We Are One With Jesus, and Jesus Is With Us

Brad Sullivan

Proper 11, Year A

July 23, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

Genesis 28:10-19a

Romans 8:12-25

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

We Are One With Jesus, and Jesus Is With Us

I had a wonderful week last week at Camp Allen.  Kristin and I, along with Machel Delange and Caroline San Martin were the camp directors for a session of summer camp for 3rd and 4th graders, and our theme was Star Wars based, “I am one with Jesus, and Jesus is with me,” that line taken and modified from a prayer that a character prayed in the most recent Star Wars movie, substituting “The Force” for Jesus.

We showed clips from the Star Wars movies and talked with the kids about trusting in Jesus and following in his way, like Jedi trusted in the Force and followed the path of the light.  We hiked, we swam, we comforted homesick kiddos, and we supported the teenagers and young adults who were counselors and staff members of the camp.  The kids gave these great responses during our discussions about Jesus being the light of the world and us following him and being one with him.  “Jesus’ light is within us and we offer pieces of that light to others.”  We talked about being one with Jesus and that because we are one with Jesus, we are one with each other and with all creation, so what we do really does matter; if we do good things to one, we are bringing light to all, and if we harm one person or even one part of creation, we’re harming and bringing darkness to all.  Then, we made prayer beads and prayed “I am one with Jesus, and Jesus is with me” on the prayer beads to help us to be aware of his light within us so that we live and act out of that place of unity with God and with all creation.

It was a really good week.  Then I came back and started working on the sermon for today, and was met by one of my not quite favorite passages:  Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds:  Jesus sows good wheat seeds, and then the devil comes along and sows weeds among the wheat.  On the one hand, I love that Jesus says not to tear out the weeds until the harvest so that harm doesn’t come to the wheat.  We’re all connected, and so tearing out the weeds would harm the wheat.

On the other hand, at the end of the parable, Jesus explained that the weeds would be burned, meaning all causes of sin and all evildoers will be thrown into the furnace of fire at the end of the age.  I imagine that means that some people will be punished eternally for what they did during one lifetime, and I’ve always been bothered by that idea.  I fret over who is going to end up as the weeds and who will end up as the wheat.

How does this work?  Are we all children of Jesus or children of the devil from our birth with nothing we can do to change it?  That’s certainly what Jesus’ explanation of the parable sounds like.  Perhaps he was using black and white language to describe something more complicated so his disciples would understand.  Perhaps it is every bit as simple as it sounds.  Perhaps the furnace of fire will burn the evil away and leave what is good in people?  I honestly don’t know.  I struggle with this one.  How could there be causes of sin and evil doers in God’s kingdom?  Of course there wouldn’t be, but doesn’t Jesus redeem them?  Isn’t that what his death on the cross was all about?  I wrestle with these questions, as have Jesus’ disciples for 2000 years.

Most of this wrestling has to do with our fears over the idea of a final judgment.  Who will be wheat and who will be weeds?  Many Christians end up try to assuage those fears by coming up with biblically based rules about who will be in and who will be out, rules about determining who is wheat and who is weeds.  Predestination.  Double predestination.  Marks of election.  These and other attempts to defend God’s sovereignty and to identify who is wheat and who is weeds all have several problems.

While trying to tie up Jesus’ parables and teachings about his kingdom into a nice neat package with a bow on top, and all such attempts lead to putting our faith in rules rather than in God, and we end up determining for our own sense of security who is in and who is out, which means we end up taking removing Jesus and the angels from the story and put ourselves in their place.  When we start supposing that we can determine who we believe to be weeds and who we believe to be wheat, we end up exalting ourselves to the place of Jesus, and not surprisingly, folks who engage in this type of supposition also end up placing themselves on the side of the wheat, not the weeds. 

Whenever we start trying to determine who is wheat and who is weeds, we also end up making the same first mistake of Adam and Eve, eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Such determinations are not ours to make, and Jesus expressly forbids our doing so.  So on the one hand we aren’t supposed to make determinations about who is good and who is evil, and on the other hand, we don’t have to.  There is great relief in not having to determine who is good and who is evil.  There is great relief in not having to determine even if it is so clear cut as good and evil, black and white.  Thankfully, we don’t have to make those determinations. 

So, rather than try to justify God’s sovereignty and make ourselves feel better by assuring ourselves that someone else is the weeds and we are of course the wheat, we can take comfort in the idea that God will eventually judge justly and eradicate all evil, all malice and fear, all hatred and enmity.  God doesn’t do so right now, because we are all so interconnected that removing all evil right now would destroy us all.  That’s another question I often hear asked, “Why does God allow bad things to happen?”  Because removing all evil right now would destroy us all.  If God just killed all the people we though were bad, eventually it would get back around to someone we love.  Additionally, we just might be on someone else's bad list.  Remember that when we determine who is evil and who is good, one person’s evil enemy is another person’s hero.   If we got to determine who is evil and who is good, there would be none of us left.

As much as we may want to determine who is good and who is evil, ours is not to answer such questions.  Ours is to trust in the way of Jesus who prayed for God to forgive the evildoers who killed him.  “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing,” Jesus prayed.  Ours is to forgive others even as we have been forgiven.  Ours is to trust the Word of God which spoke all of creation into existence, to trust that the Word of God which became human as the person of Jesus just might have a good idea about how to run the universe which he created. 

Then, we continually seek Jesus’ help in our lives, to live out his kingdom now.  We get to seek Jesus’ help to eradicate evil from ourselves and to live out God’s kingdom as best we can now.   Freed from having to run the universe, we get to trust Jesus who is the way and the truth and the life.  We get to live with his light within us, and we get to share that light with others. 

We get to live and share his kingdom, and what is life like in God’s Kingdom here on earth?  Well, it's wheat and weeds.  At least in this life, it is full of joys and sorrows, full of missteps and faithful following in Jesus’ way.  Life in God’s Kingdom is full of grace and compassion, understanding and forgiveness, messing up and reconciliation.  God’s kingdom is full of joining together to help one another in times of adversity, and joining together to celebrate in times of joy.  God's Kingdom is reaching a hand out to those whom we believe to be weeds, helping them out as well, remembering that they probably believe we are weeds.  Rather than trusting in rugged self-reliance, the hubris of earned or deserved wealth, and a lofty self-appointment as being wheat among the weeds, life in God’s kingdom is life lived together, putting our trust in Jesus and in each other, sharing with others what we have been given by God.

As we said at camp last week, we trust in Jesus and follow in his ways, for he is the way, and the truth, and the life.  We trust the light of Jesus within us.  We trust in his goodness and ability to order well the universe that he created.  We live life not with continual fear, wondering are we wheat or are we weeds.  We live life in God’s Kingdom, life lived full of the assurance that we are one with Jesus and Jesus is with us.