Sermon on Matthew 13 – The Wheat and the Tares
Matthew 13 – The Wheat and the Tares
The day after the Presentation of our Lord and Purification of Mary, A+D 2022
He who has ears to hear, let him hear! The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.
He will gather everything that offends. Every scandal. Every temptation to evil, including those who practice lawlessness. If you are practicing lawlessness, then His angels will gather you out of the kingdom, even if you have been baptized, gone to Church, received the sacrament – you were ruled by the devil on earth and refused Christ’s rule. He will not have you in heaven to tempt others to sin. He will not bring weeping and gnashing of teeth into the brightness of the glory of the sons of the kingdom. He will separate the sad from the glad, the misery from the joy, sin from righteousness, death from life.
There are only two types of people in the world, according to Jesus. The wheat and the weeds. The Son of Man, Jesus, plants the wheat. The devil, the father of lies, plants the weeds. It is not man who plants himself to become something fruitful like wheat. The Son of Man plants Christians, only He. So also, those who are weeds are planted by the devil. This is what St. Paul tells the Ephesians and Colossians, that the devil “is at work in the sons of disobedience.”
The wheat are the sons of the kingdom. They are born again by water and the Spirit. They have righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. They have heard the Gospel and believed it. They have been persuaded in their wills, enlightened in their minds, changed in their hearts by the voice of the Son of Man who makes the dead to live. They have learned their horrible condition, that they are unfruitful by themselves, no matter how they try to make themselves grow something in their lives that will shine with goodness and live beyond the grave, they are dust and return to dust.
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” Jesus is the seed that died and was planted in the ground, but He died, and produced many seeds. First He plants His word. Many reject His Word. But by planting His word many believe it, and Jesus thereby plants the sons of the kingdom in the world. We hear of a righteousness that is not our own doing or thinking or feeling, but is the obedient suffering of the Son of God become Son of Man for us. We hear of peace in the blood of Jesus that He shed for all poor sinners on the cross, when He felt their anxieties and fears along with the punishment for our sins, but it is as Isaiah prophesied, “The punishment of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” The reason for our running away from God has been removed by God running from heaven, donning our flesh and blood, and taking our place in the battle we were unjustly fighting against God with our sins. He made peace with the blood of His cross, and we receive it in the Gospel, which is planted in our hearts, and we are planted as wheat, as a seed that grew from Christ’s own death and resurrection, from the Gospel.
But then we are planted in the world. Jesus prays in His High Priestly Prayer in John 17, “I do not pray that you take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one.” And the evil one rules. He is the prince of this world. He offered to Jesus at His temptation all the kingdoms of their earth and their glory because, as he said, “They have been delivered to me.” Who delivered him these kingdoms? The same who deliver to men the authority they use to abuse the same men. Sinners give the devil authority to rule over them. Jesus planted the wheat through His pastors and preachers, and they see with Christians all the evil and wickedness and misery and suffering, and they say, “Should we tear out the tares, the weeds?” Should we wage war on the evil so that we can see only the good?”
No, Jesus says. Lest you tear out the wheat with the tares. No, Jesus says, Lest you kill Saul before he becomes Paul. No, Paul says, lest you forget that you were a wild olive branch, grafted in where a natural one was cut off. Isn’t God able to graft the Jews back onto the vine of Christ? Isn’t God able to bring Jews to repentance and Germans to repentance and barbarian rioters and communists and unclean bankers and filthy fornicators, and sons of Shem who crucified Christ, and sons of Japheth who crucified Him again, and sons of Ham who mocked Him when He was naked?
Repent. Repent of looking down on others as weeds because you are wheat. Repent of forgetting that by yourself, and by your will, and by your blood, and by your family, yes, by your flesh you have only flesh, only dust, and only the devil to rule you. Jesus planted you, not you and not any superior race or civilization. Those who are wise enough to be instructed by Christ have been made wise only by Christ whom God made to be for us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
Repent of walking by sight and not by faith. Do you want to see no evil in the world? Then cleanse your heart of its own evil. Even the heathen can sing of something so simple. It begins with you. But do not be so naïve as to think that you can change the world. Are you stronger than the devil? Look at the hard wars the Church has fought against heretics. Look at the persecution the Church has endured in every country where Christ has planted the son of the kingdom, even in kingdoms which claim to be Christian. Look at the Church for who she is. She is by our sight a weak, ugly, and pitiful Bride. Who could possibly have chosen to be with her, who is oppressed and mocked by a world that says she looks just like her?
But the weeds, the tares, only look like the wheat for a while. We see the difference through the fruit. But the fruit is not entirely known until the harvest. We can make mistakes. We don’t know the hearts of men. We don’t know who can be planted again, just as we have been planted together with Christ through baptism into death, so that we might grow as He grew from the grave, that we might bear fruit, fruit that will last.
Do you have the fruit now? Are you ready for the harvest? Are you longing to be rescued from the weeping and gnashing of teeth that you see already in this world? The tears of repentance, the gnashing of regret? We want to see a beautiful world in front of us. We want to see what is good and true and beautiful. And we see that by faith. By faith we also see the truth about ourselves. We are only the seed that Christ has planted or we are weeds. We have hope in Christ alone or we are in darkness. We want love, and God gives it. He shows it in our lives, but we are so weak with it. The Spirit gives us joy, and we feel it, but not as we want to, and often we can’t feel it. We want peace, and we have it by the blood of Christ, but why do we shiver and shake with anxieties and storms in our life, in this field, where the tares look just as good as we do? We need patience, which is simply suffering, but how long, O Lord? We don’t have enough. We want what is good and merciful and moderate and beautiful and true, but we don’t see it. Is the solution to wage war on the weeds? But Judgment must begin with the household of God. And that means it beings with you have ears to hear. You have heard that you are saved from sin and death by the Son of Man. Therefore by His authority over heaven and earth, tear out the weeds, dig out the rocks, pull out the thorns in your own heart. Listen to Jesus who plants you. Take up the cross the denies you, but claims Christ as King and Lord. Take up the cross that kills all that offends, that bears all lawlessness, that presses tears out of God’s eyes and causes Him to cry out in pain and agony, and yet with mercy and pity for Romans who were heathen, but that Centurion who pierced Jesus’ hands and feet listened to Jesus and saw the sun lose its light and felt the earth quake beneath him, and proclaimed, “Truly, this was the Son of God.” And so what we saw was a weed became wheat, planted by Jesus’ death.
If you are afraid you are a weed, then look to that tender shoot from the stump of Jessie. Look to Him who grew up out of dry ground with no beauty that we should desire Him, but He desired us. He defeated the enemy who plants his seed to destroy what is good. He defeated the enemy and He defeated the sin in you that you mourn over, that has chained you, that has prevented you from seeing good, beauty, truth, life. He has conquered it by dying being planted a dead seed, but He has sprouted again, bloomed up from the grave in righteousness and all sin is defeated, in peace, and the war is over and He has won, in joy, because the sadness of sin and death He has done away with, and this victory of His is yours in the Gospel you now hear, in the baptism that now saves you, in the truth that sets you free now from your sin, now from the world, now from the devil. Jesus leaves the weeds, because He can make all things new; He can make a garden bloom in the desert.
And He will show you the true Church on that day when His angels come. The Light will show it. The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom they were born in. And there will be Jews and Greeks and sons of Shem and sons of Japheth and of Ham and of all tribes and tongues and nations, and they will sing with one voice as they had one faith on earth, and one Lord who planted them; they will sing of the victory that you now have by faith in one Spirit, but then you will see it. You will see all weeds and all offenses and lawlessness removed and Christ will be your sun and you will shine like Him. You will shine with the righteousness you have by faith, and your works will follow you. Your fruit will show. As the labor of the one who planted you was not in vain, so your labor in Him will not be in vain. You will see the tears turned to joy, the suffering turned into pleasure, the loss made your victory over all that is evil, just Christ did in His resurrection. You will be with all the faithful, the Church, as Christ is, a seed that died, and has born much fruit. Amen.