Several years ago, a mother and her young son were driving to our worship service. The little guy asked his mom, “If God created the earth, and me, and Adam and Eve…well, who created God?” I loved her answer: “When we get to church, you can ask Pastor Steve!”
I don't know about you, but of all the parables Jesus tells, this one about the weeds growing among the wheat irritates me the most. In many situations, I want to have happen what the farm hands in this story are ready to do: pull up the weeds, throw the bums out!
(This sermon was delivered to a group recovering from alcohol and drug addiction.) On June the 10th, 1935, “God did a truly wondrous thing.” A miracle happened in Akron, Ohio. Two hopeless alcoholics did something that never should have happened: They stayed sober.
Jesus does not tell his disciples to pray for more leaders, more visionaries, more people who are highly talented. What concerns him is that more laborers become available.
I studied the parables with Dr. William Farmer, who, at the time, was one of the foremost New Testament scholars in the world. I'll never forget the first lesson Dr. Farmer taught us. He said, "A parable is a simple story, using concrete imagery, to make a single point."
Jesus said: “And you shall be my witnesses, in Jerusalem, in Judea, and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth.” Essentially, Jesus was saying “Start with the Jews and go out from there.”
Tom Black used to say that the church was to be a hospital for sinners, not a sanctuary for saints. For most of our history, I think we have held true to that value. We are here to have compassion, not to condemn.
Wesley Frensdorff, former Bishop of Nevada, said: “Ministry, as the sharing of God’s gifts, is the personal privilege and imperative of every member of the church by virtue of baptism… The church is a ministering community, a community of ministers.
If Jack Welch (the former CEO of General Electric) had been managing Jesus’ ministry campaign, things would have been totally different. “You can’t grow long-term if you can’t eat short-term,” is one of his pithy insights. That means that you’ve got to be willing to suffer small losses in order to make big gains.
God's grace changes people. We call this conversion. The word "conversion" means simply "to turn around." God's grace turns us around. Sometimes the movement is slow. At other times we're spun around so fast we end up dizzy. But in all cases, conversion means that once we were looking in one direction, and now we're looking in the opposite direction.