23 July 2023 Pentecost 8
Genesis 28:10-19a; Psalm 139: 1-11, 23-24; Romans 6:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Life is full of paradoxes, Christian life is especially full of paradoxes, and no matter how much we dislike them or try to ignore or reframe them, those paradoxes remain.
God is one, and God is Three
Jesus is God, and Jesus is human
The Bible is God’s Word to the world, and the Bible is authored by flawed humans
Creation is good, and Creation is broken
To give is to receive
To die is to live
To pardon is to be pardoned
And I could go on, but these are enough for us to see how central paradox is to our Christian faith, it is woven into it’s fabric. Because we live in a world full of contradiction, we need a religion that is robust enough and complex enough to bear the weight of that contradiction. We need a religion that empowers us, in the words of Richard Rohr, “to live in exquisite, terrible humility before reality.”
In our gospel this morning, Jesus invites us to accept and live with paradox and contradiction. Once again we have a parable with a sower sowing seed. Only this time it is the householder who is sowing the seed. And once again there are problems with how the seed grows. But this parable is interesting in that although the practice of sowing seed would have been a familiar to those to whom Jesus is addressing, there are a number of elements in this parable that would have caused them to question that familiarity. We are told this landowner is one who holds power – he has slaves, yet it is he himself who sows the seed, not the slaves. When ‘weeds’ or ‘darnel’ come up with the wheat, the landowner immediately knows an enemy is responsible for it. Yet those around Jesus would be well aware that darnel or ‘false wheat’ is commonly found in fields and is almost an ‘everyday occurrence’ for any person growing grain. And this ‘false wheat’ does not just resemble wheat, it is also poisonous and anyone who eats its seed would be seriously ill and may even die if they eat enough of it. Yet rather than remove the unwanted plants, the landowner chooses to leave them there till harvest time.
In this parable, Jesus is asking his followers to ‘hold in tension’ two seemingly contradictory truths. One: evil is real, noxious, and among us. Two: our response to evil needs to include both acknowledgement and restraint.
We usually don’t like talking about evil, it seems like a very old fashioned concept. It has hints of exclusion and wounding, but Jesus is frank when he tells us that evil is real, it is insidious, it is intentional, and it is dangerous. The weeds Jesus speaks about are purposefully sown into the field by a real enemy with loveless and sinister intention and, as I said, the weeds are poisonous. And just like the field in the parable, we contain both wheat and weed, good and evil, we are sinners, who are also saints. But there is more to this parable than the fact that evil is real and harmful. Jesus does not pull any punches when he tells us that evil is doomed – that ‘at harvest I will tell my reapers to collect, bundle, and burn the weeds’, and then later, ‘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 them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
In this parable, we can see unequivocal good news for the downtrodden, the outcast, the tormented, the wounded and oppressed of the world. But the question is, what does it say about me. What is my response to injustice, oppression, cruelty, and suffering. Jesus promises his listeners that justice is both necessary for an abundant harvest and certain because God wills it. The weeds may well stay and annoy us for our entire lifetime, and for the next and future lifetimes of those who come after us, but the deeply righteous love of God will not allow evil to rule the world forever. Oppression will end. Injustice will die. The wheat will thrive, but the weeds will not. All causes of evil will be exposed and disempowered. All that chokes, starves, breaks, distorts, poisons, and hurts God’s beloved, will burn away. Not because God hates the world, but because God loves it.
Our response to evil must include both acknowledgement and restraint. How often do we get all worked up about the ‘weeds’ in ourselves, in our lives. How often do we get worked up about the weeds in other people’s lives. Just like the servants, we want to ‘rip them out’ now, quickly, immediately. But Jesus says ‘no’, he tells us ‘wait’. Jesus asks us to acknowledge the pernicious reality of evil, and to accept his timing instead of our own when it comes to destroying it. Why? Because, as Barbara Taylor eloquently puts it, ‘turn us loose with a machete and there is no telling what we will chop down and what we will spare.’ In other words, there is no way we can remove the weed without damaging the wheat. We cannot remove the bad within us without distorting the good. The fact is, the seeds of God’s life in us are still young and growing, their roots are delicate and tender, and they need time, lifetimes. Now I am not saying we should ignore evil, but we are cautioned to move carefully and gently, recognising our task is to grow the good, without burning the bad. We are called to bless the field, not curse it, because the field is not ours it is God’s. And only God knows it intimately enough to tend it. Only God loves it enough to bring it safely to harvest.
And when we hold that paradox, knowing that evil is real and among us, but our response to evil must include both acknowledgement and restraint; our power and wisdom will come from embracing both sides of our personhood, not denying some of its parts. In the spirit of Psalm 139, darkness has a light of its own, for our darkness can also be a vehicle of creative transformation. God is in the mixture of wheat and weeds; God comes to us on our darkest night as we recognise our brokenness. God cries out in wounded nature. Wherever we are, God is present, and wherever we are, it is Beth-el, the house of God.