2026-07-20
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
Grow
The Federated Church / Pentecost 7A
Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43/ Take Root. Grow. Bear Fruit. Sow.
Rev. Michael Anthony Howard
Sunday, July 19, 2026
Opening Question: “What is the Kingdom of God?”
That is the question we begin with today in worship.
Jesus rarely answers it with a definition.
Instead, he tells stories.
Again and again, he says:
“The kingdom of heaven is like...”
Jesus’ parables invite us not merely to think differently, but to see differently.
The Garden Isn't What We Think
Last week the sower scattered seeds everywhere.
This week the servants want to pull weeds.
If we read these stories as gardening advice,
Jesus appears to be giving terrible instructions.
First, he throws seed everywhere.
Then he tells the gardeners not to weed.
Perhaps Jesus isn't teaching us how to garden.
Perhaps he is teaching us how the Kingdom grows.
Why Jesus Teaches in Parables
The Greek word parabolē means “to cast alongside.”
A parable places one thing beside another
so that we begin to see reality differently.
Jesus is not primarily teaching us about farming.
He is teaching us how to recognize the Kingdom of God.
Wheat and Weeds
The servants see weeds growing among the wheat.
Their instinct is immediate:
“Shall we pull them up?”
The householder answers:
“No.”
For many years I assumed this meant
the servants simply couldn't tell
the difference between weeds and wheat.
There is some truth to that.
A plant called bearded darnel
closely resembles wheat while it is growing.
More importantly, its roots intertwine with the wheat.
Pull one too early, and you risk destroying both.
But Jesus is teaching something even deeper.
Augustine's Mixed Body
St. Augustine described the Church as
the corpus permixtum—the mixed body.
The Church has always contained saints and sinners.
The convinced and the doubtful.
The mature and the still growing.
Our temptation is to become experts at deciding who belongs.
Jesus warns us that this is not how God’s Kingdom grows.
The Marble Field
I’ve been thinking about this mixed field
That Jesus’s parable describes,
And about Augustine’s dictum about
the church being corpus permixtum.
Here’s how I’ve come to imagine it.
The Kingdom is a marble field.
Not rows of perfect order.
Not neatly separated boxes.
A field where the seeds of God’s grace are scattered everywhere.
Our calling is not to become better weed-pullers.
Our calling is to recognize where God is already bringing life.
The Logos Wants a World
Earlier in Matthew’s Gospel,
Jesus looked upon the crowds.
Matthew writes that they were:
“Harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
— Matthew 9:36
Jesus was moved with splagchnizomai—
deep, bodily compassion.
That compassion becomes
the heartbeat of the Kingdom.
The Logos wants to become flesh.
The Word wants to become a world.
The seed wants to become wheat.
The wheat wants to become bread.
The bread wants to become a table where all are fed.
Don’t get lost in the weeds.
Keep your eyes on the dream.
That is the fruit God is growing.
