A Harvest Sermon preached by the Revd Dr Trevor Jamison at Saint Columba’s United Reformed Church, North Shields, Sunday 28th September 2025
Genesis 8:15-22; Matthew 13:24-33
Jesus ‘put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?”
He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’ (13:24-33)
Jesus told a lot of parables which featured things growing, and we’ve heard three of those this evening: yeast mixed with flour, which causes the dough to rise; a tiny mustard seed which is planted in a field, growing into a great tree, which provides shelter for the birds; and a parable about wheat growing well in a field, but which has weeds growing in the midst of it.
Now there are various good reasons why Jesus told parables about things growing. For one, Jesus lived in an agrarian society. There were very few big towns or cities. The landscape was dotted with villages, and the great, great majority of people spent significant time working the land so that they could eat. Everyone was acquainted with how plants grew, and how important it was that they did so. We twenty-first century urban dwellers are a bit insulated from all of that.
So Jesus was telling parables based on his own experiences, and teaching in terms that those he taught would understand. It’s tempting to speculate on what settings or subjects Jesus would choose if he was he telling parables today, however that’s a rabbit-hole we won’t go down tonight. But Jesus didn’t choose to tell parables this way just because their setting was familiar. There was another reason.
Jesus chose to tell these sorts of parables because he wanted to point his listeners – us included – towards something about God. Jesus wanted to tell us about God’s activity. The kingdom of heaven – God’s rule and reign – is something dynamic. It’s living, positive and growing. If you only see God as never-changing, then you’ve got the wrong sort of picture of God in your head.
And that conviction fits well with three traditional ways of understanding harvest. First there is the harvest of food and drink; the first thing that is on our minds on a Harvest Sunday, when we surround ourselves with all sorts of examples of it. This harvest is no small thing. We depend upon it for our existence here on earth. God is active, not only as creator – bringing this world into being – but also as its sustainer; keeping it going day to day, as Noah is reminded in our Old Testament reading:
‘As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night,
shall not cease.’ (8:22)
Then there’s a second understanding of harvest – what you might call the evangelistic harvest. We are encouraged to share our experiences of God in ways which lead others to join in with us in praising and serving God. It’s about activity in which seeds are planted in the hope of growth in faith and in numbers. Think of the Leading Your Church Into Growth process, and invitations to church events which talk about God, or delivering Good News booklets to homes in North Shields as examples of that.
Third, though, there’s also the image of the final harvest, the one where God brings all things in heaven and earth together. It’s a picture of harvest which is associated with an understanding that some divine judgment upon all things is involved. And that’s what we’ve got in this parable about weeds that appear among wheat.
A householder sows some good seed in a field, but ‘an enemy’ comes along and sows some weeds in the midst of the wheat. Both types of seeds sprout and grow, and it becomes apparent that there are weeds dotted about the wheat field. What to do? The master’s servants are all ready to get in there and root out the weeds, but the master points out that a lot of good wheat would get destroyed in the process. Instead, the master instructs the servants to wait, to delay, until it is harvest time. At that time, when everything is gathered up, the weeds can be weeded out and disposed of, while the wheat is safely placed in the barn.
Well, there’s certainly a lot of growing going on in this parable, and the master, or householder, is heavily involved all the way through – sowing the seed, overseeing its growth, and supervising the harvesting. And if the parable is intended as a picture of this world it seems to be pretty realistic. There are lots of good wheat-like things in this world, for which we give thanks, but they are entangled with a whole lot of weeds.
And in this context, as always, Jesus’s parables tell us important things about God, and how we should respond.
First, we’re told, that in the end, there is an ultimate harvest time, and that involves a divine weeding-out process. And that would be very welcome. We all want the weeds of sickness, suffering, injustice and evil to be weeded out. As far as we are concerned, as in Jesus’s parable, you can just ‘bind them in bundles to be burned.’ (13:30)
But then we wonder about how far that weeding out extends. We’re happy for bad things to be destroyed, but what about bad people? Especially, what about bad people if that might include ourselves, or those that we love. What if the householder is more enthusiastic with the weeding at harvest time than we would like?
It’s a challenging thought. When I think about some of Jesus’s other parables, such as the ones about a lost sheep, a lost coin, or a lost son, I reflect upon how God, pictured variously as a shepherd, a woman, and a father, is always greatly concerned to make sure that every one of the creatures, the coins, or the family members is gathered in safety. We end up with the full one hundred sheep, all ten coins, and both sons, if only the elder one will come into the party, as his father entreats him to do so.
Yet, God is just, as well as loving. And perhaps, in the end, some will simply refuse to come in; refuse to be transformed from weeds into wheat one might say. At the same time, though, in the parable, see how the householder defers the weeding out process until the last possible moment, which is when the harvest has to be taken in: ‘let both of them [wheat and weeds] grow together until the harvest.’ (13:30) God, Jesus tells us, wants to maximise the opportunity for good growth. And God wants the servants to keep on working on growing the crop rather than being over-enthusiastic, premature weeders.
So we’re living in an interim period, where wickedness continues to exist alongside goodness, which is hugely frustrating, and more than merely frustrating if you are a victim of this wickedness. I’m reminded, though, of an Irish Catholic priest I once heard being interviewed. He was asked if he longed for God to remove all evil from the world. He replied that he was afraid of God doing that because if God did then there might not be enough of him (the priest) left to still exist. Be careful what you ask for.
So in this period of time before the end, this time before final weeding out, this time before God’s ultimate harvest time, we celebrate all the good growth in today’s world – both material and spiritual. We continue to work for all that is good to flourish, and we await with hope, the time when God announces that harvest where all the weeds of this world are removed at last, and the rest is gathered safely in. Amen.