On the Way to Wonder

First Reading: 1 Kings 3:5-12

⁵At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask what I should give you.” ⁶And Solomon said, “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you; and you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne today. ⁷And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. ⁸And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. ⁹Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?”
 ¹⁰It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. ¹¹God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, ¹²I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you.”

Psalm: Psalm 119:129-136

When your word is opened, it gives light and understanding. (Ps. 119:130)

 ¹²⁹Your decrees are wonderful;
  therefore I obey them with all my heart.
 ¹³⁰When your word is opened it gives light;
  it gives understanding to the simple.
 ¹³¹I open my mouth and pant
  because I long for your commandments.
 ¹³²Turn to me and be gracious to me,
  as you always do to those who love your name.
 ¹³³Order my footsteps in your word;
  let no iniquity have dominion over me.
 ¹³⁴Rescue me from those who oppress me,
  and I will keep your commandments.
 ¹³⁵Let your face shine upon your servant
  and teach me your statutes.
 ¹³⁶My eyes shed streams of tears,
  because people do not keep your teaching.

Second Reading: Romans 8:26-39

²⁶The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. ²⁷And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
 ²⁸We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. ³⁰And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.

 ³¹What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³²He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. ³⁵Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶As it is written,
 “For your sake we are being killed all day long;
  we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Gospel: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

³¹[Jesus] put before [the crowds] another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field;³²it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
 ³³He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”
 ⁴⁴“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
 ⁴⁵“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; ⁴⁶on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
 ⁴⁷“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; ⁴⁸when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. ⁴⁹So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous ⁵⁰and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
 ⁵¹“Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” ⁵²And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  I have told the story before of the blind men who encountered an elephant, but let me share it again.  The first blind man touched the side of the elephant and exclaimed, “An elephant is just like a wall!”  The second man felt a tusk and shouted, “No, my friend, the elephant is just like a spear.’  The third touched the trunk of the great beast and was convinced his brothers were wrong so said, “The elephant is more like a snake.”  The fourth was led to put his arms around the leg, “An elephant is like a tree,” he exclaimed.  The fifth man, the tallest, grasped hold of the elephant’s ear and told his friends that an elephant is like a huge fan.  The last man, upon grabbing the tail of the beast, corrected the rest. “Any person would agree the elephant is not like a wall, a spear, a snake, a tree or a fan but is more like a rope!”  The men argued among themselves and could not decide what an elephant looks like for they could not see the beast.  In the same way, we come together today to ponder five parables about the kingdom of heaven and how it informs our relationship with a God we cannot see face to face.

Let us pray.  Lord may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptible in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON

         We have been looking at the parables Jesus told that talk about the kingdom of heaven.  He compares himself to a farmer sowing seed, the word of God.  It falls on four types of soil.  We are not all the same and some days we may even be just plain rocky!  Or Jesus is like an owner of a wheat field that has weeds growing in it, sewn by an enemy. Good wheat and weeds grow together until the harvest.  God is patient and tells the workers, tells us, to let good and evil grow together until the harvest when all will be made right.  Jesus now continues with five more parables, snap shots of the kingdom. “The kingdom of God is like…” a tiny mustard seed sewn in a field, like yeast put in dough, like a hidden treasure in a field, like a pearl of great price and like a net thrown out to catch fish.  It feels a bit like our men trying to understand that elephant!

         Our text today concludes with a question, “Have you understood all this?”  Like the bind men and the disciples, we think we do, we hope we do.  In truth, we are learning and Christians disagree all the time.  “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know him even as I am fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)”

Small is a Window to Big

         The blind men each see a piece of the elephant.  They cannot see the whole picture.  It is hidden from them.  We do not see God face to face and we do not see the whole picture of why events happen or our friend, much less our enemy, is struggling today.  The mustard seed is planted in soil and so small as to be hard to see.   The yeast is working in dough and cannot be seen as it does its thing.  We only see the dough rising.  The treasure is buried in a field that is not ours.  The pearl of great price is among other pearls and the net pulls out fish that are in the sea, under the water.  Have you ever prayed, “Lord, please send a fax so I will know what you want me to do!”  I have.  I do not see God face to face and which path to take is not always very clear.  Our faith is small but calls us to venture forth into a broader experience of God’s grace.  We must plant that mustard seed, kneed that dough, buy the field, purchase the pearl and cast the net.  The small calls us into a bigger world.   

      Then the hearer must be patient and wait to see how the mustard seed will grow and become seen.  The bread is not feasted on until the yeast has done its work on the flour.  Relating to God starts as a seed of faith or a granual of yeast and grows in us as we mature, hopefully.  The shrub that grows does not look like the seed nor does the loaf of bread look like the yeast.  The kingdom of heaven does not look exactly like any single Christian.  Like those blind men, we gather today to share our experience of God and the journey we are on.

         Each of our relationships does not look like those first days when we started to grow into faith.  If we do not tend to that seed of faith, that grain of yeast, we will be like the seeds planted on rocky or thorny soil or like a bowl of dough that refuses to rise.  Neither fulfills its potential.  We cannot see the future that is hidden from us and so the hiddenness of God calls us into trusting him. 

Good grows in the presence of bad

         The hiddenness of the kingdom also speaks to our lives in community.  Jesus puts each parable in a context of other people.  The seed needs soil to grow.  The yeast needs flour and fluids to fulfill its purpose.  The treasure is sitting within a field, the pearl is undiscovered, hidden in community and the fish swim with the good and bad under the water.

         The last parable is almost a mirror image of last week’s parable except instead of talking about a field with wheat and weeds, Jesus talks about water and a net that catches good and bad fish.  Again, Jesus tells us that the angels will do the dividing at the end of the age when evil is punished.  We do not know the eventual judgment on the soil or the dough or the other pearls but we are told that the kingdom does coexist with that which is not-kingdom.  We are encouraged that the kingdom influences the not-kingdom.  The seed becomes a bush that gives shelter and home to the birds.  The yeast does change the dough that is the foundation for making bread and feeding people.  The treasure and the pearl empower the buyer to do good.  We grow in the presence of not-kingdom and we impact it for good.  The weeding and the sorting of who are the good and bad fish is for the angels.  Our role is to be the new creation and grow into whom the Lord wants us to be.  None of the blind men had the whole picture but they shared with each other their experience and hopefully if they talked long enough, they would come to a clearer picture of the unseen.

Growth requires work

         Not only are we like the blind men, not seeing the whole picture of who God is, and not ony do we live with not-kingdom others, the parables challenge us that we must work to grow.  Sometimes Christians give testimonies that would make us think that the emotional experience of “conversion” is the whole story.  Praise the Lord.  When faced with suffering and trials we know God is in control and the result is to his glory and so “Praise the Lord.”  All five parables add more texture to the journey of faith.

         The mustard seed must persevere and grow on sunny days and rainy days.  Not all days are sunny.  I am guessing trees don’t experience pruning as delightful.  Being corrected when we are wrong is humbling.  Growth takes time and patience.  Some of us know about the Dark Night of the Soul when the sun is not shining and the moon is only a sliver.  We hold on by our fingernails.  Likewise the yeast must be softened in liquid and kneeded into the dough.  We pray the master is gentle as he pushes and shoves on us!!!  Being buried and unseen like the treasure is hard.  It’s hard to be unappreciated and unrecognized, to be passed over, or to be dismissed.  Again, the pearl must wait for the right person to come along and discover it.  Being scooped up like the fish in the larger events of our world like Coved or like war or famine, tests anyone’s faith.  Hanging on to the kingdom is work.

         Likewise the flip side is to think how we are like the agent in these parables.  We plant little seeds in our children, at our work, in our world and we must wait and help them grow, not knowing the final result.  It is work for the baker, for us, to knead the dough.  It’s not easy to push back on others and question them and encourage them to be their better selves.  The man must sell everything to buy the field with the treasure.  Everything is a big word.  The one who spies the pearl of great price is looking.  The pearl does not just drop into life as a blessing but that person must learn to distinguish what makes a pearl of great price.  Some of you are fisher people and know the work of getting ready to go on a trip preparing gear, boat, transport and the patience of waiting.

         Our blind men would never have had their experiences of the elephant had they sat in their homes and allowed life to deal with them.  They had to venture out of their comfort zone and touch that which may well have been threatening.  They had to trust their guide.  They had to interact with their friends and allow their experiences to be challenged and to grow in their limited understanding.

     And so we are back to our original question asked by Jesus, “⁵¹“Have you understood all this?” I suspect the honest answer is, “We’re trying.”

⁵²And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

         “Scribe,” Jesus calls us scribes.  We are scribes.  The scribes were the people who “scribbled” “scripture”, who copied the texts that were given them.  We are called scribes because we are the carriers in real life of the teachings of God.  Our lives are a book others read and learn about God.  We are parables not unlike those we learned about today.  We are the mustard seed that says some little word that may lead someone to question about faith.  Or we might be the yeast that helps another grow in faith.  Each of you is a treasure of experiences, old and new, of God’s grace in your life.  You can be a pearl of great price as you encourage the discouraged, speak the truth to the deceived, love the downtrodden, or heal the broken hearted.  You are the scribes, the living parables God is using to speak to the world today.

         We do not know what is to become of our efforts but we do know the God who is working in our lives.  We do know we live in community.  We do know it is not easy to choose God’s way over our selfish desires.  God will make sure evil is held accountable.  You are important and God has your back.

Let the people of God say, “AMEN.”

First Reading: Isaiah 44:6-8

 ⁶Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel,
  and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:
 I am the first and I am the last;
  besides me there is no god.
 ⁷Who is like me? Let them proclaim it,
  let them declare and set it forth before me.
 Who has announced from of old the things to come?
  Let them tell us what is yet to be.
 ⁸Do not fear, or be afraid;
  have I not told you from of old and declared it?
  You are my witnesses!
 Is there any god besides me?
  There is no other rock; I know not one.

Psalm: Psalm 86:11-17

Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth. (Ps. 86:11)

 ¹¹Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth;
  give me an undivided heart to revere your name.
 ¹²I will thank you, O Lord my God, with all my heart,
  and glorify your name forevermore.
 ¹³For great is your love toward me;
  you have delivered me from the pit of death.
 ¹⁴The arrogant rise up against me, O God, and a band of violent people seeks my life;
  they have not set you before their eyes.
 ¹⁵But you, O Lord, are gracious and full of compassion,
  slow to anger, and full of kindness and truth.
 ¹⁶Turn to me and have mercy on me;
  give your strength to your servant, and save the child of your handmaid.
 ¹⁷Show me a sign of your favor, so that those who hate me may see it and be put to shame;
  because you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.

Second Reading: Romans 8:12-25

¹²So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—¹³for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. ¹⁵For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

 ¹⁸I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. ¹⁹For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; ²⁰for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; ²³and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Gospel: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

²⁴[Jesus] put before [the crowds] another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; ²⁵but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. ²⁶So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. ²⁷And 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?’ ²⁸He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ ²⁹But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. ³⁰Let 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.’ ”
 ³⁶Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” ³⁷He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; ³⁸the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, ³⁹and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. ⁴⁰Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, ⁴²and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!”

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  In 1740 a French writer recorded a tale that she claimed a chambermaid told to a young lady traveling on a ship to America.  Disney has made the story famous in “Beauty and the Beast.”  We have  most likely seen some version of this beloved story. Let’s group think.

Who are the good guys?

Who are the bad guys?

How is the curse broken?

Let us pray:  Lord may the words of my mouth and meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.  Amen

SERMON

         Today is the 8^th Sunday after Pentecost.  During Pentecost we come to Scripture not asking what it tells us about our God but we come to Scripture asking what it tells us about ourselves so we can believe, and more fully love and serve God.   Somedays I cry more than I rejoice and it is good to come to church on Sunday to refresh my perspective and be reminded of eternal truths.  We opened Pentecost focusing on the truth that as Christians, we worship a Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  It is a mystery that is hard to get our heads and hearts around. 

• God is a relational being within itself and with its creation. 
• God is a communicating being within itself and with its creation. 
• God is a teaching being showing us how life works best and we have free will to obey his wisdom. 

Maybe those three ideas can give new insight into our text today.

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; ²⁵but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away.”

         Jesus gives a parable to the crowds, to us, in our text today and then later gives a very specific explanation to the disciples.  Jesus tells us what the parable means.  First, God is relational.  In our world today there are good guys and bad guys.  We relate to both and so does God.  We are encouraged by our culture to believe diversity is “different” but not “bad.”  One of my sons used to say, “You drink your kool-aide Mom and I’ll drink mine.”  Another way to think of it is that “all roads lead to Rome,” or God.  “Beauty and the Beast” opens and gives the impression that Belle is the good guy and the Beast is the bad guy.  May I suggest that Belle is the wheat and the Beast is the weed.  The enchanted house servants and the town’s people may be more like the slaves and reapers of today’s parable.  The servants are under the curse with the Beast.  The town’s people are neutral with free will, observers.  Garcon, the handsome young dude who wants Belle, seems to be good.

         Weeds and wheat are not the same though.  Jesus says that wheat represents people who have accepted the word of God that God sewed last week in our text.  Do not forget, though, that some of that wheat is growing in good soil, some in rocky and some in thorny.  Weeds are people, at their core, who are under the influence of Satan.  Their hearts are hard like a road.   Weeds and Wheat are not the same but they do coexist in the same field, in the same world and in the same church.  We live in a time of good and evil, not simple ignorance, not just diversity, and not just right and wrong.

         I also read in this that not only do we have good and bad people around us, there is an enemy, Satan, the Devil.  The Beast is under a curse.  Our cartoons have made evil into a very fictitious being.  In our polarized politics “evil” is being identified with people who did not vote like us or who voted for a certain evil candidate.  In our drug saturated cities, we might think of gangs or dealers.  We think of addictions.  We think of mass shootings of children.  We think of wars “over there.”  We disperse evil into “systemic problems” we face with democracy.  The Beast appears to be evil, under a curse, believing he must work his way to salvation, to earn love before the last petal on the rose falls.  We work hard today to not see evil as a spiritual being working at odds with God.  Our parable reminds us of Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, chapter 6:

            ¹² For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the       heavenly places. ¹³ Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. 

         Our parable today acknowledges the existence of Satan but gives no explanation.  We do not know why God allows Satan to work in our world but the parable promises an eventual ending when evil will be reckoned with.  God is in control, watching his field and evil will be called to account. Evil is not outside God’s influence and we believe that when Evil touches our lives it is mediated by God’s love, by our relationship with God.

May Bethany be a place where wheat can grow and weeds can be confronted with the truth.  May we be more like Belle, willing to look beyond the masks we wear, and not like Garcon, the egotistical man who wants to marry Belle and considers the Beast evil because the Beast gets in Garcon’s way.

The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them (the weeds)?’ ²⁹But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. ³⁰Let both of them grow together until the harvest;

         God is not only a relational being, able to work with servants and harvesters, with wheat and weeds, and with his enemy but he is also a God who communicates.  That is seen in the relationship between the slaves and himself and between the reapers and himself. The parable invites us to ponder why God would allow the weeds to stay with the wheat.  I would like to think communication is happening as the owner gives time for the plants to grow.  The parable does not fill in details so we cannot take too much liberty but God definitely gives time. The parable does not directly speak to evangelism, the wheat convincing the weed it needs to become wheat.  I don’t think we can read that into our text today.  But we can make a few observations.    

         The owner, God, is clear that what happens to the weed affects the wheat that is near by.  God says to allow the weeds to exist with the wheat.  Pulling up weeds can hurt the young wheat.  Our lives are lived in community and often we indulge is “witch hunts” identifying the bad guys and trying to uproot them.  That is God’s job. Jesus could be referring to the temptation to slander, to gossip, to judge others when we don’t know the whole picture.  We do not know who is wheat and who is weed.  Only God knows the heart of people and only God sees the whole picture.  Jesus is not talking about crime for the Bible clearly says not to murder, steal, commit adultery, slander or covet.  Jesus is talking about the temptation for us to play God when we decide who are the bad guys. Pulling up weeds may well hurt the tender wheat. We do not believe weeds become wheat but we do believe that at some moment faith reaches out to God and God transforms us sinners into saints, a gift of God through faith.

                  Not only do we play the blame game but also as we live in community, others are always observing us when we live our better selves and also when we fall short.  Our lives impact others and we do not want to hurt one of the little ones whose faith is young and tender.  We impact our world not only by telling our story of faith but also by being salt and light and being in the world but not being of the world.  It took time for Belle to develop relationship with the Beast and for the Beast to change his ways.  The parable encourages us not to play God by judging another whom we think needs to be uprooted from community and encourages us to remember that our lives impact those around us as we allow God’s love to flow through us.

         Martin Luther talked about “double killing” as he wrote about this parable.  If the servants do not obey the owner and if they go and pull out the weeds, they have not only killed the weeds physically but have also killed the weeds spiritually as the weeds will never be able to hear the Gospel.  When our mouth gets out of control either with gossip or bitterness or angry replies, we have the potential to do serious damage to the faith of another.  That is a serious thought.  Garcon wants Belle for his own wife but we see not only his desire for her but also how his arrogance and speech influence the town’s people to storm the Beast’s castle to destroy the Beast.  Had they succeeded, they would never have had a transformed prince to govern them.

         Bethany has an agricultural program that gives teaching and garden space to people in the community and that provides fresh vegetables for food pantries.  The people who work these gardens are taught valuable lessons.  I am pretty sure that involves weeding and thinning the plants to maximize the harvest and get the most for your efforts.  So interestingly Jesus does not advise taking out the weeds in this parable.  Church community is not about developing a “pure breed” of Christian but more like a farmer’s field with healthy wheat, scraggly plants in the places that water does not reach, rocky and thorny places that prohibit growth, and weeds generously sprinkled in.  The kingdom of God does not work like the kingdom of this world.  Our world tries to identify and eliminate that which we don’t agree with.  God nurtures all of us, communicates with all of us and desires eternal salvation for all of us.

⁴³Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!”

         “Then.”  Then implies that after the owner’s wishes have been carried out, after his teachings have been followed, and after we have grown to maturity then the golden wheat, the kingdom of God will shine like the sun.    

         Our parable today brings us to our knees as we realize faith is a gift.  Credit clearly goes to God who plants seeds that grow into wheat and who patiently waits for us to grow before he harvests.  I suspect that we don’t understand the storms of life that sometimes darken the sunny days of the field of wheat.  It is during those times that we keep our eyes on God.

         So let’s pull this together.

Who are the good guys?  We are petty sure it is Belle and the enchanted servants, especially the little teacup called Chip.  The father is good and the horses are good.  There are many ways to be wheat in God’s garden.  Ultimately it is Belle’s love that “shines like the sun,” not selfish Garcon.

Who are the bad guys?  We think Garcon is good because he has all the things our world admires but his self-idolizing and arrogance lead him to failure.  The servants might appear bad as they are under the influence of the curse but they keep faith in their master and in the end are transformed by Belle’s love.  The town’s people who are somehow neutral in their loyalty and are like sheep following the wrong shepherd.  Satan is sneaky and it is not always easy to identify.  So having a reference point like Scripture, friends, or worship.  Helps.  Time to allow the crop to grow and see what fruit is produced is always needed, God’s time.

How is the curse broken?  The curse is broken not by killing the Beast but by the love of God.  The love of God on the cross is the solution to evil.  Wars, education, wealth, and all the things the world admires do not replace the power of God.  God promises that in the end Evil will be defeated and we will live in a kingdom that shines like the sun.

Do we have ears to listen?

Let the people of God say, “Amen!”