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Sermon — July 19, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings
“Then Jacob woke from his sleep, and said,
‘Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!’”
(Genesis 28:16)
So I have to admit: I don’t really like traveling. I might even say I really don’t like traveling, especially by plane. Many of you know I spent a few days this week in Colorado Springs to preach at Michael’s ordination. And I do enjoy being in new places and experiencing new things. It was my first time in Colorado, and it turns out it’s a pretty cool place. Did you know, for example, that the Rocky Mountains are very big? I guess I did, in theory, but to walk out of an airport and board a bus, bleary-eyed and smelling like airplane food, and then to watch the sun set out the window over the Rockies—mind-blowing. Not to mention, Colorado Springs is like the Camberville of the West. I felt right at home.
My problem with travel is not the being-in-a-new-place. It’s the uncertainty and the waiting that drive me nuts. I have a very anxious imagination, and so I spend weeks, sometimes even months, worrying about hypotheticals. What if there’s really bad turbulence on the plane? What if the altitude change in Colorado makes me feel sick? It was 88 degrees on Wednesday, and the church had no air conditioning and no fans—what if I get up to climb into the pulpit, and I faint?
I wait anxiously before a trip, worrying that the worst could happen. And then I spend my time away worrying about the trip home. And then I return home safe and sound. And I wonder: wait, would I have enjoyed this more if I’d known in advance that none of the things I worried about were going to happen? (None of them have ever happened, by the way. Maybe one day, I’ll learn.)
Our Gospel reading today is a parable of waiting. And like most parables, the story itself is simple enough. Wheat is planted in a field, but along with it, there are weeds. They’re planted too close together and they look too similar to one another for the weeds to be safely removed. Trying to weed the field now would destroy much of the wheat. But the farmer has a good idea: let’s just wait until the wheat is fully grown, and can be reaped; and then we’ll separate the wheat from the weeds, gathering what’s good into the barn and getting rid of the rest. (Matthew 13:24-30) Jesus tells a similar story about fish in next week’s gospel; you cast a net that gathers up good fish and bad, and then you sort them out. (Matt. 13:47ff.)
And in one sense this is a parable about the future, about a final judgment coming at the end of time in which God will sort out good from bad. It’s the kind of story that’s led to a great deal of anxiety in religious traditions that encourage people to wonder: When the last day comes, will God think that I’m wheat or a weed? Will I get into that heavenly barn, or will I be burned with the rubbish?
But this parable isn’t primarily about the future. It’s an answer to a question about the present, one of the most fundamental questions in every religion: Why does evil seem to prosper in this world? Why don’t the “good guys” always win? Is it because there is no God, or because God isn’t just? Is it because, as many ancient cultures believed, there are many gods, and they’re backing different sides? The Jewish and Christian traditions have long held that there is a God who is just, who will sort out good and bad, right and wrong—but not until the end of time. And this parable offers a kind of simile to help explain why that is: good and evil are like wheat and weeds; it would be too hard to root out all evil without damaging the good. God can’t turn us into marionettes, who only do the right thing, without destroying everything that’s good about our own free will.
And so we wait, living in a world that’s mixed; living in a field that contains both wheat and weeds.
Paul’s words in Romans today assume that same structure: that the world we see is not the world as it is meant to be, but that God will bring a new and better world into being. That future world is so much better than this one, he writes, “that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18) And just as Jesus talks about the wheat and the weeds, Paul introduces as his guiding metaphor the process of childbirth: “the whole creation,” he says, “has been groaning in labor pains until now.” (Romans 8:23) Some of you have experienced childbirth, first- or second-hand; some of you will very soon. But all of us can understand this image. I don’t think anyone would say that giving birth is a pleasant or a comfortable experience; but I know many people who would say that it’s worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed.
For Paul as for Jesus, we live in a time of uncertainty and of waiting and of pain, of suffering, anxiety, and doubt; and yet we put our hope in a future reality. That better future world can sometimes seem very far away, but that’s the nature of hope—we hope for something that we do not yet see. (Rom. 8:24-25)
So while our reading from Romans today leans toward hope and glory, and our parable in Matthew contains maybe a bit more fear and anxiety—you don’t want to be one of the weeds, in that story—they’re both fundamentally oriented toward the future. Paul seems to discount the sufferings of this present age; they’re not worth comparing, he says. The farmer in Jesus’ parable doesn’t have much to say about the long period of growth that comes between the sowing and the sorting. They offer us an explanation for the imperfection of this world; and they comfort us with the good news of a better world to come. But they don’t have much to say about how to live in the present.
They remind me of exactly how I feel when I’m about to get on a plane, groaning inwardly while I wait for Group 2 to board, trying to remind myself that the sufferings of this airplane seat are not worth comparing with the glory of my own couch waiting at home. And if we lean too hard on this future orientation, we run the same risk I do when I travel of focusing so hard on the better things to come that we miss the glories that are with us in the present.
One phrase from our readings spoke to me this week, as I flew back and forth across the country and thought about this tension between the hoping for the future and enjoying the imperfect present. It was what Jacob said when he woke from sleep: “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” (Gen. 28:16) In an imperfect world, what an interesting mantra that could be.
I am always tempted by grass-is-greener thinking. Maybe you are too. Once I start this new job, then things will be different. Once we find the right home, things will settle down. Once the baby’s sleeping through the night, being a parent will be easy. Once I can finally retire, then I’ll be happy. We can spend our whole lives waiting for the farmer to come and sort out the wheat from the weeds. But I wonder what it would be like to think, instead: “the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it.”
Whatever the sufferings of the present time, God is in this place with you. However imperfect the present season of your life may be, there is wheat among the weeds. However ready you may be to finish this leg of the journey, there’s a sun setting over the mountains waiting to be seen. However ordinary life may seem, there are angels ascending and descending all around us. Wherever any one of us may be, surely God is in that place—even if we do not know it.
