July 23, 2023

A35: The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A (2023)

Jim Somerville

“Here’s a question for you: What are good, God-fearing people like you and me supposed to do about all the evil in the world? Although you won’t find it anywhere in the Gospel of Matthew, it is that question, or one very much like it, that lies behind the parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43,” begins Jim Somerville, Pastor of Richmond’s First Baptist Church and Co-Founder of A Sermon for Every Sunday. Surprisingly, in this parable, the master decides to leave the weeds until the harvest. Somerville says, “If this story really is, as Jesus says, a story about evil in the world and God’s response to it, then what Jesus is saying is that God doesn’t have any immediate plans to uproot all the evil among us. God’s plan, for now, is to let it be. That’s hard to believe, isn’t it?” Listen as Somerville explains why this strategy might not be so bad after all.

Manuscript available: click HERE