Sermon: It is summer, it is sunshine and it is Sunday!
1.slide Van Gogh A sower in the setting sun.
Last Sunday we heard the parable of the Sower, who went out to sow with a generous hand: some seed feel in the good soil, on rocky ground, and among thistles. We enjoyed the beautiful painting of Van Gogh that illustrates this parable so beautifully. The Sower, spreading the grain and the word, and the beaming rays the sun.
Lord let my heart be good soil, we sing in conclusion at our church services. As a prayer and a call to all of us as we leave the church: to be and try to become good soil for the word of God so that faith, hope, and love can grow, and give fruit. This theme of sowing and harvesting, words and faith, continues today. We listened to yet another parable of Jesus about sowing and harvest: about the good seeds and the weeds.
2.slide A field.
Today's parable of weed and wheat always makes me think of the weeds in my father's wheat fields when I was a child. I was a child in the 1970s in rural Denmark, and I was lucky to grow up in the countryside with a home-running mother and a father who was a farmer. In the summer, the fields around my childhood home were bountiful and beautiful. Wheat fields sucked up the summer sun’s hot rays and grew with grains ready for harvest in August.
3.slide Wild oats
I remember being sent out with My Mother or with my sisters to the rolling fields with an empty sack to remove weeds. To eliminate the notorious Wild Oats, which is a weed that can significantly reduce crop yields and therefore must be combated so that it does not spread. So, we walked around the fields, found the Wild oats, pulled them up with roots and collected then to be burned.
It almost sounds like a story from the last century – which it also is. It was in the 1970s in the fat Funen fields – and although it might sound idyllic, I was not always happy with these assignments. My father's farm had large tractors, and all kinds of machinery to harrow, plough and so – but simple hand power was still needed for this weeding task.
I always think of these Wild Oats, when I read or hear the parable of the weeds and the wheat – and think that the advice to wait and let the weeds and wheat grow side by side, - that advice, would not be acceptable in Danish agriculture when in concerns Wild Oats. Most likely the farmer's neighbor would complain. For the Wild Oats could spread its seeds to the neighboring field, which would then have reduced harvests. And that would most likely result in an unhappy neighbor!
The parable of the weed and the wheat is a parable that makes us reflect on human life. Several big existential questions arise: where does evil come from? Is man in his nature good or evil? Can evil be weeded out from our lives? And why is there evil in life when God is good? How will God judge on the Day of Judgment?
It is, after all, big questions on such a nice day of summer, sun, and Sunday.
Jesus told this parable with a clear address to the Pharisees and perhaps also to some of his own disciples. Many of the Pharisees and some of the disciples were quite busy cleaning out, weeding, and separating the bad guys from the good. They had an awfully hard time accepting that Jesus welcomed anybody: sinners, prostitutes, poor, women, children, and Samaritans.
4th slide: Van Gogh A sower and a crippled tree 1888
The Kingdom of Heaven looks like a man who sowed good seed in his field, Jesus begins his parable. The man sowed the good seeds in the ground, but in the middle of night something happened. An enemy sowed some weeds in the field. The weeds and wheat must then grow side by side and only on the day of harvest must the weeds and the wheat be discarded. The weeds must be burned, and the wheat must be collected in the barn.
4. slide Van Gogh
Here is another Vincent van Gogh Painting on the theme of a sower. Here, however, there is a strange barren, crippled, dark tree that leans askew over the painting and gives the painting a darker expression.
Life is both to be found in the life-giving good grains that are sown and grow. Life is strengthened by the yellow life-giving sun. But life also is found in the crooked, the dark, the menacing, the crippled, and the evil.
We all know human fates and stories about failure, neglect, abuse or wasted opportunities and lives. Family members or friends where abuse or addiction have taken power. We know life is fragile. We know there are good forces in life, and we know there are evil forces.
Good and evil, light and darkness, that is our human condition.
We are reminded every day in our current time and situation when we try to unite in the fight against the terrifying and threatening virus among us. How we wish we could simply weed out, root out the virus and throw Covid19 in a sack to burn.
These are hard times for so many: many have lost work and income, children lack the essential social contact with friends, and the vital education in school: elderly people living alone or in nursing homes are isolated and lonely, which is never good for our well-being.
But in the fight against the global Wild oats of 2020, Covid19, we must weigh health, care, protection and communal society, the hospital system and each other. However, all isolation, all lack of contact and all masks and all distance are to protect life and each other. And we all hope and pray to soon be able to resume a more normal life, that we all miss.
Good and evil, light and darkness, that is our condition. We are waiting for a vaccine to end the virus that has changed our lives and everyday lives, isolated us, and distanced us from each other.
This time has shown us both the bright life-giving aspects of human life.
We have witnessed a great deal of care and support for doctors and nurses, caregivers, and essential workers, and all the people who are risking their own health for our sake.
We have witnessed care and compassion between neighbors and in families. Helpfulness, care, and kindness have marked this time that has changed our daily lives and brought hardship to so many.
We have witnessed ingenuity, creativity, and imagination.
But the parable reminds us, as van Gogh's painting reminds us, as the Danish Wild Oats reminds us, as the Corona virus reminds us - that we live a life where there is evil and good, light, and dark. Around us and in us.
And yet we believe. We think life is good, though. That life is made to be lived and shared. That life can give us the most beautiful experiences and the deepest sorrows.
As Jens Rosendahl writes in his lovely love song:
5. slideThat life is ever worth our lives
Despite doubt and bitter strives,
Despite all that is hurting,
And love now is, will ever be,
Whatever people they might say,
Sweet love is still reverting.
Life tells us the story of the good seeds that are sown around us and in us. About words we should listen to and believe. About words to grow and grow in us. About words to be transformed into loving deeds.
Life tells us the story of the weed seeds also sown around us and in us. About words we should try to weed out and not believe. About words that should not be allowed to grow and grow in us. About the seeds of weeds that translate into evil, animosity, bitterness, lies and hatred. The weed that we ask God to weed out and forgive us for giving them space and breeding ground.
Lord, let our hearts be good receptive and fertile soil. AMEN.