I've been craving bbq the past couple days, so I stopped at Sonny's (Richmond, KY) Tuesday night after a meeting with the realtor. The decor's a bit on the grubby side, but the service and food were both great (including the creamiest cole slaw I've had in recent memory, and it all tasted great this afternoon without reheating - corn, pulled pork, and cornbread).

My dinner reading consisted of some Sermons from Duke Chapel (ed. William H. Willimon, Duke UP 2005), including James A. Forbes Jr.'s "The Best-Kept Secret in the Bible," which was preached on Pentecost 2003.

The scripture:

The dominion of heaven may be compared to someone who sold good seed in the 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 servants of the household that came and said, "Did you not sow good seed in your field. Where then did these weeds come from?" The householder answered, "An enemy has done this." They responded, "Then do you want us to go and gather them, the weeds," but the householder replied, "No, for in gathering the weeds, you would uproot the wheat among 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.'"

Forbes:

I propose to teach that God is more invested in empowering our growth and development than in punishing us for our imperfections. And that God wills us by grace to press on with the best we can do in faithful service, while the negatives about us, around us, beyond us, are being transformed. The outcome of this sermon, if it is effective, would be that those who hear it would become aware of the negative consequences of hyperjudgmentalism projected upon God.

...The God of this parable, I think, knows that the church where there is East Coast, West Coast, north or south, liberal or conservative, that the churches across the nations are fields of wheat and weeds, all of them. The best of them, weeds in them; the worst of them, some wheat there. Now you understand why we don't hear this text very much. People are scared. I preached it fifty years ago myself, but the congregation didn't like it. They said, "Man, if you preach like that, you will be letting people off the hook. Don't you know that it will free them up to do wrong?" Well, they haven' t needed any freedom yet. They've been doing wrong all along. They didn't need this sermon to do wrong. Let me tell you we need a God who can deal with folks who are like a Hanes t-shirt. One of the professors at Union had a t-shirt she would wear, and it simply said, "I may not be perfect, but parts of me are excellent." That we need a God who understands that we are not perfect, but there is some good in us. That's the kind of God we need. A God of a gospel who is not interested in disgracing us, but taking us where we are and having patience with us that maybe before too long some of the weeds may experience botantical transmutation and might become wheat in us. I've lived long enough to see the Lord take some of my weaknesses and work with them until they are perhaps the source of some fruitfulness in my ministry.

...And the churches across the nation need to know that if we can get this message out across the nation, then the nation will not be so fearful. Then the nation will not be so vengeful, because having received grace upon grace we are prepared to give it to others.