Faith's Ancient Strength and Steadfastness

Text: Matthew 13:24-30
Date: The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost 7/17/05

  The hymn of the day today is a prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ by a Church under stress in a world of increasing sin, unrighteousness and even persecution of the Christian faith. It has us ask for the most important thing, saying,

  Rekindle for this endtime stress

  Faith's ancient strength and steadfastness

  That we keep pure till life is spent

  Your holy Word and Sacrament. [LW 344:2]

In these gray and latter days of stress there are no new programs or resources provided but that ancient strength as when we first believed, namely, God's gift of faith given, strengthened and sustained through the means of God's grace, the Word and Sacraments.

  The parable of the wheat and the weeds shows how God is active in establishing his redemptive rule among men in the world even as the archenemy and author of sin and death, the devil, seeks to undermine that rule. Frustration and discouragement threatens Christians as they observe what may seem at times like a losing battle. How does one hang on to the hope of salvation in a world that calls evil good, denying that there is anything from which we need to be saved? How can we continue to forgive others including our enemies when it's easier and more satisfying to criticize, judge and condemn? How can we know and live in love amid so much lovelessness? Our Easter, Resurrection faith values and believes in life triumphing over death even as we dwell in a society that has cheapened life and embraced death by the elimination of 40 million unborn children through legal abortion, even so-called “partial birth” abortion; assisted suicide, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research; the barbaric increase of suicide bombers. We thank God for his design and gift of marriage and the family even while the devil succeeds in convincing people all around us that sex outside of marriage is not only okay but to be expected endorsing condom distribution in public schools, accepting couples living together without marriage, and now the increasing move to the legalization of homosexual so-called “marriage.” This is the very picture Jesus was painting when he gave the parable of the wheat and the weeds.

  The field in this parable is not the Church but the world—the world that “God so loved,” but is, nevertheless, the dominion of its prince, the devil (Eph. 2:1-2). Nevertheless, the enemy also sows his weeds even in amongst the outward fellowship of the Church. Hypocrites go undetected for only God can see into a person's heart. Judas Iscariot was called by Christ to be among the twelve apostles. But even we ourselves struggle as we are, on this side of eternity, simultaneously saints and sinners and sometimes do weedlike things ourselves out of weakness. Certain church bodies have chosen the wide and easy, politically and socially acceptable and destructive road of moving with the times, trying to be relevant to the world by adopting its culture. Dr. Jean S. Garton of Lutherans For Life writes, “There are some 180 million Christians from all denominations in the U.S. Many of them describe themselves as pro-choice despite repeating the Apostles' Creed every Sunday, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker….” ( Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” in For the Life of the World, July 2005). Major denominations are accepting homosexuality even among the ranks of the clergy. Fear for survival trumps the means of grace as the Divine Service has been made over into a tool of so-called entertainment evangelism, one congregation in Utica adopting the Star Wars theme complete with greeters dressed in Chewbacca costumes [www.epicwired.org].

  In the previous parable of the Sower, Jesus said the seed is the Word of God and the various kinds of soil the people or the hearts of people. In this parable, however, the good seed are the Christians themselves, the field is the whole world and the weeds the sowing of the enemy, the devil. The servants of the master express surprise and are perplexed as they see the weeds growing among the wheat. What are we to do? They ask, “do you want us to go and gather them?” that is, to take up arms and root out all evil around us. What is to be the position of the Church and of individual Christians as we view the immorality and ungodliness around us? We have been very vocal for many years speaking up for life and protesting legalized abortion. We must use our individual rights to vote for candidates that support our views. We are not, however, allowed to lob grenades at abortion clinics or shoot doctors who perform them, as some have. “No,” Jesus said, “lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.” In other words, judgment and temporal and eternal punishment is God's prerogative. The judgment is not yet. This is still a period of grace.

  What are we to do? Well, first and foremost, that we be the good seed, the wheat of God's sowing continuing to look in faith to the Sower. Christ is our righteousness and the perfect sacrifice for all our sins. By faith in him we are made wheat and heirs of his kingdom, clothed in his righteousness. Being wheatlike, then, means to be patient and confident in the coming harvest.

  We are not to take matters of judgment into our own hands. However, this in no way means we are to ignore false doctrine or leave openly impenitent sinners undisciplined. Yet, with respect to the sins of weakness on the part of fellow believers, love seeks to restore and to forgive.

  Now God also is using this time of grace to work in the lives of others. Through his Word and Sacraments he calls all people to come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved. Where the parable breaks down is that, in God's hands, he can perform the miracle of turning weeds into wheat, sinners into saints, persecutors of the Church like Saul into the great apostle Paul. That's why we are not to pull up the weeds as long as grace, repentance and faith is still possible.

  Faith's Ancient Strength and Steadfastness always keeps the great hope in view of the coming harvest when our loving Savior will dispatch his angels to gather in his harvest. Faith trusts that God will do the sorting. Those who have not believed in Jesus, who have really been sons of the devil, will face the torments of hell. Those who have trusted in Christ, however, will “shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of our Father.”

  It is fair to ask ourselves, when we hear this parable, Am I an heir of the kingdom or a child of the devil? How will I fare at the final harvest? Do I trust that God's holy Christian church is a reality in this world, even when I can't see it beyond the marks of the Word being sown, even though it sometimes seems hidden? Am I patient to wait for God's good time of harvest, so that none of his intended wheat will be pulled up as weeds, so that daily more and more heirs may be added to the kingdom?

___________________
Rev. Allen D. Lunneberg

Contacts:

deblocascio.stmark@sbcglobal.net

Pastor: Rev. Allen D. Lunneberg
7979 Commerce Rd.      (1/4 mile east of Union Lake Rd.)
West Bloomfield, MI 48324
Phone: 248.363.0741
Fax: 248.363.4755