Sunday, July 19, Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church
“The War of the Weeds”
Scripture Readings: Ps. 119:57-64; Isaiah 44:6-8; Romans 8:18-27; Matthew 13:24-43
Service Order: Divine Service IV with Holy Communion, Lutheran Service Book
Hymns: “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” #892; “O Little Flock, Fear Not the Foe” #666; “Lord, Keep Us Steadfast In Your Word” #655
Dear Friends in Christ,
We remember on this day our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who suffer persecution on account of their faith. “Martyrs” is the word we use sometimes to describe those willing to “suffer all things, even death,” for the sake of Jesus.
Just what is a martyr? The word conjures up images of Christians in the arena, men and women facing wild beasts and lions. Most people think that to be a martyr, a person has to die. Being a martyr is more about living than dying, though. In the original Greek language, a martyr is simply a witness, or even more, a faithful witness to Christ. A martyr is someone faithful to Jesus in spite of all circumstances; faithful even in the face of persecution – and faithful even to death, if that’s what it should come down to.
And what do we mean by “persecution?” Again, that word brings to mind pictures of dungeons and prisons, stretching racks, beatings, and torture. Persecution is sometimes harsh like that, but mostly it comes in quieter and more subtle ways. Persecution is whatever bias we might encounter for being open about our Christian faith. It can be mild as social approbation, mockery, and being laughed at and such. It can take the form of economic, legal, or political bias against us, just for being who we are and saying aloud what we believe.
The worst forms of persecution could happen to us – violence, bloodshed, and murder against us. (It’s happening all over the world today; please pray for our brothers and sisters in Africa and Asia, China and North Korea, the Muslim countries and the Middle East. In Britain, Europe, and even Canada, you can go to jail if your prayers “offend” someone). We’ve been blessed here in American to avoid that kind of thing, so far anyway. But we’re called to be faithful in all other circumstances, too, in good times or bad. Martyrdom doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll have to die for our faith; but it does mean we have to openly live for Jesus, and be faithful witnesses for His sake, no matter what devil or the sinful world may do to us for it.
What we’re fighting is the “war of the weeds” that Jesus tells us about. The children of God, the people of faith, the believers in Jesus Christ, are always trying to point the world upward toward the light, by keeping God’s truth spoken and keeping Christian love alive. And the devil’s people, the unbelievers -- the weeds, Jesus calls them – are always trying to choke out the good, put the Good News to silence, and wrap the whole world in darkness. It’s a literal war we’re talking about, a spiritual war being fought for the souls of men. “Our struggle in not against flesh and blood,” St. Paul says, “but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
Satan’s only hope in this fight he knows he can’t win is to somehow keep the Word of God from travelling from your lips and mine to other people’s ears. “Faith comes by hearing,” and the devil knows that faith is the end of him. So he burns and bans and suppresses the Word, and brings persecution on those who are bold enough to speak the truth of it aloud. And we win, in the end, by being faithful witnesses and by refusing to be silent. So we Christians can’t be neutral, or choose to sit on the sidelines and be non-combatants in this war. The truth is, if you’re not fully and completely on the Lord’s side, you’re serving the enemy instead; there is no middle ground in this fight. Jesus had harsh words, in fact, for those who wanted to stay in the lukewarm middle. (Ptoo!) Evil only grows if no one fights it, and the weeds will take over if we don’t keep hacking away at them.
So, who with any sense would choose martyrdom? Why would anyone volunteer for such a thing? I think it was Martin Luther who said, “Martyrdom isn’t something we should seek, but something we must accept if it should come our way.” “Consider,” says blessed St. Paul in our reading in Romans 8. Consider, reckon, weigh the thing in the balance, count the cost. Our present sufferings, as he calls them -- what we’re going through or are about to go through for Jesus’ sake -- what are they, anyway, compared to the glory, joy, and everlasting peace Jesus has promised for us if only we’ll remain faithful?
“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed,” Paul says. So who in this world is wheat, and who is a weed? The truth is, it’s sometimes hard to tell, until the fruit shows itself for what it is. The word for “revealed” that Paul uses here in Romans is “apocalypse,” and people often have the wrong idea about that word, too. “Apocalypse” calls up images of a sudden disaster, an Armageddon, the end of the world. But an apocalypse only means “a revealing.” For we Christians, the revelation of Jesus, the day of His coming, will be a happy and glorious day. “Stand up and lift up your heads,” says Jesus, “for your redemption is drawing near.” Come, Lord Jesus! It’s the day we’ve been waiting for! For those who don’t know Him, though, not so much…
So all God’s creation, says Paul, is waiting for the day when the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, will be at last made clear. “The creation was subject to frustration,” he says. That is, to futility, vanity, and hopelessness. That frustration began when Adam and Eve fell into sin in the garden, when God’s good creation was cracked and broken by sin; and it’s been falling, crumbling, and becoming more and more broken as time and the years go on. It is really frustrating to see the world going to pieces, when it seems like there’s so little we can do about it. But, says Paul (and says God), the world isn’t so hopelessly broken as it seems, but waiting patiently for Christ to come and make it right again.
And isn’t the same thing true for you and me? What are we waiting to be liberated from? We who have been redeemed and made holy in Christ, we who have been changed by God’s good grace from weeds destined for the fire because of our sin, to being saved, forgiven, blessed wheat, destined for a home in heaven – what are we patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) waiting for?
Creation itself, says Paul, will at last be “liberated from its bondage to decay.” That means no more weeds, no more sin, no more pain, no more sorrow or death, ever again. One day, but not yet, we’ll be free from all that awful stuff. Jesus our Lord has been crucified for our sakes, His blood poured out to pay the price for all our sin; and He’s been raised from the dead for our sakes, to break the power death once had over us. Glorious freedom, for sure, not to have to worry about death or hell anymore. Now we can turn our hearts and our attention to better things!
“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time,” Paul says. “Groans together” means that all human beings share in the common calamity of the fall into sin. Suffering and death is a shared human experience, whether you’re counted among the weeds, or you’re part of the blessed basket of Christian wheat on this day.
What makes the difference, says Paul, is that we who know Christ have “the firstfruits of the Spirit.” We have the blessed saving faith that gives us hope in it all, even while we suffer along with the rest of the world because of the things that go on. We who’ve been washed in the blood of Christ and baptized in His name and adopted by grace into the family of God -- we’re not sitting here terrified, waiting for some apocalyptic disaster to happen, or some “extinction event” like they show in all the movies. We’re waiting for our final redemption, the day when “our bodies will be changed to be like His glorious body,” and the day when everything that causes pain or suffering or death will be gone forever. That day will mark the true beginning of these lives of ours, not the end of them.
And, blessing on top of blessings, says good St. Paul, we have the Holy Spirit, in us and with us and beside us, to help us whenever we’re feeling weak. The presence of the Holy Spirit, by the way, is the big difference between being a “wheat person” or a “weed person.” We have the Holy Spirit, the devil’s children do not. And only we Christians have the power of prayer, the blessing of taking our trials, troubles, and persecutions to God and knowing that He’ll hear us. We have the blessing of knowing that when we cry out to God to save us, He’ll see the name of Christ written on us come quickly to our aid; those who do not know Him have no such heart-lifting guarantee. The Spirit intercedes for us, for we Christian people. He searches our hearts and He knows all our needs, even at those times when the only prayer we can manage is a groan.
So, says Jesus in His parable, "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.” Jesus is the sowing man, the good seed is the Gospel, and the field is the heart of every human being. “But while everyone was sleeping,” says Jesus, “his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.” It looks like the enemy likes to sow his seed while God’s people are spiritually sleeping. That’s why Jesus warned us, “Watch! Stay awake! Don’t let Me find you sleeping when I come.”
So here we are. There are weeds among the wheat, sin within the hearts of every person, and sin and decay have been sown into the very fabric of the world -- and so “creation is subject to decay.” The weeds are growing up alongside the wheat in this place, always threatening to choke out the good in us, and any good there is in the world. The word in the Greek for “weeds” here is zizania, or what we know today as darnel. Darnel is a poisonous type of ryegrass, which looks just like wheat when it first comes up. When it ripens, though, unlike wheat that’s golden, nutritious, and beautiful, darnel produces seeds that are toxic and poison and black. Jesus’ word picture is that there are wicked people sown among the saints of God – “having a semblance of God,” Paul says, “but denying His power.”
In Jesus’ parable, the owner's servants came to him and say, “Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?” It’s the age-old question: If God is so good, why is there still suffering in the world? Is it that God can’t fix it, or that He just doesn’t care? And if He can fix it, what in the world is He waiting for? The only answer we have – and I’ll admit it’s a somewhat unsatisfying one – is that the creation has been left “subject to frustration” until the day Jesus comes. The frustrating war of the weeds goes on until then; and God’s people are going to have to put up with being choked and squeezed, mocked and abused, persecuted and even killed for the sake of their faith, and as a witness to the world around them. How much flack are we going to get for daring to speak out and call a weed a weed, or a wrong a wrong, or a sin a sin? (Ask John the Baptist about what the world will do to you for daring to speak truth to power).
“Let both grow together until the harvest,” Jesus says. “At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.'" So the wheat is what’s golden and good in the world, and the darnel is everything poisonous and black – and only the final harvest will show the world at last which is which. At the Judgment, the separation of the sheep and the goats, the true children of God will be revealed, and the liars, fakers, and hypocrites will be shown at last for what they are. (That’s why Jesus warned us to be careful about judging people by outward appearances; He’s the Judge, not you or me).
There has to be a difference in us today, though, here on this day, that the world around us can clearly see -- because this difference Christ has made in us is the very thing that will draw people to Him. We Christians are different on the inside -- in peace, hope, and joyfulness, and by the presence of the Holy Spirit inside us. Our Baptisms have changed us, the body and blood of Christ has changed us, faith in Him has changed us forever on the inside, in a way that no one without that faith can ever comprehend. (That’s “the peace of God that passes all understanding” we like to talk so much about.)
But this faith inside us needs to shine through on our outsides, too, if we’re going to do the world or anyone in it any good. Our faith should be “bearing fruit” in the way we conduct ourselves in the world, and in the words we choose to use (“Out of the heart the mouth speaks,” Jesus says), and in the mercy and kindness we’re able to show. (“They’ll know we are Christians by our love,” the old song says). In that way, the difference between the “wheat people” and the “weed people” should be obvious. It will show as we go about doing as Jesus did, and as He’s taught us to do – that is, showing love to those who hate us, forgiving those who hurt us, and praying for those who would persecute us. It will show in “turn the other cheek” and “blessed are the meek” and “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
“For though we live in the world,” St. Paul says, “we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” So the war of the weeds goes on, as we walk back out into the world. Their side has the guns and the armies and the power of governments. We have “the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God,” and a Savior who speaks by His Spirit through a Holy Book. I like our chances, don’t you?
Merciful Father, help us to fight this good fight of faith, until all of us are together in heaven at last. In Jesus’ name; Amen.
Rev. Larry Sheppard, M.Div.
Trinity Lutheran Church, LCMS, Packwaukee, WI
St. John’s Lutheran Church, LCMS, Oxford, WI
pastorshepp@gmail.com