He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”
“Jesus- the Weed Keeper” – Sermon by Brian Combs 2/19/14
02.20.2014News
Americans spend 40 billion dollars annually on herbicides. Liquid tools sprayed by the gallon to uproot, poison and eradicate.
That must be the reason why so many churches have weeding committees which complain, “They mix our crop, deplete our soil, steal our nutrients and choke our wheat. Forever tangling up with us, the righteous waves of grain.”
But the God of every committee and every church says, “Let loose of your machete, hang up your hoe, extinguish your matches, shelve your Roundup and stall out your 25cc variable speed Husqvarna brush cutter with the carbide blade.”
God says, “Leave the weeds alone. Leave the weeds alone.”
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Matthew 13:24-30
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Why not pull up the weeds?
Congregational Responses:
Both weed and wheat are created by God, deserving of life.
There’s no way to uproot the weeds without harming the wheat.
Weeds, with their deep roots, bring nutrients to the surface for shallowed rooted perennials.
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Beware you who are certain of your root stock. Wheat can be a high maintenance crop, often needing constant irrigation and burning fertilizer, an enormous effort for a minuscule yield.
Why not pull up the weeds? Because in God’s garden we don’t reap what we sow, none of us can tell the difference between a tare and a grain, unruly growth is cultivated over a pure harvest, and while we all bud on earth, none of us bloom until heaven.
Cloves invite earthworms, Goldenrod seduce insects, Dandelions attract honeybees, Milkweed offer Monarch butterflies habitat and Radium is a balm for skin cancer. Weeds in Palestine are bundled and burned as the fuel source to keep the poor warm on frigid Holy Land nights.
Let the Good News take root, “A weed is but an unloved flower,” says Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
He shone like the sun so we could spread our leaves. He poured out his life as living water to slake our thirst. He broke his body to nourish our soil. Jesus wore a crown of weeds because he loved having a green thumb for every plant you can’t buy at the nursery.
Jesus was a weed keeper. Jesus was a weed keeper. Jesus was a weed keeper.
The good people of Kinston, N.C. believe a miracle was visited upon them. It grew furiously up the telephone pole and across the power lines, a tangle of vines that looks like Savior of the world hanging on a cross, a canopy of God’s protection for their fair city. It’s the miracle vine of the South… Kudzu.