Nutgrass of the Soul
Matthew 11:2-30
Rev. Cynthia T. Hinson – St. Paul United Methodist Church – Conroe, TX – July 7, 2002
The very last book of the Old Testament is Malachi, and the last verses of the last chapter of that book read thus:
1 "For behold, the day comes, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
2 But for you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go forth leaping like calves from the stall
3 And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.
4 "Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.
5 "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.
6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse.”
If you ever wanted to see a picture of persistent arrogance take a look at the flowerbed outside the south door to the sanctuary – the door nearest the pastor’s study. For the most part it looks like burnt up stubble now; all the tall, blooming bush daisies that I planted 5 years ago are gone. Even the stubborn greenbriar and the rambling wild strawberry vine that whipped my legs and ripped my hose as I walked past are dead. Ray Burgess killed it all with his Roundup Spray – or so we hoped.
“Finally,” he must have sighed, “Finally I’ve gotten rid of all the weeds so that something nice can grow here.”
But it wasn’t to be – not yet, anyway. Even after the heavy dose of Roundup, tiny green spears poked through the tangle of deadness one by one and began to multiply. It was NUTGRASS – stubborn, arrogant stuff that practically refuses to die. So Ray sprayed it with again, and in a day or so the new sprouts turned crispy brown to match the rest of the dead vegetation in the bed.
“Well, it’s about time,” we both smiled. Surely nothing could survive in that bed after two doses of Roundup.
Wrong! Within a few days nutgrass sprouted again. Not as much, granted – but (hear this…) the way the stuff multiplies, it only takes one uncontrolled ‘nut’ to take over a whole flowerbed. We’ll have to spray again – and again, if necessary. Let one sprout survive and it will make another nut. Let one nut survive – and it will generate new sprouts...
(Pause)
Don’t you know that God has looked on his beautiful creation with divine frustration, watching sin grow like ‘nutgrass in a flowerbed’ among his people? In the days of the Old Testament God raised up one prophet after another to speak words of warning to Israel – words that targeted Israel’s arrogant sin, words pointing out things that needed to be removed. Some people listened to the prophets; others did not. And so roots and branches of sin remained, and kept growing and multiplying, pervasively invading and sucking life out of the created order.
Sin is arrogant - it is an attempt to buck God. Sin is self-serving and self-preserving until it destroys it’s own occupant. Sin can live balled-up like a nut deep down inside us just waiting for a chance to sprout. All the prophets that God raised up in the Old Testament could not remove sin from Israel. All the preachers and teachers and leaders of Israel could not remove it, either.
God has to remove sin, himself. The day is coming, Malachi says, when sin will be burnt to a dead stubble. Wiped out. Ground down to ashes.
But before that day, God promised to send a mighty prophet to deliver a final warning – to make ready the way of the Lord. Those of us who love God will leap for joy when we hear the proclamation. We will skip like calves for the sheer joy of knowing that we are living under the in-breaking reign of God.
But others of us will be sitting on the fence like a lazy farmhand when that day comes. Why all this rush to righteousness? Why not just conveniently “forget” to offer our tithes and offerings to God for a few more months? After all, no one knows what we give to the church – or do they? Besides, we’ve got the rest of our lives to catch up, right?
And so what if our own children have failed to pass the faith to the next generation by sharing Jesus with our grandchildren? That’s not my responsibility, is it? God will still love my grandchildren even if they are running around like little heathens, right?
(Look around…)
And about that Eight Commandment: I know my boss won’t miss the extra stapler or those envelopes or the ballpoint pens or the long distance calls I make on the office phone –
(Look around…)
Just one more drink and then I’ll quit – I’m entitled to it – what a hard week it’s been!
What does it matter if I spice my language up with a few curse words – or if I smoke in front of the children – or my husband or wife? I’m a pretty nice person in every other way.
(Look around…)
You know, I like the view up here, sitting on my comfortable fence of self-justification. I can look out and observe the good guys and the bad guys and not commit to either side – and whenever I feel the urge, I can jump down just long enough for a little ‘sin-dip’ and climb back up before drawing too much attention to myself. Surely there are too many BIG sins going on in the world for God to notice my little bed of nutgrass. Don’t worry, friends, when the Roundup comes, I’ll be ready…
(Pause)
God says, one day, I will send a prophet who will yank you straight – one you can’t hide from – one who will confront you and expose all of your deep down nutgrass sins. When that day comes, many people will be ashamed when they rightly recognize themselves in the words of God’s prophet, in words that are true and are meant to save, not destroy. Those who do hear will repent and draw closer to the love of God and care of family and God will love them and be their God and they will find peace.
But others will not hear the words of God’s prophet and they will not repent. Those who do not, Malachi warns, will keep marching down the road to their own destruction. Sin is tough – we all know that – but the day of God’s Roundup is tougher! Sin will be destroyed.
(Pause)
Malachi had to be a prophet close to God’s heart to be able to proclaim with such bold assurance that God will destroy sin and bring his kingdom to earth. Malachi did not want to frighten believers – he wanted to encourage them and prod them to take their faith seriously. Be patient – be obedient. God is working out his ends in the world. The Kingdome of Heaven IS coming.
But by the time of John the Baptist, Malachi’s words had grown dim – 400 years of prophetic silence between Malachi and John the Baptist had been a long, long time. No wonder many people failed at first to recognize John, the rough, desert dwelling preacher, as the forerunner of Christ. John, himself, must have had doubts at times. Imagine overhearing your father talk all through your childhood about his vision of an angel and the promise of a prophet son – and then finding yourself, that very son, living out among the rocks in the wilderness and subsisting on tree pods and wild honey… Not exactly what you had in mind as a preacher who would introduce the Messiah, right?
And then imagine a few years into your preaching ministry being thrown into prison to rot and die – while out there in the world the man whom you thought was the Messiah is walking around preaching love and mercy. Hard to stomach, don’t you think? Like John, I believe we would have rushed a delegation over to ask Jesus: “Hey – are you really the Messiah? I mean, should we trust you and put all our eggs in one basket, or should we hold back a little and maybe keep an eye open for someone else?”
(Pause)
From the viewpoint of the 21st century, we can recognize the gut-wrenching confusion that John and his followers were experiencing. Malachi and earlier OT prophets had spoken of the coming of the day of the Lord as a time of judgment – of apocalyptic endings – of sin burnt to stubble. John preached about the very imminence of that day – warning the people and calling them to repent. For John the Baptist, God was a God of Judgment.
Jesus Christ met with John’s delegation sent by John while he was languishing in prison. And Jesus answered their question indirectly, with a parable: “Go – return to John and tell him what is happening: people who are blind are being given their sight; those who were lame can now walk; people with leprosy are cured and deaf people can hear. Even the dead are raised.”
It sounds good, doesn’t it? It sounds like heaven – like love and joy and peace. But John’s delegation, caught up in the context of their time, was still stumbling: “But where’s the judgment, Jesus? The fire and brimstone? The stubble and ash?”
(Pause – look out into the congregation)
Who is right, congregation? John or Jesus?
Our Lord can see the confusion. Even today we still have warm fuzzy preachers on one side and hellfire and brimstone preachers on the other, each taking pot shots at the other while accumulating their quota of followers. So who’s right?
Is God love? Or is God judgment? Is God mercy, or is God punishment? Can we preach to Ninevah about destruction and then celebrate instead of moan when repentance comes?
“Just stop it all,” Jesus would say to us – just like he did to the crowds surrounding John’s delegation. “You are behaving like children” – you are playing at religion like children playing street games. Some of you want to play that the coming of the kingdom will be like a wedding and you want to hear sweet loving sermons that lift you up and leave you full of joy – but then the rest of you complain and say that the coming of the kingdom should be more like a funeral – and the ones who want to play that way ask for messages that step on your toes, that make you weep and bemoan your sins so that you can feel rightly convicted and all cleaned up. Some of you want to come to the communion table joyfully and gratefully, and others want to come feeling like dogs not worthy for the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table.
You are both very mistaken! The kingdom of heaven is not a game at all. It is as real as the breath you are breathing. Our lives have both joy and regret in them. There are times when we are filled with love and able to share it, and there are times when we are sorely sorry for sin and full of remorse. There are times when we feel like dogs and times when we feel like angels. The earthly kingdom of God isn’t one way or the other – it contains both – Jesus goes with us into all our human experiences.
The kingdom of God doesn’t operate like a courtroom – by a rulebook or rigid adherence to OT Law. The coming of Christ into history splits time into two halves like lightning splits the darkness. Before the coming of Christ there is a religion that is heady and intellectual and argumentative – a religion that requires people to evaluate themselves by the works that they do and their adherence to a set of laws. On that side you will find people who presume God privileges them because they are born into a certain group or participate in specific formal rituals.
On the other side are the babes – not babies, but babes – the ones who know their weakness before God and their dependence on His grace. They do not consider themselves wise or entitled to special treatment. They know they can never be so perfect that they attain the RIGHT to stand before God. The babes of Jesus do not esteem themselves over others. They do not bicker and joust for power and control. It is enough for them to see one another as children of God – as brothers and sisters all living and working together as children of One Father in Heaven.
Relax, Jesus would tell us. Don’t get caught up in the games of our day. The arrogant and self-righteous and sinfully proud will surely be burnt to stubble. They will burn themselves up trying to be their own gods. They will drive themselves crazy to reach the top and never realize that the top is the bottom. They are blinded by greed and cannot see that the ones closest to Christ are those who serve and give themselves to others in his name. They cannot perceive that God has so designed creation that only those who love him and know their dependence upon him will be able to rest and endure.
“Wear my yoke,” Jesus says. “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Recognize that your life is a gift. God wants you to have it. God loves you just like you are. But he also loves you too much to leave you that way! God loves you so much that he does not demand that you work your way up to heaven; no – instead he has dipped heaven down to you. Jesus has come to you – here in this place, in the words of Scripture and the love of friends. He IS here – can you feel his presence?
Relax and be glad. Let go of pride and arrogance and self-righteousness and social climbing and one-upped-ness and drives for power and control. Those are the yokes that are heavy – those are the yokes that weigh down your soul and steal your joy. They are false gods. Nutgrass of the soul. Let them go – let the love of God burn them up.
“Come to my table,” Jesus says. Be filled with the Bread of Life. Drink deeply on what it means to be totally forgiven and completely loved. Meet your family here – and grow in a life where the Roundup is left behind and you will never have to fear the destruction of your soul. “Come to me – all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, Father.
Thank you, Holy Spirit.
We hear and we will come.
Amen.
