Seeds and Weeds
This is the sermon I preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church on 7/23/23. The text was Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43. Today you will hear another seedy sermon. Last week, the seeds fell on different types of ground. In today’s gospel, the ground is not the issue, but the seeds that are planted. In the beginning of our parable, all is well. Good seed is planted and starts to grow. The problem is that greedy weeds, also known as darnel, also started growing. These weeds have a root system that spreads deeply and widely, intermixing its roots with the roots of the surrounding plants and greedily sucking up the water and nutrients of the soil (Rev. Nanette Sawyer, Greedy Weeds). How could this be? The master deduces that an enemy had sown the weeds’ seeds! Is Jesus teaching people how to farm? No. Remember the beginning of the parable, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to…” Jesus is teaching how life should be lived. Malina and Rohrbaugh’s Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gos