Seventh Sunday after Trinity (Year A) | 19th July 2026 | St Anne’s Church, Wrenthorpe | Eucharist
Matthew 13.24-30, 36-43 | Romans 8:12-25 | Isaiah 44.6-8
You may be pleased to hear that I won’t be talking about sport, in any of its formats, this morning. Also, I will endeavour to tone down the politics and even the weather.
Instead, I will be waffling about gardening, in an effort to make it illustrate today’s Gospel reading!
As I may have mentioned before, gardening is a big part of my non-working life. This also includes houseplants. I have lived amidst plants in the home, from being a child. Apparently, according to Gardener’s World, houseplants are having a resurgence in interest, with ‘influencers’ filling YouTube with content about how to look after them.
For me, perhaps the most engaging aspect of plants of any kind, is propagation – mainly by division – making more plants from one plant! Some plants in particular benefit enormously from this process, and not always as planned.
Bear with me, I will get to something more Jesus-related in a moment!
You may or may not be familiar with the plant – Oxalis Triangularis – Oxalis Triangularis…
It has three purple leaves, thin stems and small pink flowers. It seems to grow anywhere, especially If you get the root material mixed with compost when re-potting other plants. It will even grow outdoors!
I have brought a cactus with me today, that although I thought the compost was out of a bag, I managed to create this example of ‘companion planting’. What should I do with it though? Leave it? Remove it and risk damaging the roots? Will it harm this cactus? Shall I just say ‘enjoy the two together – what’s the harm?’ Or will I give into the conviction of one plant – one pot; and a need for purity in my planting?!
OK. In today’s Gospel, Matthew has Jesus explain the Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat. This familiar story speaks about enemies, unwanted contamination amongst cherished crops, uncertainty about what to do; and then Jesus speaks of children of the kingdom and children of the devil; of a harvest performed by angels and of the fiery furnace!
A lot more drama than my houseplant metaphor could ever hope to explain!
And yet, I am keen to remain with the garden…for now!
In our garden at home, despite our best efforts, we are assailed by Ground Elder – that most pernicious of weeds that remains in the soil in the most minute root fragments…. Slowly regenerating and seeping through everything….
It never goes away… and the reason why it can be so difficult to remove, is that it weaves its way through the roots of other plants.
It is possible to carefully dig it up…. You can remove all the leaves to weaken it… and of course there are chemicals that will kill it… if that’s your thing, its not ours.
And yet, like other highly successful plants, it finds opportunities. It grows around the plants that we don’t want damaged….and it seems to know this!
The only way to be sure, is to wait until the growing season ends, dig up everything, removing every last trace….. burn it all – and then hope for the best.
What then to do with this metaphor?
The weeds sown amongst crops…. Surely this has been done on purpose to bring us down!
The “enemy” that creeps through abundant life…. Diminishing it…. Constricting and sucking up all the resources….
Dig it up now….!
Or wait….be patient… the right time will come….
It’s the waiting that gets to us, isn’t it?
I don’t imagine that those who heard the words of Jesus were particularly patient… they wanted change right then!
They needed change right then.
In the parable, it is the slaves that offer to uproot the weeds, to save the Master’s crops.
They don’t own the land or its fruit, for which they work hard.
Do they bear any responsibility…. or are they afraid they will be blamed for a poor harvest?
Do we, like those slaves, display the same short-term, self-involved outlook that could destroy the harvest for the sake of a weed-free purity?
There is always a zeal, amongst the religious, for uprooting what is seen as ‘bad’…. Calling down fire and judgement…. Even the Disciples felt the need for this approach, trying to be helpful!
Jesus says otherwise.
We await the judgement at the end of the age….. not in this minute.
Pointing out the wronguns to God is not our job.
Helping everyone to know the hope of Christ, is.
Any judgement is not of our making. It is from God alone. And Jesus always pointed to this.
Or is it, for us, the challenge of fairness and justice?
For the early Christian communities, to whom Mathews Gospel was aimed, there would be a time of joy to come…
Their persecutors – their “enemies” – would receive their due punishment – and those who believed would be vindicated.
What about now? Who are our enemies? What are the weeds in our lives…?
I think we know…
They are the usual suspects – the distracted cynicism of the world; the deeply rooted demons of idolatry, pride, selfishness and greed. Yes…and many more!
However we view the tragedies of this world – near and fear – and in our own lives, what is it we are asking when we pray for God to come to our aid in our daily battles?
Shouldn’t God intervene NOW, and at every time disaster occurs… or when evil clearly prevails?
There are times when God does act ‘immediately’ – that living dynamic within Jesus, God and the Spirit.
And we also see where God acted in the past…
And in our prayers, we want to see a change to awful situations – the innocent rescued…. Evil intent thwarted… and more so now… the effects of humanity on the world and its environment around us – turned back or…. Something!
And how often do we hear: “where is your God and why doesn’t He do something about the ever present misery and disaster?”
Fair comment.
Or have we yet become the children that Jesus – the Master – calls us to be, with an inheritance of a future Kingdom of Heaven?
I cannot consider myself as a wonderful plant, or a cherished crop – hopeful for the harvest at the end of the age – without full knowledge and awareness of the weeds growing around my feet, and up and up…. To consume me… in this life… if I let them – for that would mean that all I am fit for, is the fiery furnace!
No – as a Christian disciple – trying daily to follow Christ, I will have hope for more than the gnashing of teeth and outer darkness.
I know the weeds…. The ‘enemies’ – for they are visible in me, and I can get caught out by them – I may even think that I have thwarted them…. That I have moved on from pride, selfishness, and all the other horribleness that devours us!
God’s Love – Patience…. Waiting…
We are all a fine blend of wheat and weeds – the tensions between our true selves and our shadow selves will never be resolved in this life. To see both aspects keeps us from thinking too highly of ‘self’ – but also from dismissing ourselves as hope-less.
And not just ourselves, but those around us.
Real life is a mess.
As with any relationship, it is much harder to live patiently with both good and bad in tension.
Stepping back into metaphor for a moment:
The modern farming world takes great efforts to ensure valuable crops are not spoiled by contamination. There are many ways to do this. Seed companies invest vast sums for a genetically modified ‘product’ that is resistant to pests. Chemicals will be used to discourage anything else unwanted. The purity of the desired crop is maintained.
There is always a cost to purity.
Who owns the seed? What else is killed off with chemicals? And we are still learning about the long term outcomes of a mono-culture where there are no bees or other beneficial wildlife.
Sadly, the world is so hungry that the most efficient methods must be used, often for profit, regardless.
This is where metaphor comes to an end.
Jesus was speaking about the life lived by those around Him. The good and the bad.
The parable of the Wheat and the Weeds is all around us.
I think of all the ways the christian religion is lived out , around the world. Those believing their way is the right way. The presumption of seeking the judgment of God – right now – to your own prescription; of using scripture to pervert and misdirect the words of Jesus; to align with any system that seeks purity at the cost of hope and love.
Yet God is not cruel – eager to throw His beloved creation into the fire.
Neither is God an overly indulgent parent that lets His children get away with murder.
If you are waiting for the harvest in God’s own time… then when it happens, whatever that might be, we can hope that God is ready for both weeds and crops.
Or as Paul says to the early church in Rome “… if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience”.
We have our challenges and our part to play in this life.
God knows us….
Tending the garden of His Creation, we are seen and held with patient love.
But waiting is hard.
The judgement of God will not be as we imagine or even hope.
We want to see signs in this age, and in our lives.
We pray… not just wanting answers, but for some small, silent validation….
My sisters and brothers – Have courage…
We know, deep in our souls, that our faith – so often torn and challenged – will come right….
We will be transformed….and we will experience the glory that will be revealed to us all, in time.
Amen.
Image: (SB) Oxalis Triangularis found its way into this cactus, no doubt at re-potting time!