Sermon for Sunday 19th July 2026, Trinity 7

By David Bayly

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READINGS

​​Psalm 139.1-18

 

Lord, you have examined me and you know me.
2 You know everything I do;
    from far away you understand all my thoughts.
3 You see me, whether I am working or resting;
    you know all my actions.
4 Even before I speak,
    you already know what I will say.
5 You are all around me on every side;
    you protect me with your power.
6 Your knowledge of me is too deep;
    it is beyond my understanding.

7 Where could I go to escape from you?
    Where could I get away from your presence?
8 If I went up to heaven, you would be there;
    if I lay down in the world of the dead, you would be there.
9 If I flew away beyond the east
    or lived in the farthest place in the west,
10 you would be there to lead me,
    you would be there to help me.
11 I could ask the darkness to hide me
    or the light around me to turn into night,
12 but even darkness is not dark for you,
    and the night is as bright as the day.
    Darkness and light are the same to you.

13 You created every part of me;
    you put me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because you are to be feared;
    all you do is strange and wonderful.
    I know it with all my heart.
15 When my bones were being formed,
    carefully put together in my mother's womb,
when I was growing there in secret,
    you knew that I was there—
16     you saw me before I was born.
The days allotted to me
    had all been recorded in your book,
    before any of them ever began.
17 O God, how difficult I find your thoughts;[b]
    how many of them there are!
18 If I counted them, they would be more than the grains of sand.
    When I awake, I am still with you.

 

Matthew 13.24-30, 36-43

 

The Parable of the Weeds
24 Jesus told them another parable: “The Kingdom of heaven is like this. A man sowed good seed in his field. 25 One night, when everyone was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26 When the plants grew and the heads of grain began to form, then the weeds showed up. 27 The man's servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, it was good seed you sowed in your field; where did the weeds come from?’ 28 ‘It was some enemy who did this,’ he answered. ‘Do you want us to go and pull up the weeds?’ they asked him. 29 ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because as you gather the weeds you might pull up some of the wheat along with them. 30 Let the wheat and the weeds both grow together until harvest. Then I will tell the harvest workers to pull up the weeds first, tie them in bundles and burn them, and then to gather in the wheat and put it in my barn.’”

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Jesus Explains the Parable of the Weeds
36 When Jesus had left the crowd and gone indoors, his disciples came to him and said, “Tell us what the parable about the weeds in the field means.”

37 Jesus answered, “The man who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man; 38 the field is the world; the good seed is the people who belong to the Kingdom; the weeds are the people who belong to the Evil One; 39 and the enemy who sowed the weeds is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvest workers are angels. 40 Just as the weeds are gathered up and burned in the fire, so the same thing will happen at the end of the age: 41 the Son of Man will send out his angels to gather up out of his Kingdom all those who cause people to sin and all others who do evil things, 42 and they will throw them into the fiery furnace, where they will cry and gnash their teeth. 43 Then God's people will shine like the sun in their Father's Kingdom. Listen, then, if you have ears!

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SERMON - What did he mean by that?

Now I am going to start with a little true story.  Janet and I were on holiday in the West Country fairly soon after we were married and somehow the subject of computers came up as they were quite new at that time.  I thought I would give Janet a little explanation as to how I thought they worked and I started on an explanation of the binary system which is the basis for all computers.  After about a minute I could see her eyes glazing over and when I stopped for breath she said the immortal words that are forever engraved on my heart  “David, you have the great ability to make any subject boring!”.

I’m afraid that is not a very positive way for me to start my talk today but I hope you will stick with me.  Some things in life are difficult to understand.  Some are scientific others relational or economic.  I don’t think I will ever understand quantum physics but fortunately I don’t need to as there are top scientists who do, or at least say that they do.

Our gospel reading today in Matthew 13 follows on from the verses that Petra read and spoke about last week, the parable of the Sower.  In the early section of Matthew 13 find out that ”Jesus used parables to tell all these things to the crowd and would not say a thing to them without using a parable”.  Mattew 13 contains an account of Jesus teaching the people but apparently having great difficulty in getting them to understand his message.  Earlier in the chapter we find  Jesus’s disciples coming to him and asking “Why do you use parables when you speak to the people?”  Jesus answers that “The knowledge about the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven has been given to you but not to them”  He is saying that he needs to use stories to get the people to understand his teaching.

I am not so sure that the disciples really did “have the knowledge” that Jesus alluded to because after Jesus has told the parable of the Weeds, that we read earlier, we find that they don’t really know what he is saying, see Matthew 13  36 to 43.

Jesus appears to be really struggling to get people to understand what he was trying to teach them.  Some most probably got the gist of what he was saying but others I am sure had no idea.

So how does this relate to us today.  The parable of the Weeds tells us that there will come a time, sometime in the future, when there will be a separation of good and bad people.  The good will go to be with God and the bad will go somewhere else.  Although the general principle is clearly understandable it is the detail that many of us struggle with and find difficult to rationalise.  Who are the good people?  Jesus says it is those who do what he teaches.  (Loving others, forgiving people, kindness and charity, love of God)  But I think that we all at some times fail to live up to the standard that Christ sets.  Are we in or out?  And remember the sort of people that Jesus associated with!  What about them?

I think we can all agree that some of the things we read in the Bible are difficult to understand.  Here are a few thoughts that have come to me as I have been preparing this talk.

Firstly I think that we need to be truthful both to ourselves and to others by acknowledging and accepting that we don’t understand fully the truths of the Gospel.  God is all powerful and all-knowing and although we are made in God’s image we are not and never will be able to understand the mysteries of faith.  In Psalm 139  the writer talks about how God knows his very being and how he has been created by God.  But he concedes “O God how difficult I find your thoughts how many of them there are!”.  So it is not just us!

I think that we need to concentrate on the general principles that Jesus taught even if we cannot get our heads around some of the details or the imagery used.  I think in this context Paul gives us a good lead when he wrote a letter to the people in Corinth.  He lists many spiritual gifts but then says “ I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets: I may have all the faith needed to move mountains – but if I have no love, I am nothing.”  He went on to write “What I see now is like a dim image in a mirror: then we shall see face to face. What I know now is only partial.”  We may not understand everything , but we can all grasp the essential 

Samual Longhorne Clemens was a celebrated American author, humourist and lecturer who used the pen name Mark Twain.  Among his many quotes is “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand”.  He meant that he found some things in the Bible difficult to take such as slavery and genocide but for us it can have another meaning.  For us we should not worry about the things that we don’t understand but we should be anxious about trying to follow the things that Jesus taught that we do understand.

However although we cannot understand everything there are some practical reasons why we sometimes find scripture difficult.  One is that often we just read short extracts from the Bible and so do not get the Big Picture.  By considering the particular passage in a wider  context we sometimes get a much greater understanding of the writer’s meaning.  I would suggest that it is best if we can read at least a chapter to get some idea of what is going on.  At other times it helps to have some understanding of the culture at the time the passage was written.
I also believe that if we bring our questions and doubts to God in prayer he will help us to understand and appreciate his Word or give us a sense of acceptance and peace with what we can’t grasp.  Don’t fret if you still can’t understand some Biblical truths.

After a lecture at the University of Chicago in 1962 the world renowned Swiss theologian Karl Barth was asked whether he could summarise his massive multi-volume theological life’s work into a single sentence.  He famously replied by quoting the words of the simple children’s song which he had learnt at his mother’s knee.  “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.”

So if we are like Christ’s disciples and find the words of Jesus or other things in the Bible hard to understand let’s all hold on to the things we can understand.  

When we meet each Thursday morning for Morning Prayers we have a short meditation.  Here is one we had a few weeks ago that is appropriate to what we have been thinking about.

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Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.

Do not search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, Because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is to live everything.  Live the questions now.

Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, Without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
Rene Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke

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And may God lead us day by day as we try to follow the teaching of Jesus and live lives which are honouring to Him.