<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body><div>Forwarded: </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div id="composer_signature"><div style="font-size:85%;color:#575757" dir="auto">Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device</div></div><div><br></div><div style="font-size:100%;color:#000000"><!-- originalMessage --><div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Judy <judy_boli@ecunet.org> </div><div>Date: 7/22/17 6:15 PM (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: Propertalk <propertalk.topic@ecunet.org> </div><div>Subject: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Proper 11A: “The Wheat and the Weeds” or “Sorry, I Didn’t Recognize You!” </div><div><br></div></div><div dir="ltr">
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">Dear Friends,</font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">This Sunday’s sermon is entitled “The Wheat and the
Weeds” or “Sorry, I Didn’t Recognize You!” and deals with the Gospel (Matthew
13: 24-30, 36-43).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Here it is: </font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Today we have one of the most
valuable of Jesus’ parables, “The Weeds and the Wheat”- so very usable for
sorting out our lives, our relatives, our friends, even our enemies and making
decisions about what to do about them.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>In fact, it’s one of the two parables of Jesus that has given the most
guidance for us in our feeding ministries through the years.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The parable of Jesus separating the sheep and
the goats in Matthew 25 (“Whatever you do for the least of these my sisters or
brothers, you do for me.”) informs us WHY we bother to help those experiencing
hard times in their lives.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This one
answers the question that so very often surfaces: what should we do about
people when we think they are just trying to rip us off?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I’m talking about the kind of situation in
which we’re not sure- there’s no clear-cut case.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Sometimes it’s like we’re between a rock and
a hard place.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Christian people have
entrusted us with their money to use for feeding the needy.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This means we are managing God’s money, so we
really want to take care of it for him and use it as he would want us to use
it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Then here comes someone asking for
food.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Maybe we’re running low.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Whatever- if we give it to this person,
perhaps a more needy family will come along, and then we won’t have anything
for them.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Do you see the problem?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This is when we remember this Jesus parable
and follow the rule: “If in doubt- feed.”<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>This parable offers three levels of insight- not only for
decision-making for our feeding ministry; it also offers insight for
decision-making for our lives. </font></font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The first level of insight involves
how we relate to other people.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Most of
the people listening to Jesus tell his story were farmers or at least
gardeners, so they were extremely familiar with plant care.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As you recall, often Jesus would make up a
story that was very similar to something that had really happened in the lives
of his listeners, so perhaps they knew someone with a wheat field who had an
enemy vandalize his farm by reseeding his wheat field with poisonous darnell
seeds.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Did you notice how the farmer
told his farmhands not to pull up the weed seeds because they would uproot too
many young wheat plants in the process?<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He said this for two reasons.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>First, it’s next to impossible to tell the difference between wheat and
darnell when the plants are young.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Second, the roots are so intertwined; damage would be done to the whole
root structure of both plants.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Good
advice, not only if you have a garden with wheat and darnell growing
together.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Good advice also if you are
trying to decide if you should tell someone off and kick them out of our
feeding ministry, our church, your family, or your life.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I’ve got a story for you.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There is a story about a guy who falls in
love with a beautiful woman and begs her to go out with him. “Be serious,” the
woman says. “You’re fat, bald, ugly and your wardrobe is atrocious!”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So the guy goes on a diet and loses 80 pounds
and starts working out at a gym. He gets a hair transplant and plastic surgery.
He even buys himself a new wardrobe. Finally, he goes back to the woman and
asks her what she thinks. “What a hunk!" she says, and she agrees to a
date.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So he arrives at her door with a
limo and driver. She emerges from her house radiant, promising him a
never–to–be–forgotten evening. As they walk together toward the limo, lightning
strikes the man. So now he’s lying on the street dying, and he cries out, “Why
now, God? Why now, on the happiest day of my life?”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>God answers. “Sorry, Sam. I didn’t recognize
you” (anonymous).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Now friends, if God
Almighty didn’t recognize him, what makes us think we can know enough about a
person to judge them!<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Did you notice the
Psalm, how God reminds us that he knows everything about us, he knows our
hearts, and there is nowhere we can hide from him?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>God knows the hearts of every single person,
but the problem (or blessing) is- we don’t.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>We don’t know what is in someone’s heart. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We don’t know why they choose to do what they
do.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That’s why Jesus says to wait and
leave the judging to God.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Not only don’t
we know all the facts, something else is involved.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Plants don’t change from poisonous weeds to
useful wheat, but people do.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We are a
jubilee church, a second chance church.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>God gives each of us many chances, and so must we.</font></font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Let’s look at
the second level of insight- how we relate to ourselves.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>An anonymous author said, “There is so much
good in the worst of us; and so much bad in the best of us that it ill behooves
any of us to find fault with the rest of us.”<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Remember last Sunday how we heard St. Paul lament about how hard it was
to live for Christ.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>How he kept doing
the things he didn’t want to do and not doing the things he wanted to do?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>(Romans 7: 18-19)<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Our job is to love other people and stop
worrying about their sins.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Jesus himself
reminded us to stop worrying about the tiny splinter that is in our neighbor’s
eye when we have a huge log in our own eye!<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>It’s the weeds in our own lives we’re supposed to worry about.</font></font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This brings us to the third level of
insight we can derive from this parable- the weeds.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Did you notice that God could use even the
weeds?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Fuel was scarce in Jesus’
time.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Darnell plants made great fuel for
cooking and warming cold hands and feet in miserable weather.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Who made weeds anyway?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>(God.)<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>What is a weed?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>(A plant made by
God growing where we don’t want it.)<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Has
anyone noticed the cement area that used to be part of a deserted parking
lot?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It doesn’t take long before the
weeds have almost broken up the cement.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Give them and the earthworms a little more time and that hard cement
will be returned to soft, fertile soil.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>There’s nothing like a mess of weeds, mistakes, regrets in our lives to
soften our hearts and help us understand other people and their difficulties
better.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s the weeds, the mistakes,
the “OOPS” that force us to replan our lives and lean on God and our Christian
friends for power, support, and regrowth.</font></font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So weeds and wheat- be patient with
them, don’t be too quick with judgments, check your own life, and watch for how
amazingly God turns weeds given over to him into wonderfully beautiful flowers.</font></font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font face="Times New Roman"><font color="#000000">For anyone who is
interested, this sermon and updated African-American wisdom statements are
posted on our parish’s web site under “Sermons & Stuff”. The address is: </font><a href="http://www.stpaulsepisag.org/"><u><font color="#0000ff">http://www.stpaulsepisag.org</font></u></a><font color="#000000"> .</font></font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">Blessed preaching,</font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">Judy Boli</font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">St. Paul's Episcopal Church</font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">Saginaw, Michigan</font></span></p>
</div>
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