Stirring Up Good

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43; Hebrews 10:24

Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, September 27, 2026.

"Goodness is usually less visible than harm because it is cumulative and ordinary and doesn’t normally make the news. A corrupt institution can produce dramatic events that shock us. A healthy community may spend generations quietly forming people—parents raising children, teachers teaching students, churches nurturing faith, neighbors caring for neighbors. The result can be enormous, but there is rarely a single dramatic moment when you can point and say, 'There! That is what this community did.'

"And this is where communities become complicated. Because we cannot separate the good from the harm that communities do any more than we can separate the good from the sin in our own lives. The same community that nurtures love can harbor dysfunction. The same country that can be corrupt can also be filled with mothers protecting their children, neighbors helping each other out, and courageous people working for something better.

"We are tempted to see a community as either good or bad, and once we have decided which it is, to treat everything within it accordingly. But communities don't work that way. The flock is always moving, and directions change even within it.

"We should remember that when we think about enemies. When we are angry or afraid, it can be tempting to want to wipe out the perceived evil along with the people who embody it. But when we do that, we destroy more than the evil we mean to destroy. We destroy the very people—and the very possibilities—that could be used by God to bring peace and redemption.

"That is part of what Jesus is trying to help us see when he tells his parable of the wheat and the weeds."

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