Let Both Grow: Resisting the Urge to Uproot (Psalm 86:11–17; Isaiah 44:6–8; Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43) (July 18, 2026)
Date: July 12, 2026 (Second Sunday after Pentecost)
Location: Eden UCC, Chicago
Part Two — July 19, 2026
“Let Both Grow: Resisting the Urge to Uproot”
Psalm 86:11–17; Isaiah 44:6–8; Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43
Good morning.
Last Sunday, we began this two-part sermon series called “God’s
People in God’s Field.” We listened to Jesus’ parable of the sower, and we
asked: What kind of soil are we becoming?
Are we a people where God’s word can take root?
Are we a congregation where grace can grow?
Are we a church where the seed of God’s love can bear fruit—not just for
ourselves, but for Jefferson Park, for our neighbors, for Chicago, and for the
wider world?
This week, Jesus keeps us in the field, but the question
changes a little.
Last week, the question was: What kind of soil are we?
This week, the question is: What do we do when something grows beside us
that we did not plant, did not expect, and maybe do not want?
Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to
someone who sowed good seed in his field.” But then, while everyone was
asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat.
When the plants came up, the workers noticed the problem
right away. They went to the landowner and asked, “Master, did you not sow
good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?”
That question feels familiar.
We know that question. We ask it in our families. We ask it
in church meetings. We ask it when we watch the news. We ask it when we look at
our country. We ask it when we see the ways people speak to one another, fear
one another, and sometimes use faith not to heal, but to control.
“Where did these weeds come from?”
Then the workers ask a second question: “Do you want us
to go and gather them?”
That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?
Honestly, if I were one of the workers, I probably would
have asked the same thing. Because when we care about something, we want to
protect it. When we care about a church, a family, a neighborhood, or a
country, we do not want harm to spread. We do not want the wheat to be choked.
We do not want the field to be ruined.
But the landowner says something surprising:
“No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the
wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest.”
Let both grow.
That is not an easy word.
It is important to say this carefully. Jesus is not saying
evil is fine. Jesus is not saying harm does not matter. Jesus is not saying
injustice should be ignored. Jesus is not saying that we should do nothing.
But Jesus is warning us about a dangerous temptation: the
urge to believe that we can see the whole field exactly as God sees it, and
therefore we can start pulling people out.
The workers think they can tell the difference right away.
I remember one of my professors once reminding us that
Christians can have a strange tendency toward self-righteousness. In a parable
like this, we may quickly assume that we are the good seed, we are the wheat,
and the weeds must be someone else. But we should be careful. In the eyes of
others, we may not always look like wheat. Sometimes our words, our actions,
our fear, or our desire to control may look very different from what we intend.
My professor also offered two reminders that have stayed with me. First, if we
feel that the field has too many weeds, maybe our calling is not to spend all
our energy pulling things out, but to plant more good seeds while we still can.
And second, even when the line between wheat and weeds feels unclear—even when
we ourselves may be a mixture in the eyes of others—we should never forget that
God has the power to turn things around. God can bring transformation beyond
what we can imagine.
But the landowner sees something the workers do not see: the
roots are tangled together. If they start ripping things out too quickly, they
may destroy the very wheat they are trying to save.
That is the hard wisdom of this parable.
And I think this is a very important word for the church
today, because religious people can be very good at purity projects. Once we
believe we can clearly separate the wheat from the weeds, it becomes very
tempting to start uprooting. And when that desire to uproot gets dressed up in
religious language, it can become especially harmful.
But Jesus does not say, “Go purify the field.”
Jesus says, “Let both grow together until the harvest.”
And Isaiah helps us understand why.
In Isaiah 44, God speaks to a people who know fear. They
know instability. They know what it feels like when the world they trusted has
fallen apart. And into that fear, God says:
“I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no
god.”
“Do not fear, or be afraid.”
“There is no other rock; I know not one.”
There is no other rock.
Not empire.
Not church tradition.
Not even the church itself, when the church forgets that it belongs to God.
There is no other rock.
That word matters because fear is always looking for another
rock. When people are afraid, we want something solid to hold onto. And
sometimes we hold onto things that promise safety but slowly become idols.
Even our desire to be right can become an idol.
Isaiah says: God alone is the rock. God alone is first and
last. God alone holds the beginning and the end. God alone is the judge of the
harvest.
And if God alone is the rock, then the church does not have
to become an anxious owner of the field. We do not have to act as if everything
depends on our ability to identify and remove every weed. We do not have to
force the kingdom of God to arrive through control.
That is why our call to worship from Psalm 86 is so
important today:
“Teach me your way, O Lord.”
Or in the First Nations Version we used this morning:
“Teach me your way, Grandfather, and I will walk your
good road.”
That is a beautiful prayer.
Teach me your way.
That means we are still learning. That means the whole
church of Jesus Christ is still learning. That does not mean we have no
convictions. It means our convictions are shaped by Jesus.
And Jesus tells us that the field belongs to God.
So this message is not only about “those people out there.”
It is not only about Christian nationalism in the news. It is not only about
people we disagree with, when we continue to reflection on the 250th
anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
It is about us.
It is about what kind of church we are becoming in this
field called Jefferson Park.
I have been looking at all the announcements in the bulletin
for today. There is a lot going on. So much, actually, that the announcements
themselves almost preach a sermon.
At first glance, some of this might sound like publicity.
Flyers. QR codes. Tables. Tickets. Sponsorships. Raffle baskets. Volunteers.
Who can set up? Who can pack up? Who can sit at the booth for an hour?
But in the light of today’s gospel, I wonder if these are
also field questions.
Where has God planted us?
Who are our neighbors?
What does it mean for Eden to grow here?
What kind of fruit is God calling us to bear?
When we show up at a farmers market, we are not just
advertising church events. We are saying: we are part of this neighborhood.
When we show up at National Night Out, we are not just
handing out flyers. We are saying: we care about the safety, healing, and trust
of this community.
When we invite people into this building for music, theater,
food, fellowship, prayer, and worship, we are not just trying to survive as an
institution. We are asking: How can Eden become a visible sign of God’s welcome
in Jefferson Park? There are so many more that our congregation has put efforts
in our community.
However, that is very different from trying to control the
field.
That is very different from trying to uproot people from the
field.
This is what the church is called to do: to grow faithfully
where God has planted us.
And these ordinary things are not small. They are part of
how the kingdom grows.
The kingdom of God does not always arrive with noise.
Sometimes it grows quietly, like wheat under the sun and rain.
But everything around us teaches us to sort people quickly.
Social media teaches us to sort people quickly.
Politics teaches us to sort people quickly.
Fear teaches us to sort people quickly.
Sometimes religion teaches us to sort people quickly.
But Jesus slows us down.
Jesus says: Be careful. The roots are tangled. You do not
see everything. You do not know the whole story. You are not the harvester.
Let both grow until the harvest.
Again, this does not mean we become passive. Christian
patience is not the same as doing nothing.
We still resist evil.
We still protect the vulnerable.
We still speak up when faith is used to harm.
But there is a difference between pulling out harmful
systems and trying to pull human beings out of God’s field.
The church must resist evil. But the church must not become
evil in the process.
This is especially important when we talk about Christian
nationalism.
Our UCC General Minister and President, Rev. Dr. Karen
Georgia A. Thompson, recently reminded the church that Christian nationalism is
not simply another style of Christianity. It is a distortion of Christianity,
because it takes scripture, faith, and Christian language and uses them to
support fear, exclusion, and control. But to be Christian, she reminds us, is
to follow the way of Jesus—a way that centers love over fear, justice for those
pushed aside, and the dignity of every human life. That is why this
conversation matters for us. We are not speaking about Christian nationalism
because we want to win a political argument. We are speaking about it because
we are trying to be faithful to Jesus. We are trying to remember that the
church is not called to make the field smaller, but to witness to the God whose
love is wider than our fear.[1]
The problem with Christian nationalism is not that
Christians care about the nation. Of course we care. We pray for our country.
We sang a prayer for our nation today. We pray for leaders at every level. We
pray for our neighborhood leaders, our first responders, our schools, our
children, our elders, our workers, and our vulnerable neighbors. Love of
neighbor includes public life. Faith should shape how we seek justice, mercy,
and peace in the world, not to justify a war.[2]
The problem comes when the nation becomes the rock, and
becomes untouchable.
The problem comes when Christian identity is used to decide
who truly belongs.
The problem comes when we confuse “Thy kingdom come” with
“my group must win.”
The problem comes when we stop praying “Teach me your way”
and start declaring, “God must bless my agenda.”
But Isaiah says, “There is no other rock.”
And Jesus says, “The field is the world.”
And God loves the world.
So maybe our calling as a group of faith is not to make the
field smaller, but to make our welcome deeper.
Not to make our faith louder in a controlling way, but to
make our love more visible.
Not to stand over Jefferson Park as if we own the
neighborhood, but to stand with Jefferson Park as neighbors, servants, friends,
and witnesses.
Maybe when we talk about publicity, we are really talking
about presence.
Maybe when we talk about outreach, we are really talking
about relationship.[3]
Maybe when we talk about fundraising, we are really
talking about sustaining a ministry of welcome, care, and justice.
Maybe when we talk about events, we are really talking about
creating places where people can encounter goodness, safety, laughter, music,
memory, healing, and maybe even God.
That is not a purity project.
That is patient gospel work.
We may not always see the fruit right away. We may not know
what God is growing.
But we can keep showing up.
We can keep planting.
We can keep praying, “Teach me your way.”
And we can keep resisting the urge to uproot.
Because the harvest belongs to God.
Let us grow wherever God gives us a place to stand, a
neighbor to meet, a story to hear, a hand to hold, and a seed to plant.
And when the harvest comes, may we be found not with our
hands full of the neighbors we tried to uproot, but with lives full of the
fruit God’s Spirit has grown in us.
“Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk your good
road.”
Amen.
[1] https://www.ucc.org/journey-for-justice/
[2] US
troops were told war on Iran was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’, watchdog
alleges, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric
[3] Adopted from Michael Pasquarello III In Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby, Carolyn J. Sharp. Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, pp. 406–407. Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.
Comments