In Christ You Shall Shine Like the Sun, O Wheat of God’s Field – Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43
“Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father.” (Mt. 13:43) Amen.
“The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you all.” (2 Tim. 4:22) Amen. Last Sunday we heard how our Lord Jesus has sown the seed of His life-giving Word upon us, making us rich, wheat-bearing soil. In fact He’s scattered His saving Word upon all mankind, so that everyone may believe in Him and bear fruit as we do. But alas, many either throw Jesus’ Word back in His face, or they believe It only for so long, before casting It away as worthless.
We were also cautioned to not “despise preaching and God’s Word” (S.C., Explanation of the 3rd Command.) ourselves, since we’re vulnerable to slipping away from the Christian faith due to our sinful nature.
Above all, we were comforted by the Holy Spirit Who keeps us steadfast in Christ and His Church through His Holy Word and Sacraments, so that we remain in Jesus always. (See Jn. 15:4)
This morning our Lord tells us another seed-sowing parable about the Kingdom of Heaven. Once again, He, the Son of Man, sows His good seed over the face of the earth, since the earth, and everything in it, is His. (See Ps. 24:1) But then our enemy the devil intrudes and sows weeds among the wheat. When the wheat sprouts up, the weeds grow up alongside it.
Just as weeds don’t take kindly to stalks of wheat but invade their turf, the sons of the evil one press in on us, the children of God. This is why the Master’s servants ask Him to let them pull up the weeds and be done with them. If we could be rid of those on Satan’s side, then no one would trouble us.
But such thinking lacks the foresight of our Lord and Master, Who replies: “No. If you pull the weeds now, you might uproot the wheat with them.” (Mt. 13:29) The godly might be yanked up with the godless, or the righteous swept away with the wicked, as our father Abraham would say. (See Gen. 18:23) The reason being that the wheat of God and the weeds of the devil grow side-by-side. It’s near-impossible to tell which is which. Only in the Judgment can they be rightly distinguished and separated for good.
This makes Christ’s course of action the wisest and best: “Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into My barn.’” (Mt. 13:30)
Dear saints of God, as “the Author and Perfector of our faith,” (Heb. 12:1) Jesus has planted you as the fine wheat of His field through water and His Word. “By grace you have been saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8) alone in your Redeemer. You are sons and daughters of your Father in Heaven!
As for the weeds or children of the devil, since he has sown them; they’re his. They’re like Satan; they do what he does. They set themselves against God and us.
The weeds are different than the three bad soils in last week’s parable. Each of those soils refused the Word of God and faith in Jesus one way or another. The weeds call God their Father just like you – His true children – do. And they call you their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. As you do, they claim a seat in the congregation of the saints and a place in the Kingdom of God. Yet where your beloved Father has given you a seat in the banquet hall of His Church, and a place in His heavenly Kingdom, they’ve seized both for themselves. (See Mt. 11:12)
So the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds teaches us that non-Christians are found inside the Christian Church. You’d think that this can’t possibly be so; that God would never allow it. But in His divine wisdom He has. False Christians or hypocrites – as they’re called in our Lutheran Confessions, outwardly blend in with us. They appear to be Christian, but aren’t.
The Rev. C.F.W. Walther, a founding pastor of our LCMS, wrote: “True Christians, who alone belong to the true Church, are mixed with false Christians, like wheat with weeds. Who can now distinguish the true Christians from the false ones [in the] Church? No one” (Walther, God Grant It) can. Holy Scripture bears this out. Did godly Abel know that his brother, Cain, was a secret unbeliever who hated God? Was Abel aware that Cain dishonored the Lord with a false offering, or that he planned to kill him? And when did St. Peter become aware that the pretenders Ananias and Sapphira were lying to God and cheating His Church? Only when the Holy Spirit outed them to the apostle as fake believers.
We who are in Christ must acknowledge that there are those among us who draw near to the Lord with their lips, while their hearts are far from Him. (See Mt. 15:8) Even if we don’t want to believe this, we must. We may try to dismiss it, but we can’t.
Based on how weeds work, “hypocrites are a…danger to true believers.” (pericope.org/buls-notes/Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43) In John 6:66, a bunch of Jesus’ followers left Him and His teaching in their dust. They refused to believe that He, a man, was also their only true God and Savior. Their rejection of Jesus was a real temptation – for those who remained true to Him – to also ditch faith in Christ. Yet Peter, speaking for the rest, and for every Christian ever since, said: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that You are the Holy One of God.” (Jn. 6:69)
No doubt Judas Iscariot also worked to undermine the faith of the other disciples. Yet Jesus kept teaching and “preparing [them] so that they would not fall prey to the ‘evil one.’ True to His own Word, the Son of Man did not uproot Judas then and there. On Judgment Day Judas will be shown as a worker of iniquity.” (pericope.org/buls-notes/Matthew 13)
False Christians oftentimes work to weaken and unravel the faith of the faithful. By pushing back at the pure doctrine of our Lutheran Christian faith in our presence – in order to get us to do the same. By taking shots at Christian morality and godly conduct to our face, so that we might abandon decency. Oppose all such things, just as you renounce the devil and all his works and ways. “Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children [of God,] do not conform to the passions of [this age.] But just as He Who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do….” (1 Pet. 1:14-15)
Take comfort in Christ, Who, as the Lord of the Church, shields and protects you from those who’d attack your soul. No harm will befall you as your Lord gathers you, His wheat sheaves, safely unto Himself, into His abode.
“When you are frustrated over the sinful apathy of those who claim to be Christian but refuse to follow Christ, don’t rush to judgment,” ((G.N., CMS, Issue 10, The Kingdom of God: 17) but run to our parable. Late LCMS Pastor Harold Buls remarked: “[We] penitent sinner[s] may often be frustrated by the impurities in the visible Christian Church. But [we] must remember that [we] too [are] sinner[s] and that, except for the excommunication of [obvious] and impenitent sinners, [we are to treat] fellow members…in an evangelical manner.” (pericope.org/buls-notes/Matthew 13)
“Do not pass judgment before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts.” (1 Cor. 4:5) When you pass judgment in your heart on another person in the congregation, repent of wanting him or her uprooted from the Church. Lay this sin on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, so that you’re not judged for it.
“Christ suffered for you.” (1 Pet. 2:21) He – in His body pierced and His blood shed for you – atoned for all your sins and ills. “By His wounds you are healed.” (1 Pet. 2:24) By His precious death and His glorious resurrection from the dead for you, you are Christ’s holy and pure wheat! Yet even the weeds of the world have been died for. God delays Judgment Day, in part, for their sake.
You can’t really tell who the weeds are in Church, so don’t try. Just “love one another,” as Christ loves you and gave His life for you. (See Eph. 5:2) And “through love serve one another.” (Gal. 5:13) “Do good to everyone.” (Gal. 6:10)
Awhile back, a certain member of one of the congregations I was serving in central Texas was displaying a mixture of hostility and apathy toward the Lord, her fellow parishioners and me, her pastor. I mentioned her to one of my fellow circuit pastors. He asked if she was attending Church. When I said, “Yes, she comes once, maybe twice a month,” he said something like, “Praise God! Then she’s hearing God’s Word read and preached to her, so that He can do His good work on her heart.” Amen to that!
You know what? “They who today are [weeds] may tomorrow be grain,” St. Agustine said. This should come as no surprise to us, since God raises the dead. “Hypocrites [may] yet repent,” (pericope.org/buls-notes/Matthew 13) believe in Jesus and join our communion. So long as they’re in the Church, let them hear Jesus say: “Do not disbelieve, but believe [in Me.]” (Jn. 20:27)
Blessed Savior, make it plain to all those who only appear to believe in You that they are going the way of destruction. Take their false confession from their lips, we pray. Give them new hearts which believe in You and profess You as Lord and God, so that they and we – together as one – may be gathered to You in our heavenly home. Amen. The peace of God, which surpasses understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.