Sermon for the Eighth Sunday After Pentecost
By the Rev. Art J. Gordon
Pastor of St. John Missionary Baptist Church
Boston
(The following is a transcript of the service audio, July 23, 2023)
Beloved, perhaps one of the most used questions of all time is the simple question, why? If you've ever raised children, it's perhaps a question you have gotten from your children on many occasions. "Why must I go to bed early? Why do I have to go to school? Why do I have to eat broccoli instead of eating candy?" When that question comes, there has to be an answer. And even myself, yes, myself indeed, even as a child, it was a question I always asked my parents. Why?
I asked this question on so many occasions and then the question would grow and move from, why is it that good things happen to bad people? Or rather, why do bad things happen to good people? When I came home from school after learning about our country and our nation, I still had questions. Why is it that in America we are the so-called greatest nation in the world, the greatest democracy in the world, yet there are so many people living in poverty? Why is it that there are individuals, God's children, living on the streets at night when there are so many houses that are still for sale where someone can lay their head at night?
Why is it that in this great nation we call ourselves the land of the free and the home of the brave, but we are always ruled and led by injustice? Why is it that we have the greatest hospitals, the greatest doctors and the greatest researchers and yet our healthcare system still forces some people out? No one should ever have to choose between whether they should pay their own bills or pay for their own prescription medicine, when their life is literally in the balance of the decisions they have to make.
I would ask questions like, "Well, if we are so great, then why can't we just fix it? Why can't we just fix it and go home?" Remember, we are so wealthy, we are so advanced, we are so great. Why can't we just fix everything? Why can't we just make every wrong and make it right? How come we just cannot make the things that are crooked and make them straight? Why can't we just give reparations to those whose ancestors have been enslaved and labored in this nation? Isn't it only right? Why can't we just wipe out student debt? Definitely, we have the money. Why can't we just dismantle the prison industrial complex system and then instead, center hope and healing for millions of Americans impacted by trauma?
Why? Why? Why? Why? That's the question. And I'm sure it's the question that many in the audience had for Jesus throughout His ministry across Galilee. Jesus, the greatest teacher of all time used parables to get His lessons through. And in this chapter, in this Gospel of Matthew, Jesus brings out the agrarian side of Him, to teach the ultimate truths of life. And in one of these parables, Jesus talks about the farmer who one day went out and planted good seed in a good field that was yielding a good crop. But late at night one day, someone else went out into this good field and began to sow bad seeds. And eventually, the seeds became weeds and they grew together. They looked very similar to each other. And the wheat looks just like the darnel and if you're not careful, you may confuse one for the other.
As they realized that someone had planted bad seed, the question was asked. "Why?" And rather, "How about we just go ahead and pull up the weeds, so that the wheat itself can continue to grow?" When the owner of the garden says, "No, let them grow together and in the end they'll eventually be separated." The darnel, as I just mentioned, it as a plant resembles the wheat and they look similar, feel similar, act similar, but as they mature, you'll eventually begin to make a difference.
Under the soil, their roots have now been tied and intertwine together. So to unpluck one is to possibly unpluck another and now they have to grow together. It's interesting that even in our world today, good seems to always go with the bad and bad seems to always go with the good. One moment in the morning you're smiling and by the time you go to bed you could be frowning. And one moment of your life, everything may be going well and in the next season, just at the blink of an eye, things could be going haywire because often in life the good goes with the bad. They're often tied together, but through it all, God's grace is still sufficient for the world.
It's interesting that even in the empires across the world, as they begin to grow and dominate, even still, God still sees and God still has a way of setting forth truth in a place where there seems not to be much truth. When empire constructs a Pharaoh, God sends forth a Moses. When empire constructs a Christopher Columbus, God sits forth a Bartolomé de las Casas. When empire constructs a D. F. Malan, God sends forth Archbishop Desmond Tutu or Nelson Mandela. When empire constructs an Andrew Jackson, God sets forth a Frederick Douglass. When empire constructs an Adolf Hitler, God sets forth a Dietrich Bonhoeffer. When empire constructs a Bull Connor, God sets forth a Frederick Shuttlesworth. When empire sets forth Idi Amin, God sets forth a Bishop Janani Luwum. When empire constructs a Caesar who believes the world is in his hand, God sends forth a Jesus of Nazareth to teach the world that the kingdom of God is centered in love.
Yes, beloved, the good goes with the bad, but in the end, God's grace begins to shuffle what needs to be shuffled, move what needs to be moved, open doors that need to be open, close doors that need to be closed. And in the end, if you are paying attention, you'll begin to see what is right and what is wrong. I like the fact that Jesus did remind them in this parable, "Be careful of trying to unpluck who you believe to be weeds." Because our own human imagination sometimes makes us think that we are always right and they, whoever they are, are always wrong. When sometimes it could be us. But through it all, God says, "Let them grow together." I am indeed a Baptist preacher, so I do have a few points I want to share. And the first is, despite where we are in life and what we go through, the charge that God gives us is to always display the love of God.
It's never too late, never too early, never too much, never too little. Despite our zip code, our nationality, our ethnicity, our orientations, we can always display and demonstrate the love of God wherever we go. You can demonstrate it through a smile, demonstrate it through a hug, demonstrate it through a thought, demonstrate it through your gifts, demonstrate it through good contributions. You can still demonstrate the love of God despite the badness and the sins or the challenges of the world that come upon us. We can all still display the love of God. Because the love of God, as Jesus tells us in the kingdom of God, has a way of coming forth through the most unlikely places, branching through in most uncertain circumstances, coming through at a time we never thought it would ever come through. The love of God can still be displayed. I remember a few years ago when I was a seminary student, I got a good illustration of what the love of God is like because me and a few classmates, we made a trip to Israel.
And when you go to Israel, obviously you go to few places, you go see Jericho, you go to the Dead Sea and try to float there on the water. And some of us made our way to a place called Mount Masada. And we began to climb. And I remember how hot it was outside, how dry it was in the atmosphere, how much of the earth was filled with dirt and rock. And as we began to climb the mountain higher and higher and higher and higher, I remember as I was on the path by myself, out of the side of Mount Masada was a beautiful colored plant growing out of the rock. Then I thought to myself, whenever I make it back down to the ground, I want to ask the tour guide, "Why is it that in the midst of so much dryness, in the midst of so much heat, I was able to see such a beautiful plant?"
And my instructor, the tour guide, I asked him, "Why is there such a beautiful colored plant on the side of the mountain?" And he said, "Well, that typical plant has deep roots. The deep roots allow it to reach areas deep within the rock to find moisture that'll help give it life so that it can grow and the moisture gives it enough strength to go even through the rock called Mount Masada." Isn't that how it is in our lives? When the love of God is in us, we can break through no matter the circumstances of how hot, how dry, how humiliating the life situations are. The love of God can pierce through anything to demonstrate that the love of God is always present. But not only do we have to display the love of God, beloved, we also have to commit to radical justice. Indeed, radical justice.
We all can make significant contributions through faithful living and standing up for what is right, being with those who don't have much giving from our gifts that God has given us back to the world or back to someone who is in need. That $5 won't hurt you by giving it to someone who is in need. The faithful living and that is what God requires of us and it can lead us to a place of radical justice. The weeds are together with the wheat, but the weeds can't keep the wheat from doing what is right. Beloved, regardless of our circumstances, our location in life, we can always still demonstrate, display the love of God and move and act with radical justice. My favorite theologian and social ethicist, Reinhold Niebuhr told us that, "Justice is what love looks like in public."
And sure, there may never come a time in life when everything works out perfectly for you, but you can still do good. Sure, when we turn on the TV and open up the newspaper, page after page, story after story, we can find bad news. But somewhere in the midst of bad news, God is setting forth God's people to be the good news in the good world. That's what Jesus was when he showed up at the Wedding at Cana, he was good news in a bad situation. That's what Jesus was on a mountain side one day when 5,000 people were hungry, Jesus was good news in a bad situation. That's what Jesus was when he showed up in the temple one day and a woman was in the back who needed help, Jesus showed up as good news in a bad situation. And what I love about this is that all of us have the potential to show up and to be the good news in a bad situation.
And beloved, finally, the closeness of the weeds and the wheat. No matter how many weeds there may be, it does not diminish the power or the love of God. And because the power and the love of God cannot be diminished, instead it can lift and inspire us. Amen. Beloved, perhaps you've been like me and you've said in your own prayers, "God, can you get these problems away from me? I love going to work Monday through Friday, but there are a couple of people that, if we're honest, can just get on your last nerves. Can you move them away from me?"
Only for God to say, "No. Keep being the light. Keep sharing the love. Keep marching for justice. Keep loving your family. Keep giving to those who are in need. Keep opening the doors of opportunity to those who it may have been closed to. And in the end, you'll see that your good deeds and your good contributions have helped make the world the better place." No matter what has been sown among you or around you, keep doing what is right. The great late Congressman John Lewis told us that if we ever saw something wrong, do something that's right. If you ever see injustice, speak up and say that it is wrong. If you ever see someone being taken advantage of, speak up and say that it is wrong. And if history doesn't give you enough examples, I can give you one more. For the man in our text, Jesus, the liberator from Galilee, the bright and morning star, the Lily of the valley, Jesus, the son and child of Mary.
Jesus lived a life where even when bad things happen around him, he found a way to put forth love. He found a way to include somebody who was excluded. He found a way to give sight to someone who could not see. He found a way to demonstrate love to someone who had never felt it before. He had so much power that even in the hemp of his own garment, people could be blessed. Can people say that about you? Beloved, it seems like on the Fridays of our life, things may be over, but there always comes a Sunday morning that tells us that it's only just a new beginning. It's a thing that's on the inside of us like that mustard seed in our text, something on the inside of us that inspires us, that moves us, that gets a pat in our foot and a clapping in our hands and a shouting in our mouths and a movement in our hips.
It's something that chains cannot shackle it. It's something that death cannot kill and the grave cannot hold. And the resurrection teaches us that early Sunday morning we can keep on demonstrating the love of God. Beloved, for I am convinced that neither death nor life can separate us from the power of God. And I am convinced that God shall supply all of our needs according to the richness of God's glory. And we are convinced that lowly Jesus and his spirit will be with us always, even until the end of the age. And despite all of the problems of the world, God can and will fix it and God will use us even when the weeds are around us. Beloved, in the end, love will rule. In the end, hope will transcend hopeless situations. Peace will always surpass understanding. And joy will always remain unspeakable.
And all I stopped by this morning to share with you is despite and through it all, where we are and what we go through and what may be around us, keep on doing what is right. Keep on being what God has planted you to be. Keep on planting seeds of love and seeds of hope and seeds of joy and seeds of justice and seeds of mercy and seeds of grace. Because in the end, we will find out that when we've been there 10,000 years, bright, shining as the sun, we will have no less days to sing God's praises than when we first begun. Keep on doing what is right and keep on being what God has planted you to be. God bless you.