Title: The God Of The Past And The Future
Sermon Angle: In Jacob's dream, the Lord identified himself as the God of his fathers (Abraham and Isaac), representing the past, and the God who would go with him wherever he went (the God of his future). Like Jacob, we are inheritors of the faith of our fathers and our mothers. This gives us a sense of identity and continuity. Yet the Lord is not a static God; he leads us boldly into the unknown future. This provides a sense of mission and purpose.
Lesson 1: Isaiah 44:6--8
Sermon Title: Wholly Holy
Sermon Angle: God identifies himself as follows: ''I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god'' (v. 6). In other words, the Lord defines himself as being holy, set apart, totally unique. It is our task to bear witness to our holy God (v. 8).
Lesson 2: Romans 8:12--25
(See Lesson 2 (RC, L), Pentecost 8)
Sermon Title: The Gain Of Glory
Sermon Angle: Paul tells persecuted believers that the suffering and loss of the present are not worth comparing to the gain of glory (v. 18). They could avoid the pain but would not receive the gain. Like the champion athlete, we need to subject ourselves to a harsh training regimen now, to gain the crown of glory.
Lesson 2: Romans 8:26--27
Sermon Title: I Need A Little Help From My Friend
Sermon Angle: There are times for all of us when we come to the end of our ropes and we need a little help from our friends. Paul suggests that the Spirit is our friend, who takes over when we are weak and intercedes with God on our behalf.
Outline:
1. A friend is someone who is there for us during time of need
2. The Holy Spirit is our friend, helping us in time of need
3. The Spirit intercedes on our behalf
4. The Spirit sustains us when words do not come - 'sighs too deep for words''
249
Gospel: Matthew 13:24--43
Sermon Title: Enemy Unawares
Sermon Angle: In the parable, when the servants of the farmer came and asked him where the weeds came from, he pointed the finger at an enemy. This enemy had caught him unawares, working covertly under the cover of darkness. If you know your enemy, you can guard against him but not one that operates incognito. Jesus clearly taught that there is a spiritual foe, the Prince Of Darkness. His best strategy is covert attack.
Outline:
1. The mystery of the weeds (evil) perplexes us
2. The parable points to an enemy (Satan)
3. The Enemy plants his weed seeds under cover of darkness
4. If their servants had been vigilant, they could have prevented the sabotage
5. Be cognizant of the devil's covert and silent method of attack
Surprise is a key tactic for military strategists. In the early summer of 1944, the Germans were expecting the Allies to attack. The problem was, they didn't know from where. There were rumors of an attack from the northern flank, in Norway, though it was more probable the Allies would storm some of the beaches of France. The shortest route would put them in Calais, just across from the cliffs of Dover. To keep them guessing, the Allies created mock armies, circulated false information and made the Nazis believe that buildups were occurring in areas where there was no army. Since the Germans didn't know where the invasion would originate, they had to be prepared everywhere. This stretched their resources far too sparsely. When, on June 6, 1944, the Allies did attack, it was on Normandy, believed to be an unlikely place. Since the weather was so stormy, the Nazi general, Rommel, didn't think it likely they would attack at that time. He went home to be with his wife on her birthday. Without the successful element of surprise, the battle and the war might have turned out quite differently. We too must know our Enemy, his strategies, his tricks and subterfuge.
Sermon Title: Live And Let Die
Sermon Angle: When the servants asked their master what to do about the weeds, he told them to let them grow until harvest time, when the weeds would be gathered in bundles and burned, but the wheat would be gathered into the barn. His advice: let the weeds live until harvest, because in pulling up the weeds, one would also uproot some wheat. The weeds will be destroyed by the Lord Of The Harvest, at harvest time, after the weeds have borne their bitter fruit and the wheat their good fruit. Life and death is determined by the nature of the fruit.
There's good reason marijuana is called ''the weed.'' It grows wild, though it is also cultivated by growers for greater productivity. Marijuana is symbolic of all drugs to which people become addicted. You pull up a weed here and there but they keep rearing their ugly heads. Our government has embarked on a policy of interdiction, trying to weed out the illicit drugs before they reach our shores. Drug agents have sprayed fields of poppies and marijuana with herbicide. They have attempted to stop the flow of drugs through the transportation networks. Thousands of pounds of drugs have been destroyed or seized. Yet the drug problem has not abated. It appears we are losing the drug war. It seems that illicit drugs cannot be weeded out. Perhaps we should give more attention to prevention. Weeds grow best where there is an emptiness, a vacuum. Millions of our young men and women, boys and girls, experience a spiritual emptiness within. The pursuit of materialism, the breakdown of the family, the exaltation of the notion of free self--expression to the neglect of community, have created a huge void in the lives of our young. Nature abhors a vacuum and will soon fill it. Also, Satan and the forces of evil thrive in such circumstances. We are not going to solve the weed problem by attacking
250
them directly but by nourishing the good plants, so that they might grow and fill all the empty spaces. If our young people know the Lord, if they are allowed to grow in an environment of love, they will become so strong that there will be no room for the weeds.
Is the world like your lawn? It all depends. If you have the kind of lawn which I have, the answer is yes. My lawn is not like those from which all weeds and watergrass have been banished. You've seen the perfectly manicured outdoor carpets that you're afraid to even walk on. Over all, my lawn looks presentable. There is a fairly luxuriant strand of grass and, when it is cut, it looks quite nice. However, when it gets long, you can see the panoply of dandelion and a variety of other outlaw plants. The fertilizer/herbicide I put on once or twice a year doesn't seem to faze the weeds. Last year I tried to zap the weeds individually with some toxic stuff that's on the market but my dandelions just wouldn't die. I think I did manage to send one or two weeds to their eternal reward but 20 more weeds took the place of those who had gone to meet their Maker. I've decided to call a truce. Why drive yourself to distraction with perfectionistic tendencies? That's the way the world is, weeds and grass growing together. I just try to care sufficiently for the grass to enable it to live a good life. You people who possess those picture perfect lawns, get real!
251
Lesson 1: Genesis 28:10--19a (C)
Upon hearing of Esau's plan to kill Jacob after Isaac's death, Rebekah spirits Jacob back to her relatives in her native land. It is an unsettling time for Jacob, leaving home and a fugitive. Jacob stops for a night at Bethel and in his dream God reaffirms the covenant he made with Abraham and Isaac. In the dream, Jacob views a stairway to heaven, probably a ziggurat, with the angels of God ascending and descending. This establishes Beth--el (house of God) as a sanctuary until the time of Josiah.
Lesson 1: Wisdom 12:13, 16--19 (RC, E)
God's sovereign rule and power.
Lesson 1: Isaiah 44:6--8 (L)
The Lord stands alone. There is no god beside him; he is the first and the last, the rock of salvation.
Lesson 2: Romans 8:12--25 (C); Romans 8:18--25 (E)
See Lesson 2 (RC, L) for Pentecost 8
Lesson 2: Romans 8:26--27 (RC, L)
The Spirit of God helps us in our weaknesses by interceding with God on our behalf.
Gospel: Matthew 13:24--30, 36--43 (C, E, L); Matthew 13:24--43 (RC)
The Gospel continues the parables of Jesus, which serves as a logical progression from last week's Gospel where we dealt with the mystery of germination and growth. This week, we are presented with the mystery of the weeds. The parable does not explain the mystery. We still don't know the origin or purpose of the weeds. Thus, this parable does not offer an explanation for the mystery of evil. It's considered a fact of our present existence, though it will be abolished at the harvest time, when the kingdom of God fully comes. Humans cannot uproot the evil without destroying the good; that job must be left to God.
Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 139:1--12, 23--24 (C) - ''Where can I go from your spirit?'' (v. 7).
Psalm 86:11--17 (RC, E, L) - ''I will glorify your name forever'' (v. 12b).
247
Prayer Of The Day
We thank you, gentle Lord Jesus, that you do not deal harshly with us, uprooting the good with the evil, but tenderly cultivate the shoots of faith and love. In Jesus' name. Amen.
THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION ON THE LESSONS
Lesson 1: Genesis 28:10--19a
The Lord stood beside him (v. 13). In Jacob's dream, he saw God standing beside him. Jacob was a fugitive from justice, cut off from home, with dim prospects for the future. God came to reassure him that he had nothing to fear because the Lord would be his protector and would bring his promised blessings to fruition.
A portable God. The ancients had it that each place and people had its god. Gods were considered to be tied to the real estate. Not so, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; he was God of heaven and earth; wherever his people would go, he would be with them to guide and protect (v. 15).
Lesson 1: Isaiah 44:6--8
Is there any god beside me? (v. 8). In our text, this is a rhetorical question. The answer: of course. However, this is a serious question which we can and should ask ourselves. In our lives, is there any god besides the Lord?
The rock. The prophet answers his own question about the existence of other gods. ''There is no other rock'' (v. 8). In our hearts and minds, there might be other gods but they are as sand. Only the Lord is the Rock of our salvation.
Lesson 2: Romans 8:12--25
Refer to Lesson 2 (RC, L), Pentecost 8
Lesson 2: Romans 8:26--27
Prayer beyond words. Many people conceive of prayer as talking to God employing certain vocabulary, syntax and style. In this text, Paul informs us that the Spirit of God prays in us and for us, and that the form that those intercessions take are not always verbal. God is less interested in our words than our hearts and when we get to the end of ourselves, the Spirit takes over.
Gospel: Matthew 13:24--43
The Church is not an English garden. Have you ever seen an English garden? They are so beautiful. The flowers are carefully arranged in rows, fanciful configurations and geometrical designs. You won't see a weed or an unclipped shrub. The garden is striking because it fits the design of its creator and all the parts fit together as one body. The garden is also notable because there are no weeds to detract from the flowers or suck out their life. The world which we inhabit is not an English garden; weeds are everywhere.
How to tell a weed. What makes one plant a weed and another a useful plant? Weeds are wild. You don't have to plant them or cultivate them. What's more, they're prolific. However that alone is not enough to classify a plant as a weed. What makes a weed a weed is that they just take up space. They produce no fruit to eat, generally, no flower of notable beauty. They monopolize space that could be better occupied by a more useful plant. Nature abhors a vacuum. It would rather have weeds than nothing at all.
The grim sower. Death is pictured as the grim reaper, a hooded skeleton figure, with scythe in hand. This parable pictures the Devil as the grim sower, who covertly plants weed seeds where there ought to be wheat.
248
The evil is a facsimile of the good. Evil is often pictured as a wart--faced monster. Actually, evil often puts on a glamorous face. The word in Jesus' parable that is interpreted weed should actually be tare. The tare was the bearded darnel plant. In its immature stages it looked almost identical to the wheat. Only when the tare put on its seed could it be distinguished from the wheat. Jesus said, ''You will know them by their fruit.''
The danger of pulling weeds. In my flower garden this spring, all kinds of little plants were popping up. I knew that some of them were flowers that had seeded themselves from last year and that others were weeds. The trouble was, I wasn't always sure which were weeds and which were flowers. There was a danger in pulling up what I thought might be a weed; I could have easily been mistaken. We may see some people as weeds and attempt to remove them from our lives, only to find that some of these were actually productive plants in God's field.
Holocaust. According to the interpretation of the Parable of the Weeds And The Wheat (vv. 36--43), the weeds will be separated from the wheat at harvest time. The wheat will be gathered to God and the weeds will be consumed in a holocaust. The holocaust by the Nazis destroyed some of the most fruitful of God's garden, but this holocaust, at the end of time, will destroy only the unproductive and the useless weeds.
PREACHING APPROACHES WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
Lesson 1: Genesis 28:10--19a
Sermon Title: The God Of The Past And The Future
Sermon Angle: In Jacob's dream, the Lord identified himself as the God of his fathers (Abraham and Isaac), representing the past, and the God who would go with him wherever he went (the God of his future). Like Jacob, we are inheritors of the faith of our fathers and our mothers. This gives us a sense of identity and continuity. Yet the Lord is not a static God; he leads us boldly into the unknown future. This provides a sense of mission and purpose.
Lesson 1: Isaiah 44:6--8
Sermon Title: Wholly Holy
Sermon Angle: God identifies himself as follows: ''I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god'' (v. 6). In other words, the Lord defines himself as being holy, set apart, totally unique. It is our task to bear witness to our holy God (v. 8).
Lesson 2: Romans 8:12--25
(See Lesson 2 (RC, L), Pentecost 8)
Sermon Title: The Gain Of Glory
Sermon Angle: Paul tells persecuted believers that the suffering and loss of the present are not worth comparing to the gain of glory (v. 18). They could avoid the pain but would not receive the gain. Like the champion athlete, we need to subject ourselves to a harsh training regimen now, to gain the crown of glory.
Lesson 2: Romans 8:26--27
Sermon Title: I Need A Little Help From My Friend
Sermon Angle: There are times for all of us when we come to the end of our ropes and we need a little help from our friends. Paul suggests that the Spirit is our friend, who takes over when we are weak and intercedes with God on our behalf.
Outline:
1. A friend is someone who is there for us during time of need
2. The Holy Spirit is our friend, helping us in time of need
3. The Spirit intercedes on our behalf
4. The Spirit sustains us when words do not come - 'sighs too deep for words''
249
Gospel: Matthew 13:24--43
Sermon Title: Enemy Unawares
Sermon Angle: In the parable, when the servants of the farmer came and asked him where the weeds came from, he pointed the finger at an enemy. This enemy had caught him unawares, working covertly under the cover of darkness. If you know your enemy, you can guard against him but not one that operates incognito. Jesus clearly taught that there is a spiritual foe, the Prince Of Darkness. His best strategy is covert attack.
Outline:
1. The mystery of the weeds (evil) perplexes us
2. The parable points to an enemy (Satan)
3. The Enemy plants his weed seeds under cover of darkness
4. If their servants had been vigilant, they could have prevented the sabotage
5. Be cognizant of the devil's covert and silent method of attack
Surprise is a key tactic for military strategists. In the early summer of 1944, the Germans were expecting the Allies to attack. The problem was, they didn't know from where. There were rumors of an attack from the northern flank, in Norway, though it was more probable the Allies would storm some of the beaches of France. The shortest route would put them in Calais, just across from the cliffs of Dover. To keep them guessing, the Allies created mock armies, circulated false information and made the Nazis believe that buildups were occurring in areas where there was no army. Since the Germans didn't know where the invasion would originate, they had to be prepared everywhere. This stretched their resources far too sparsely. When, on June 6, 1944, the Allies did attack, it was on Normandy, believed to be an unlikely place. Since the weather was so stormy, the Nazi general, Rommel, didn't think it likely they would attack at that time. He went home to be with his wife on her birthday. Without the successful element of surprise, the battle and the war might have turned out quite differently. We too must know our Enemy, his strategies, his tricks and subterfuge.
Sermon Title: Live And Let Die
Sermon Angle: When the servants asked their master what to do about the weeds, he told them to let them grow until harvest time, when the weeds would be gathered in bundles and burned, but the wheat would be gathered into the barn. His advice: let the weeds live until harvest, because in pulling up the weeds, one would also uproot some wheat. The weeds will be destroyed by the Lord Of The Harvest, at harvest time, after the weeds have borne their bitter fruit and the wheat their good fruit. Life and death is determined by the nature of the fruit.
There's good reason marijuana is called ''the weed.'' It grows wild, though it is also cultivated by growers for greater productivity. Marijuana is symbolic of all drugs to which people become addicted. You pull up a weed here and there but they keep rearing their ugly heads. Our government has embarked on a policy of interdiction, trying to weed out the illicit drugs before they reach our shores. Drug agents have sprayed fields of poppies and marijuana with herbicide. They have attempted to stop the flow of drugs through the transportation networks. Thousands of pounds of drugs have been destroyed or seized. Yet the drug problem has not abated. It appears we are losing the drug war. It seems that illicit drugs cannot be weeded out. Perhaps we should give more attention to prevention. Weeds grow best where there is an emptiness, a vacuum. Millions of our young men and women, boys and girls, experience a spiritual emptiness within. The pursuit of materialism, the breakdown of the family, the exaltation of the notion of free self--expression to the neglect of community, have created a huge void in the lives of our young. Nature abhors a vacuum and will soon fill it. Also, Satan and the forces of evil thrive in such circumstances. We are not going to solve the weed problem by attacking
250
them directly but by nourishing the good plants, so that they might grow and fill all the empty spaces. If our young people know the Lord, if they are allowed to grow in an environment of love, they will become so strong that there will be no room for the weeds.
Is the world like your lawn? It all depends. If you have the kind of lawn which I have, the answer is yes. My lawn is not like those from which all weeds and watergrass have been banished. You've seen the perfectly manicured outdoor carpets that you're afraid to even walk on. Over all, my lawn looks presentable. There is a fairly luxuriant strand of grass and, when it is cut, it looks quite nice. However, when it gets long, you can see the panoply of dandelion and a variety of other outlaw plants. The fertilizer/herbicide I put on once or twice a year doesn't seem to faze the weeds. Last year I tried to zap the weeds individually with some toxic stuff that's on the market but my dandelions just wouldn't die. I think I did manage to send one or two weeds to their eternal reward but 20 more weeds took the place of those who had gone to meet their Maker. I've decided to call a truce. Why drive yourself to distraction with perfectionistic tendencies? That's the way the world is, weeds and grass growing together. I just try to care sufficiently for the grass to enable it to live a good life. You people who possess those picture perfect lawns, get real!
251
