Pastor Dan Mangler's Sunday Sermon

Patience, Not Neglect

Matthew 13: 24-30

July 17, 2005

Patience, Not Neglect

Experience suggests that patience is not an innately human quality. A situation was reported years ago in the READER'S DIGEST in which a car at a crowed intersection, while waiting for the traffic light to change, stalled, holding up a line of other vehicles behind it. Obviously flustered, the lady who was driving the car hurriedly got out and lifted the hood to investigate. As she did, the driver of the car behind began honking his horn.

The honking continued until the driver of the stalled car, still unsuccessful in discovering the trouble, went ever and spoke to the impatient motorist behind her. "If you will fix my car," she said calmly, "I will be glad to keep blowing your horn for you." Experience suggests that patience is not an innately human quality.

It is clear that Frankie's father was not a patient man. The Sunday school teacher asked her young class "Where does God live?" The class was silent for a moment, and then Frankie raised his hand. When the teacher asked Frankie where he thought God lived, he answered confidently, "In the bathroom at my house!" "Why do you say that?" his teacher asked. "Because", Frankie said confidently, "Every morning my daddy bangs on the bathroom door and says, "My lord, are you still in there?"'

Because patience is not an innately human quality, and because patience is not widely practiced by most of us, patience can be misunderstood when experienced in God. The parable that we read as this morning's gospel is a story that Jesus told to teach his listeners to illustrate the patience of God.

This is not a story to improve modern farming techniques. A modern farmer would certainly apply some kind of pre-emergent herbicide that would prevent weeds from growing even if weed seeds were planted by a wicked neighbor. Or, should weeds develop, even the biblical farmer might tell his servants to go and pull out the weeds knowing that the loss of some good plants uprooted in the weeding would be more than offset by the increased yield in the whole field rid of nutrient robbing weeds.

No, this is not a story on farming efficiency, not the latest agricultural bulletin from the University of Jerusalem Extension Office on weed management. Jesus told this story about a messy, weed-infested wheat field to explain the messiness of the world, why evil exists alongside the good, why the newspaper headlines are what they are, why in a world that was created with the words "and it was good" punctuating every day with God’s last words, “And it was very good,” looks so bad today. It is a story that is even meant to explain the messiness of the church today, why there is sin in the church, to explain the selfishness that exists alongside the generosity, and to explain the pettiness that exists alongside the noble and the magnanimous spirit. Simply put, evil exists alongside the good because God, in His loving patience, allows it.

Our English word patience comes from a Latin root, "pati", which means to suffer, to endure. Patience is the willingness to put up with waiting, pain, annoyances, troubles, or hurts. This describes God. Patience is the first word that Paul uses to describe agape. God-like love, when he writes in 1 Cor. 13:4, "(God-like) love is patient and kind..." It is the quality of God praised by the psalmist in the words, "The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." - Psa 103:8 And the motive for this patience is explained by Peter; "The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. — 2 Pet 3:9

God does not forbear pulling the weeds only to protect the good plants from being inadvertently pulled up with the weeds. He also forbears pulling the weeds as he patiently awaits a miraculous metamorphosis that some of the weeds might be turned into good plants. God does not forbear destroying evil man today only to protect the righteous from being destroyed along with the unrighteous, but also stays destruction to give time for evil men to repent and become part of the righteous harvest.

Evil human beings will continue in the world, and sinful people will continue in the church because the first attribute of God's love is patience, "not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."

Jesus told the parable of the weeds and the wheat to teach that God is patient. He also told this parable to teach that God is not eternally patient. There is mercy promised here, but there is also judgment warned here. Do not confuse patience with disinterest. Do not mistake leniency for lack of concern. Do not confuse forbearance with forgetfulness. Remember St. Paul's warning: "(Do not) presume upon the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience. Do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" — Rom 2:4

Jesus did not teach that evil will never be judged. He taught that evil will be judged by God and in God's time, and that that time shall surely come. Judgment is postponed to give time for repentance, but it will not be postponed forever. The farmer said to his servants, "...Let both of them (weeds and wheat) 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." In a like parable in this same chapter of Matthew Jesus said, "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." It is said that justice delayed is justice denied. But this is not to say that Judgment delayed is Judgment denied.

A pastor entered the room of a man who had, just a few hours before, suffered what the psychiatrist called "a mental breakdown." Taken out of his office by a team of mental health workers, he was now silting in the corner of his little room at the Mental Health Center, holding his head in his hands and whimpering softly. When the pastor put his arm around him and asked, "Joe, what's this going on with you?" he looked up with a plaintive expression on his face and said, "Preacher, I’m afraid that the bad guys are going to win."

Jesus taught in the parable of the weeds and the wheat that the bad guys will not win. The threat of judgment is also a promise of judgment. Although God's judgments seem slow to those who pray for vindication and justice, be assured that God will judge. Time of harvest is promised. It waits only that more, through repentance, might be included. It waits, perhaps, that we, by repentance, too, might be included. Amen.

May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.