8 Pentecost

 July 19, 2026

 Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43

 + Last week I told a story in my sermon about how I once had an herb garden.

 I was in my early 20s.

 And, for some reason I don’t remember anymore, I had this idea that I wanted to plant an herb garden at my parents’ home.

 I planned it out.

 I did my research.

 I bought all the seeds and was very excited about having these various herbs.

 I dutifully planted them in a corner of my parents’ property and would try hard to cultivate it.

 But, as I said last week, the weeds started coming around the same time the herbs started growing.

 And soon, I couldn’t tell which was which.

 I could not for the life of me figure out what was an herb and what was a weed.

 And, as you can guess, I simply wiped my hands of it and walked away.

 Months later, in this overgrown patch, I found it kind of amusing that some of those so-called “weeds” smelled amazing in the sun.

 In fact, for years, my father would say that little patch of ground had some of the best smelling “weeds” he ever smelled.

 So, when I heard the story last week in our Gospel reading about sowing seeds and especially the one this week, I am reminded of that forlorn little herb garden all those years ago.

 For today, the story Jesus tells us is, like some many of his stories,  both comforting and frustrating.

 In it, we find a farmer who sows good seed, but does so under the cover of darkness.

 An enemy sows weeds among the wheat.

 When the servants discover the problem, they ask the obvious question: “Do you want us to pull the weeds?”

 Their instinct is our instinct.

 We want to fix things.

 We want to make things right.

 We want to sort people into neat categories.

 We want the righteous over here, the wicked over there.

 We want the world cleaned up.

 Nice and neat.

 What does Jesus say to that?

 He says, “No.”

 Leave them both to grow together until the harvest.

 That answer is almost unbearable.

 We look at the violence in the world, the cruelty, the injustice, and we want God to act now.

 We look at the failures of the Church, at our own failures, and we wonder—why is God so patient?

 Perhaps the answer is this: because God knows something we do not.

 The servants cannot always tell the difference between wheat and weeds.

 Their zeal for purity may end up destroying what God intends to save.

 We are not always reliable judges of one another, or even of ourselves.

 The person we have written off may yet become a saint.

 The one who appears strong may be barely hanging on.

 A life that seems hopeless today may, by God’s grace, bear extraordinary fruit tomorrow.

 God’s patience is not indifference.

 It is mercy.

 The reign of God is not built by our ability to identify the weeds.

 It is built by God’s determination never to give up on the wheat, even when it is surrounded by everything that threatens to choke it.

 There is another truth here as well.

 The field is not simply “the world.”

 It is also our own hearts.

 Wheat and weeds grow together within each of us.

 Love and resentment.

 Faith and fear.

 Generosity and selfishness.

 Confidence and insecurity.

 We know what it is to be divided people.

 We ourselves are often so divided within ourselves.

 The good news is that Jesus doesn’t abandon the field because it is messy.

 He continues to tend it.

 He waters it with grace.

 He feeds it with his own Body and Blood.

 He waits patiently for what only time and mercy can accomplish.

 There will be a harvest.

 Jesus doesn’t deny that.

 As you’ve heard me say again and again, evil does not have the last word.

 Justice will come.

 Every hidden thing will be brought into the light.

 Into God’s Light.

 But that day belongs to God, not to us.

 Our calling, in the meantime, is not to become experts at pulling weeds.

 It is not our job to figure out what is wheat—or herbs---and what are weeds.

 It is to become faithful wheat—to sink our roots deeply into the love of God, to bear fruit for the sake of the world, and to trust that the Judge of all the earth knows what God is doing.

 Sometimes, from that mess of weeds, comes a beautiful smell, and when it does, we know, all is not lost.

 That kind of trust is difficult.

 It asks us to surrender our need to control, our desire to condemn, our impatience with God.

 But it also frees us.

 We no longer have to carry the burden of sorting out the whole world.

 We are simply called to follow Jesus, to love our neighbors, and to let God’s grace do its quiet work.

 God’s reign often grows unnoticed.

 So does holiness.

 And in God’s own good time, not ours, the wheat will shine like the sun in the kingdom of God.

 Amen.  

 

7 Pentecost

 
July 12, 2026

 Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

 I am not a garden person.

 I just have never been the kind of person who likes to spend time in a garden, planting seeds and watching things grow.

 I’ve tried.

 I once tried to start an herb garden years and years ago.

 But there came this point when I couldn’t tell the difference between hat was a weed and what was an herb.

 So, I just let it go.

 And you can guess how that ended.

 So, all this talk today in our Gospel reading about sowers and seeds is kind of lost on me.

 I will say this, though.

 At first glance, the parable of the sower is one of those stories that sounds simple.

 I kind of get it.

 But then, we realize, that’s not the way Jesus does things.

 Nothing is ever really simple.

 And as we all know, Jesus refuses to explain everything away.

 In this parable, he speaks of seed scattered everywhere.

 Some fall on the path.

 Some on rocky ground.

 Some among thorns.

 Some on good soil.

 And then he simply says:

 “Let anyone with ears listen.”

 What a strange thing to say!

 It leaves us wondering.

 For us, no doubt we start asking ourselves, What kind of soil am I?

 But perhaps maybe that’s not the real first question we should be asking.

 Maybe the first thing we should do is notice how extravagance the sower is.

 Again, not an expert here, but. . .

 I don’t think a careful farmer would scatter seed on a hard path or among rocks and thorns. 

Even I know that!

 It would be a waste.

 It would be a waste of time.

 And it would be a waste of money.

 But you know who does sow like this?

 God does.

 Because, the kingdom of God is to be announced everywhere.

 Even on the hard path.

 Even among rocks and thorns.

 Grace—this wonderful un-asked for gift from God--the very seed of that Kindom of God,  is scattered wherever.

 Without calculation.

 God’s grace is offered to everyone—to saints and doubters, to the faithful and the indifferent, to those who are ready and to those who are not.

 God, as I hope we all realize, is astonishingly generous.

 And only after this talk of seeds and sowing does Jesus speak about the soil.

 And that is where the parable quietly becomes uncomfortable.

 Because good soil doesn’t always just happen.

 Or rather, good soil can be made in places where we thought it couldn’t.

 A hard path can be broken open.

 Rocky ground can be cleared.

 Thorns can be pulled.

 Good soil is cultivated.

 Following Jesus is not about pretending our hearts are already fertile.

 It is about allowing God, often painfully, to prepare us for what has always been freely given.

 Certainly, most of us know exactly what thorns feel like.

 Anxiety.

 Depression.

 Endless distraction.

 The desire to acquire just a little more.

 The need to always be right.

 The fear that there will never be enough.

 Jesus tells us that these things choke the seed before it can bear fruit.

 Notice he doesn’t say that they destroy the seed.

 They simply keep it from growing.

 And perhaps that is the greater danger.

 Maybe the greater danger is becoming so crowded with other concerns that we no longer have room for God’s grace to take hold in our lives and flourish.

 But, we have to be clear before we start to despair over this parable.

 This parable is actually full of hope.

 The seed itself is alive.

 Its power doesn’t come from us.

 Our task isn’t to manufacture life.

 Our task is simply to remain open to the One who never stops sowing.

 Every Sunday, the Word is scattered again.

 Every Eucharist, grace is scattered again.

 Every morning, God begins again in us.

 The Sower has not given up on the field.

 Or on us.

 And that’s the real message of this parable.

 Amen.

 

6 Pentecost

 July 5, 2026

Matthew 11:16–19, 25–30

+ Let’s face it.

We’re all kind of weary right now.

We have all been through a lot

Certainly in our own personal lives.

Certainly as a country.

(Happy 250, by the way!)

Just in general.

There is just a kind of weariness that comes from simply being alive.

It’s not always physical exhaustion, either.

Sometimes—oftentimes—it’s a spiritual weariness.  

Sometimes it’s just a weariness of trying to get it right.

Trying to be the right kind of person.

Trying to say the right thing.

Trying to believe the right things.

Trying to live up to the expectations of other people.

Trying to live up to our own expectations.

And sometimes—if we are very honest—it is the weariness of trying to live up to what we think God expects of us.

That, I think, is the kind of weariness Jesus is talking about today.

But first, Jesus says something rather strange.

He says the people of his generation are like children in the marketplace:

We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;

we wailed, and you did not mourn.

Of course!

Nothing is ever quite right.

John the Baptist came fasting, living ascetically in the wilderness.

And people said what?

He has a demon.

Then Jesus came.

Jesus ate with people.

 He drank wine.

 He sat at tables with sinners and tax collectors and all the wrong people.

 And what did they say?

 Look, he’s a glutton.

 He’s a drunk.

 John was too severe.

 Jesus was not severe enough.

 There’s no winning.

 I think we all get that.

 We live in a world in which everyone seems to have an opinion about how everyone else should live their lives.

 You’re too much of this.

 You’re not enough of that.

 You’re too religious.

 You’re not religious enough.

 You’re too traditional.

 You’re too liberal, too progressive.

 Nothing is ever quite right.

 And if we spend our lives trying to satisfy every voice calling to us from the marketplace, guess what?

 We’re gonna get exhausted.

 We’re gonna be. . . weary.

 And that is what Jesus is talking about.

 Come to me, he says. All you who are weary.

 Notice what he’s not saying.

 He doesn’t say, get your act together first.

 Be more religious first.

 Figure it all out out first.

 Stop doubting.

 No. He simply says, Come.

 Come to me, all you who are weary.

 Come to me, all you who are tired of trying to prove yourselves.

 Come to me, all you who have been carrying things you were never meant to carry.

 And what happens if we do?

 “I will give you rest,” he says.

 Jesus is not promising that life will suddenly become easy.

 The rest Jesus offers is something so much deeper.

 It is the rest that comes when we finally understand that we don’t have to earn the love of God.

 We don’t have to work to get God to love us.

 We don’t have to get everything right.

 We don’t have to prove our own worth.

 We don’t have to carry around every judgment someone has made about us.

 We don’t have to keep punishing ourselves for just being who we are or what what we are.

 But, we should be clear.

 We’re not promised an easy life.

 There will be things we just have to carry in this life.

 We don’t get to have no burdens.

 There are burdens we are actually called to carry.

 We are called to carry one another.

 We are called to carry the needs of the poor.

 We are called, sometimes, to carry a cross.

 But the other stuff?

 God never asked us to carry all those thing.

 Like the burden of shame.

 The burden of perfection.

 The burden of pretending we’re something we’re not.

 The burden of trying to make everyone happy.

 The burden of believing that God is somehow perpetually disappointed in us.

 Those are dangerous burdens, especially if you’re already weary.

 Those burdens will crush us.

 What does Jesus say to us?

 Put them down.

 He says instead, Take up my yoke.

 Now, that’s an interesting turn of images if you ask me.

 Put down your burdens.

 But take up my yoke.

 But there’s something very enlightening about that image.

 A burden is something carried alone.

 A yoke however is something shared.

 You’re yoked to something else.

 Jesus doesn’t promise us a life without difficulties.

 He promises us instead that we will never carry these burdens alone.

 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, he says.

 Walk with me.

 Move with me.

 Let me carry this with you.

 For I am gentle and humble in heart.

 That may be one of the most beautiful things Jesus ever says about himself.

 Because by saying that he is telling us what the heart of God truly is.

 The heart of God is gentle.

 The heart of God is not cruel.

 The heart of God is not waiting for us to fail.

 The heart of God is not expecting us to be. . . perfect.

 The heart of God is gentle.

 Jesus says, Listen to my voice.

 I am gentle.

 Come to me.

 Perhaps today we need to ask ourselves:

 What am I carrying that God never asked me to carry?

 Whose voice am I listening to?

 What am I still trying to prove?

 And to whom?

 And what would happen if I simply came to God as I am?

 Not as I think I should be.

 Not as someone else thinks I should be.

 But as I really am.

 Tired.

 Weary

 Imperfect.

 Hopeful.

 But still afraid.

 Faithful.

 But still doubting.

 Human.

 Come to me, Jesus says to us.

 Not tomorrow.

 Not when you’ve figured it all out.

 Not when you’ve become the person you think you should be.

 Now.

 Come to me.

 And when you do, bring your weariness.

 Bring your burden.

 Bring the whole complicated truth of who you are.

 And when we do, it is then that we will find our rest.

 Amen.