"Mind Your Business" (July 19, 2026 Sermon)

Preaching: Rev. Edyth Potter

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

The fastest way to lose your peace is to take on a job that was never yours: sorting people into “good” and “bad.” We open with Romans 8 and its raw honesty about suffering, creation’s groaning, and the kind of hope you can’t see yet but still choose to trust. Paul’s words don’t pretend the world is fine. They point to adoption, belonging, and a patient endurance that holds steady until redemption is complete.

Then we turn to Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew. When the servants want to yank the weeds out right now, the master says no, because tearing up what looks wrong can damage what is truly growing. That tension becomes our lens for living in a polarized culture: we’re called to discern, yes, but not to appoint ourselves as the final harvester. Our work is to tend the garden faithfully, refuse the reflex to demonize, and leave ultimate judgment where it belongs.

From there, “mind your business” becomes a three-part practice. First, we stop playing judge over our neighbors. Second, we actually mind our own business by caring for our inner life, using Psalm 139 to name how God knows us, searches us, and invites honest self-examination. We talk about burnout, boundaries, and why spiritual maturity includes rest. Finally, we step into the third level: making hope our business, where charity, mercy, and the common welfare become the real work of the children of God, echoed through Dickens, John Wesley, and a closing charge to do good anyway.

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Transcript

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Opening Prayer And Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:00

God, your word goes out and does not return empty, but prospers that for which it was sent. By your Spirit, open our minds to your word this day, that we might walk according to your ways, for the sake of Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Romans 8 Hope And Adoption

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Our first scripture reading today is from the book of Romans, chapter 8, verses 12 through 25. So then, brothers and sisters, we are obligated not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for 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. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, Abba, Father, it is that very spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we in fact suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us, for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from enslavement to decay, and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, grown inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what one already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God.

Matthew Parable Of Wheat And Weeds

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Good morning once again. Seems to be working. It has been an absolute joy to be here with you all these past few weeks. Um y'all have been so welcoming and amazing, and so I thank you. It feels good to be in a place where people are so loving and kind and wonderful, especially in today's world. So now I will share with you the second lesson for today, which comes from Matthew, another parable of Jesus. He put before them another parable. But while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed seeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And 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? He answered, An enemy has done this. The slave said to him, Then do you want us to go and gather them? But he replied, No, for in gathering the weeds you would also uproot the wheat 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. Then he let the crowds 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. And he answered, The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw with them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. Let anyone who has ears listen. Holy wisdom, holy word.

Level One Stop Playing Judge

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Good morning, children of God. Did you realize this morning that all of creation waits with eager longing for us to reveal ourselves? This is what hope is in the world. Paul says it. So most of my sermon, like most Sundays, I'm preaching to myself instead of you. Hopefully, it can speak to you as well. These passages are filled with joy and hope and also hit at places I consistently fall short. So, let's mind our business this morning. In wrestling with these passages today, I found three different ways to mind our business. Each one is different, and each one is necessary for us to become the wholeness of who we are to be as the children of God. I'm sure there are many other levels as well, but for today I'll just concentrate on three. Level one, mind your business. My best friend is an awesome person, and one of the things I most admire about him is when he's confronted with other people and he hears gossip and things that seem to annoy most other people, he has a phrase he likes to use, and it is mind your business. In other words, if that person is just living their life and not hurting anyone, then leave it alone. Mind your business. Who cares what somebody else is wearing? Who cares how somebody else talks? Who cares what that person does for a living? If they're not bothering anybody else and they're just living their life, mind your business. The parable Jesus tells us today is a little bit confusing to me. There's a wonderful field, seeds have been intentionally planted for the harvest, then overnight weeds spring up. Now I'm a terrible gardener, but even I know that gardening theory tells you to pull the weeds. As our parable told us last week, the weeds can choke the life out of a good plant. So the servants go to the master and say, Hey, you want us to pull those nasty weeds? And the answer is a surprising no. In other words, mind your business. This parable doesn't ignore that there is bad in the world, that there is evil in the world. Heck, it even points to the fact that there are bad seeds all around us. But in some ways, we are to mind our business and let God work it out. Another interesting thing I noticed about this parable is that nowhere does the master relieve the servants of their duties. Presumably they're still expected to go out and water the garden. But the good seeds and the bad seeds growing just the same. The harvest is still expected to grow until maturity. The servants, however, us, we are not the harvesters. The work of sorting out good from bad is left until the maturity happens because quite often we really can't see the potential or the variety of what is growing there. This is a recurring theme with Jesus. It's not just something he said in one parable. If you notice, Jesus is always telling us to kind of mind our own business. Judge not lest ye shall be judged, because the same way you judge other people, you're going to be judged too. What happened when he was called over to a woman who was caught in adultery, called over by that crowd? Kind of said, mind your own business. In fact, who he chose to be his disciple turns our ideas of what good and bad seed kind of on its head. He chose people most people would not have chosen. Tax collectors, dirty old fishermen. He had a bunch of women hanging out with him. And all these good, good people, the scribes, the Pharisees, those who knew the law, who could quote scripture like this, he was pretty critical of them. And so this parable kind of makes sense because it's not something just Jesus said, it's something he did. He saw the potential out there. And he alone knew who to choose. And all those people who told him that he was on the wrong path, he very often said, mind your business. Now I don't want to be Pollyanna about this. We do have to have some discernment. There is certainly evil in this world, and I don't think Jesus is saying to just let evil run rampant and take root. As Paul puts it, creation has been subjected to futility. We live in a fallen world. Sin is real. There are obviously very wrong things that happen in this world, and those things and the people that do them should be held accountable. I don't think this parable disputes that. The problem is we as humans sometimes take on the job of harvester when it is not ours to take. We live in a world that is more divided than I've seen it in my life, and it's so easy to demonize the other among us. You know what I'm talking about. We make snap judgments about other people all the time. Part of it is our instinct, our family heritage, or our own past experiences. One of the unfortunate consequences of this human nature is that we are often flawed in our judgments, especially when it comes to other people. We don't know where people have been, we don't know what their intentions are. We have to mind our business. There will be evil in this world until the new kingdom comes. It's just a fact. There will be evil in this world until the new kingdom comes. But that day will come. Until then, we need a heavy dose of level one, mind your business, and recognize that the master will make it right one day. We are just tasked with tending the garden as instructed. Mind our business.

Level Two Tend Your Own Soul

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Which brings me to level two of mind your business. The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. That is you. That is me. We need to mind our business. One of the other lectionary passages for today is Psalm 139, and it's absolutely my favorite psalm. O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up, you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down. You are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in behind and before. You lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is so high that I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed and sheol, you are there. If I take to the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. For it was you who formed me in my inward parts. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, that I know full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance, and in your book were written the days that were formed for me, when none of them yet existed. God knows us. God knows us better than we know ourselves. God has a plan for us, even when we don't acknowledge it. Level two of minding our business is literally figuring out and minding our business, tending to it. The way of claiming our birthright as children of God is to pay attention to ourselves, getting to know ourselves as well as God knows us, accepting ourselves as God does, and working on ourselves, minding our business. There's an old adage that when you're on a plane and the cabin pressure drops, you have to put on your own oxygen mask first, right? What happens if you don't? You pass out. You can't help anybody if you've passed out. Sometimes I think it's a temptation as people of God to put so much pressure on ourselves to be there for everybody else. And that is a good thing to be there for everybody else. That we neglect ourselves. And I don't think that's what God wants of us. He doesn't want us to lose ourselves and wind up depleted. God really wants us to take care of ourselves. I really believe that. I think one of the dangers of being good people is that sometimes we spend so much time caring for other people that we forget to care about ourselves, and in the end, we run the danger of ignoring our own needs and tending for tend our need for tending, and as a result, burning out or getting sick and being no good for anyone. Part of what it means to be revealed as a child of God is to reveal to ourselves how incredibly precious we are and what an incredible gift it is to be alive and to be known. That's level two of minding our business. Taking care of ourselves, taking time for our own spiritual development, taking time to be with our families. As a woman of my age, I, well, as an aside, anytime I go into a store or anything else, I must have a big C on my forehead because people instantly recognize me as somebody they can talk to and mostly tell me all their problems. It can be a dollar general and somebody will just tell me all their problems. I don't know. It's a gift, I guess. Um, but one of the things I've noticed is that as people get older, we do the best we can to raise our family, to do our jobs, to keep our busy lives together. And then there comes a time in life, if you haven't hit it, you might. You wake up one day and you know who your children are, you know who your family is, you know who your community is, and you don't know who you are. Because you've poured out so much of who you are to other people that you've forgotten who you are and what your needs are. It's the same with men who pour their, well, men and women, I don't want to be sexist here, but we pour so much into our jobs. Ministers are terrible at this. We pour so much into our jobs that at the end of the day we have no joy because we forget who we are and the gifts around us. So level two, we need to mind our business. It's a lot harder than it seems sometimes. Psalm 139 ends in a beautiful way. We use it as a call to worship today, and it's a prayer that sets us on the track of level two of minding our business. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. The epitome of level two of minding your business. Which brings us to level three.

Level Three Make Hope Your Work

SPEAKER_01 16:43

To illustrate this point of minding your business, I call upon the very well-known Charles Dickens. Scrooge sat in his room on Christmas Eve and was visited by a frightful sight, the apparition of his business partner, Jacob Marley. Marley's spirit is in torment and weighed down with heavy chains. And he speaks to Scrooge. Oh, captive bound and double ironed, no space of regret can make amends for one's life, opportunity misused. Yet such was I. Oh, such was I. To which Scrooge replies, but you were always a good man of business, Jacob. Business, Marley Bellows. Mankind was my business, the common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business. Once we get past level one of Mind Your Business and stop putting ourselves in the position of judge over our fellow human beings, once we actively engage in level two of Mind Your Business and work on ourselves, then we come to level three of Mind Your Business. We realize that our business is the business of revealing hope to the world. It is here in level three where our purpose as the children of God is fulfilled. Minding our business is having the mind of Christ in a world that is desperate, in need of hope. God has trusted us with this high calling. We need to mind our business, and as the great theologian John Wesley said, do all the good you can by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can. Mind your business.

Closing Charge Do Good Anyway

SPEAKER_01 18:55

I'll end today with another one of my favorite quotes. This one is written on an orphanage wall in Calcutta, attributed to Mother Teresa. I find it a great way to set our minds to be able to mind our business on the third level. People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and make some true enemies. Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you. Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give the world the best you've got anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God. It never was between you and them, anyway. Mind your business. Amen.