"Imagine" | Rev. Stephanie Boaz preaching | 07.19.26

"Imagine" | Rev. Stephanie Boaz preaching | 07.19.26

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

So imagine just for a moment in your own mind Jesus in a boat in the Sea of Galilee and he is telling stories. Now, for some of you, you've been to the Sea of Galilee, so your imagination has already pulled those real life in-person memories to the forefront of your mind. Others have seen pictures in Bible dictionary or on the internet, so that is what you see right now in your mind's eye. My mind has also pulled an image from a book. It's a cartoon image. Circa late 1970s, early 1980s. It's a good vintage. You see, my parents faithfully purchased children's Bible storybooks from a local Christian bookstore when I was young, and incidentally, that store was so sweetly named the mustard seed. It's not high value art that I'm seeing in my mind right now, but it is clear. Jesus is clear. He stands in that boat. There is a crowd around him, and the way the artist has drawn them, you can see the full figure standing on the shore, but right behind them, just lots of little circles to represent heads in the crowd. There may be another boat on the water, and the disciples are with Jesus. Whether a memory, a photograph, a cartoon or not, your mind has presented you with something this morning, if you've decided to imagine, or imaginations, or a God created gift, a gift that Jesus leveraged in his teaching. Last week Sarah preached on the parable of the sower, and Jesus was preach was teaching from a boat on the Sea of Galilee. And this week Jesus is still teaching from the sea as we read another of Jesus' parables. Last week Jesus said, Listen, a sower went out to sow. And this week, Jesus invites us to imagine the kingdom of heaven. Our second lesson comes from Matthew chapter 13, verses 24 through 30, and then skipped over to verse 36 through 43. Hear the word of God. Our ears are open. Jesus 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 them, An enemy has done this. And the slave 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. Then he left the crowds and went into the house, and his his disciples approached him, saying, Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field. And Jesus answered, The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom, the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evil doers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. Let anyone with ears listen. The word of the Lord, thanks be to God. So Jesus started by saying The kingdom of heaven may be compared to in other words, imagine the kingdom of heaven. To do so in today's passage, Jesus invites us to imagine a variety of things. Jesus directs his listeners then as now to imagine a field of wheat that has been sown with good seed, and then to imagine an enemy has sown weeds deliberately into the field. Now imagining a field may have been easy for Jesus' listeners on the shore that day. Galilee was a significant agricultural area. There were fields of many varieties all over Galilee due to its climate and soil, and very often fields of grain were planted right up to the edge of the sea. So those listening to Jesus may not have had to pull from their imaginations as much as we do, considering our urban perspective. They could very likely see fields from where they were standing, and even if they couldn't see them from their vantage point there on the shore, they surely would have walked by fields of grain to get to the sea that day. So it may not have been hard for them to imagine a field with wheat or the weeds. Anyone who gardens knows that where plants are cultivated, there will be weeds. Something that threatens our thriving, that crowds our comfort, or potentially chokes out our peace. Why does this happen? Who or what is responsible for this? Whose fault is it? In the parable, Jesus tells the weeds are the fault of an enemy. But who is my enemy? I suppose by virtue of this being a parable, to some extent, Jesus is inviting us to imagine our enemies. But aren't we growing tired of imagining our enemies? It seems too easy, too automatic anymore. Do you know what I mean? We quickly seem to sort people into categories that create the us versus them distinction. And once that is complete, the mere glimpse or mention of them, well, we feel it. We feel it in our bodies. A tensing up, a quick wave of disgust or a surge of adrenaline. Suddenly we're on the verge of fight or flight, or maybe not to that extreme, but at the very least, we're on the verge of saying something or not saying something. All of this makes me anxious and irritable and paranoid, not to mention sad and weighed down and hope challenged. Plus, I think so often we can go beyond simply imagining our enemies to actually creating them, whether our enemies know it or not, whether we know it or not. Thankfully, it seems like Jesus is more concerned with asking us to imagine the kingdom of heaven. So we go back to that field. There is wheat and there are weeds. There is a farmer and there is evidence of an enemy. There are also workers who are watching and wanting to do something as soon as possible, but the farmer, the boss, says no. No, there is growing that needs to happen, and that growing must happen together. The farmer then assures the workers that it will all work out in the end. There's a larger plan, and for now, that plan is for the wheat and the weeds to grow side by side. Imagine the kingdom of heaven. In Matthew's gospel, the kingdom of heaven is different from the kingdoms of the world, and the delineation is drawn very clearly. The act of Jesus coming into the world represents the inbreaking of God's kingdom, so the lines must be drawn, otherwise we might miss the difference. We might even miss the inherent question posed to us by Jesus' presence and teaching. Which kingdom will prevail? In whose empire will you participate? Which is why the presence of the enemy is so significant. Because immediately the crowd is alerted to the fact that there is opposition to the kingdom of heaven. There is an enemy who seeks to arm, seeks to harm. It's us and them. The workers see it, and they are ready to weed them out. And we completely get that. But the establishment of dichotomies is pretty dangerous in our hands. Good and evil, body and soul, civilized and uncivilized, successful and unsuccessful us and them. Jennifer Kalen says that when we draw these lines, we reduce our worldview to such sharp contrasts, and we often lose the ability to see our collective best interests and common goals. We start to think that we know exactly what needs to happen. But Jesus, he urges us to imagine the kingdom of heaven. And it's not always easy. As Christians, there are times when we think we know exactly how to be and how to live, and there are times when we just get it wrong. Sometimes we may think we have the best plan, and yet in those times, sometimes we can do more harm than good. But there is so much good news in this story. Because the good news is that we have time to grow. Jesus will help us to see the difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdoms of this world. Of course, this means that for now we have to grow in a weedy field with difficulties that push and choke and pull us into worldly ways. But it is where we're supposed to be, and it is where we are invited to pledge our allegiance to the right kingdom. Barbara Brown Taylor says this it's not easy being wheat, especially with so many weeds competing for the soil. But what the farmer seems to know is that the best and only real solution to evil is to bear good fruit. And friends, we can seek to do this together, to grow in our faithfulness, to grow in our imagination about the kingdom of heaven. And together we can choose the right kingdom and we can bear fruit. And all of this while being tended to the best farmer ever. All of this by being while being guided by Jesus who encourages us to imagine what he can do in this world, who encourages us to imagine what it means that he came to be with us, and to encourage us to imagine what it means that he has plans for the future, that it will all work out in the end, and even now we can participate in that plan when we are ready to imagine the kingdom of heaven. Amen.