Harvest Festival Homily: When are the wicked going to get their comeuppance?

Psalm 37: 1 - 11

Do not fret because of evildoers,

Nor be envious of the workers of iniquity.

2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass,

And wither as the green herb.

3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;

Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.

4 Delight yourself also in the Lord,

And He shall give you the desires of your heart.

5 Commit your way to the Lord,

Trust also in Him,

And He shall bring it to pass.

6 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light,

And your justice as the noonday.

7 Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him;

Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,

Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.

8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath;

Do not fret—it only causes harm.

9 For evildoers shall be cut off;

But those who wait on the Lord,

They shall inherit the earth.

10 For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more;

Indeed, you will look carefully for his place,

But it shall be no more.

11 But the meek shall inherit the earth,

And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

Matthew 13:24-30

24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ”

Harvest Festival sermons are often about giving thanks, or about giving to those in need, and in these times of Climate change you may well hear harvest sermons about going green.

So to summarise, give thanks whilst giving to the needy and going green.

However, I'm not going to be talking about any of those worthy and wholesome matters, I'm going to have a word with you about rooting out evil, and asking the question, 'when is God going to get round to it?'

When are the wicked going to get their comeuppance?

To give you a head's up, it may not be before the end of this sermon.

That is unless enduring this talk proves to be a salutary penance for your misdeeds.

In my defence, Harvest Festivals used to be about judgement day, here's an extract from the hymn, 'Come ye thankful people, come', which a Harvest Festival regular,

For the Lord our God shall come,

And shall take His harvest home;

From His field shall purge away

All that doth offend that day.

Give His angels charge at last

In the fire the tares to cast;

But the fruitful ears to store

In His garner evermore.

Just as the harvest is gathered in, and the good separated from the bad, 'Come ye thankful people' tells us that all people one day shall be gathered in, and the good separated from the bad.

Harvest is a metaphor for Judgement Day, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride quod-bikes, the Archangel Michael operates a Combine Harvester, and the last trumpet is sounded by the hooter on an ageing Land Rover Defender.

In this great apocalyptic harvest drama we are either wheat or tares.

Tares is an old word for the weeds that grow in wheat fields.

The writer of the hymn, Rev. Henry Alford, a Victorian Vicar of Wymeswold in Leicestershire, got the plot for 'Come ye thankful people' from the passage we heard read out from Matthew.

Jesus tells his disciples about a farmer who sowed good seed in his field; but while he slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat. When this becomes apparent, his labourers ask if they should pulls the tares up, but the farmer tells them to wait until the harvest in case they uproot the wheat with the tares.

At the harvest the wheat and the tares can be taken up together, then separated out, and the tares bundled up and burnt, while the wheat is safely stowed in the barn.

So the moral of the harvest is not 'be thankful', or 'be generous to the needy,' or 'go green', the moral is make sure you are fruitful wheat, not a perfidious weed.

No doubt Rev. Henry Alford, who was from five generations of Clergymen, was keener on the idea of Judgement Day than we are. Nowadays,the Church would have God present a friendlier, more inclusive, face; a divine aspect that is perhaps more marketable – although from a sales point of view the Church of England doesn't seem to be doing too well.

Do you not want a God of justice?

Or do you want the wicked to get away with it?

To be ushered anyhow into heaven by St Peter, and offered the rewards of the just?

Justice is imperfect in this world, sometimes the wicked get there comeuppance, sometimes they don't. One might hope that in the next world the record is set straight.

Do you not rail at the tares? Whoever you may think they may be? The tyrants of this world? War mongers? Hate mongers? Purveyors of fake news? Dealers in exploitation? The corrupters? The selfish? The destructive? Those friends, family, or colleagues, who have done you wrong? The in-laws?

The difficulty is, we don't all agree on who the tares are.

Whose judgement will match with God's judgement?

Is our anger righteous, or is it just self righteous hypocrisy?

Perhaps we should listen to the Psalmist advice,“Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret—it only causes harm.”

Instead, “Trust in the Lord, and do good,” and “ Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.”

Good advice, for if we call for judgement, we too will be judged.

When the judgement of God finally falls, will it not also fall on us?

The goodness in which God creates us becomes tangled up in the weeds of our sinfulness, as it says in Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

What is sinfulness? Anything that falls short of perfect love of God and neighbour.

The measure is infinite love, of which we fall infinitely short.

Thankfully, the measure of God's forgiveness is also infinite love, made known through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

In him our God given glory is restored. Then God asks us to wait upon His wisdom, so that come the Great Harvest He might bring the maximum amount of good wheat in to His divine store.

In the meantime He asks us to work for justice in this world as best we can.

We may have sufficient wisdom to be angered by injustice, but we do not have sufficient wisdom to see into the hearts of others, or to comprehend how to untangle the wheat from tares, or to know when time is to be brought to a close.

The prophet Isaiah asks if we think we know better than God, 'who among you has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or measured heaven with a span? Who among you has calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Or weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who among you has directed the Spirit of the Lord? Has He ever taken counsel from you? Are you able to instruct Him? Can you teach Almighty God in the path of justice?'

Trust in the Lord, and do good.

Amen.