Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
“The Church is Not an English Garden”
By: Rev. Ken Sauer, Pastor of Grace United Methodist Church, Soddy Daisy, TN www.graceumcsd.org
I have never seen an English Garden, but I am told they are so beautiful.
The flowers are carefully arranged in rows, fancy configurations and designs.
You won’t see a weed or an unclipped shrub.
The garden is striking in that it fits the design of its creator and all the parts fit together as one body.
There are no weeds to detract from the flowers or suck out their life.
That’s all good and fine.
But if our church begins to look and feel like an English Garden—we’ve got some serious problems.
There is a myth flourishing in some corners of the Church today.
It’s a big lie that has caused all kinds of trouble: “once converted, fully converted.”
In other words, “once I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, an irreversible, sinless future beckons.
Following Christ will be an untarnished success story; life will be an unbroken upward spiral toward holiness.”
Tell that to the Apostle Peter who, after three times professing his love for Jesus on the beach and after receiving the fullness of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost—was still jealous of Paul’s missionary success!!!
The Christian life is a journey—it is the most exciting and worthwhile journey imaginable—but it is still a journey.
God isn’t finished with any of us yet!
Justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior means one has been put in right relationship with God…has become a part of God’s Kingdom—God’s Church, not made the equivalent of a patient who has been put to sleep on an operating table.
The church is not an English Garden.
It’s a messy garden and it’s full of weeds!!!
And the healthier a church gets—the messier it gets!!!
I was amazed and unsettled a few weeks ago when I spent the better part of a week trying to find a shelter for a family with two children.
We live in what many call “the buckle of the Bible belt” where there are more churches per square mile than in any other place in America.
But with all these churches, we don’t have a decent system to help the poor family who suddenly finds themselves homeless!
Something is wrong with this picture.
What is our theology?
Where are our priorities?
What are we doing with all our assets?
One colleague of mine, frustrated by the situation, said to me: “Churches spend anywhere from 6 million dollars to 23 million dollars on building programs for themselves while people are starving in the streets!”
Jesus came to show us what God’s Kingdom is about.
Jesus comes to the sinners, the poor, the hungry.
Jesus welcomes the tax collectors and the prostitutes, and tells the religious leaders of His day that these are the kinds of folks who are entering the Kingdom of God—ahead of them!!!
Jesus’ ministry is to be our ministry, and Jesus’ ministry is messy business!!!
The Church is not an exclusive, well-trimmed suburb with snobbish rules about who can live here.
The Church is, as Morton Kelsey wrote, “not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners…” or as we may say, “a hospital for people with ‘messy lives’!”
And that includes you and I and the person who has yet to cross the threshold of a church’s building.
Christianity is not a political slogan.
It is not about a list of do’s and don’ts.
Christianity is about grace, forgiveness and learning to love our God and our neighbor.
And who is our neighbor?
Anybody and everybody!
In our parable for this morning the weeds and the wheat are allowed to grow up together.
The word in Jesus’ parable that is interpreted as weed should really be tare.
And a tare was a type of plant that, in its immature stages looked almost identical to the wheat.
Only when the tare put on its seed and was ready for harvest could it truly be distinguished from the wheat.
Did not Jesus say, “You will know them by their fruit.”?
So one of the main points of this parable may be: “Who knows where God may be at work?”
And the best way to answer this
Question may be this: “God is at work when people act like Jesus.”
Now this is not to be taken in some morally pious and perfectly sinless sense.
We are called to love God and love other people.
Christianity is about love!!!
And people living with ‘messy lives’ can love pretty good—when they are following Jesus!!!
They will mess up.
They will stumble and fall, but they can still love pretty well.
The power of becoming free to act like Jesus comes when we embrace and own up to our messiness…our brokenness…our need for God!!!
We are a church of ‘messy people’, but that’s the hope for the world!!!
For we are ‘messy people’ saved by grace, joining hands to follow Jesus!!!
There is no need for us to lie to ourselves or others.
The sweet sound of amazing grace saves us from the necessity of self-deception.
We need not put on airs.
We do not need to put on spiritual cosmetics to make ourselves presentable to God.
When we accept ownership of our spiritual poverty, powerlessness and neediness—that’s when we can fully put our trust in God’s grace and God’s grace alone…and then take up our Cross and cheerfully, gratefully, exuberantly follow Jesus into the dark alleys and the back woods!!!
It is in our brokenness that we come closer to God.
And it is in recognizing brokenness that we are able to accept other people who are broken as well!!!
As Brennan Manning writes, “My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”
How awesome is that?
I want some of that soul-food!!!
So the weeds and the wheat are allowed to grow together.
And you know what?
We are all weeds and we are all wheat are we not?
We are saved by grace but the battle with lust, greed, pride and apathy toward the plight of others still rages within us.
As sinners who have been redeemed, we can acknowledge that we are often unloving, irritable, angry, and resentful with those closest to us.
When we come together to worship God we can leave our white hats at home and admit that we have failed.
God not only loves us as we are, but also knows us as we are.
And God is not through with us yet!!!
Following Jesus means that each day we face our broken, messy lives, accept them for what they are and trust in the power of Jesus to change us from weeds into wheat!!!
Following Jesus causes us to become more and more aware each new day of our selfishness and greed.
And this awareness is God’s grace in action as we become convicted of new truths and of new places God is calling us to go!
Weeds grow and flourish best in an emptiness, a vacuum.
Millions upon millions of people, young and old, are living life with the experience of a spiritual emptiness within.
The pursuit of materialism, and apathy toward those who are hungry and thirsty creates a huge void in the lives of people.
Nature hates a void and will soon fill it with more weeds.
Unless, unless…persons realize their God given need to help others in the name of Christ!!!
That is what fills the void.
No one can be truly happy unless they are co-workers with God striving to help and love those who have been left behind.
Perhaps God is calling us to open a homeless shelter at Grace.
Maybe God is calling us to live a bit less “high on the hog” in order that we might be able to share more with others.
Do you want to be transformed?
Join in the work of God.
Look for signs of Jesus.
Share in bringing “good news to the poor,” proclaiming “release of the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,” work with God to “let the oppressed go free.”
In other words, be the hands and feet of Jesus in a lost and messy world.
Share your resources with those in need.
Don’t spend the all your money on yourself.
“Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can.”
Don’t live to inflate your ego or cause others to feel inferior.
Instead, live to lift others up…
…and in doing so…
…you will bear great fruit…
…allowing God to change you into one of God’s fruit-bearing plants… …ready for the harvest!
Those who have ears—let them hear.
