The Parable of the Weeds & Wheat from the pulpit of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania by the Reverend Dr. Agnes W.

Transcription

1 The Parable of the Weeds & Wheat from the pulpit of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania by the Reverend Dr. Agnes W. Norfleet Readings: Matthew13:24-30, July 20, 2014 Psalm 108:1-6 In the past year, on two occasions, I have been given a piece of lotka paper made out of recycled paper and flower seeds. The first came inserted in a beautiful card from a friend far away with simple instructions. I followed them precisely: planted the paper so deep in a sunny place, and watered it. Not much happened, but what did come up was hard to discern between flower and weed, and nothing bloomed. The more recent gift of seeded paper was a party favor from a celebration at the seminary I attended, and it had a more detailed description. This handmade lotka paper is made

2 in the highlands of Nepal by rural craftspeople, providing an environmentally friendly enterprise. The sheet is embedded with tiny seeds that will grow in North America: 15 annual species including Spurred Snapdragon, Bellflower, Creeping Thyme, Lilac, Foxglove, Catchfly, Monkeyflower, English Daisy, Red Corn Poppy, and Showy Evening Primrose. Plant this sheet directly in the garden, cover with one eighth inch of soil, keep the seedlings moist until the flowers are established. The plants will require about 4 hours of direct sunlight, will tolerate partial shade, and will grow to about three feet high. This was followed by a lovely Bible verse: I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 1 Corinthians 3:6. Now, frankly suspicious that a full blown garden will arise from an eight by eleven piece of paper, I have not yet planted it. My first try at planting seeded paper yielded little and what did come up never flowered and looked like weeds. And despite the promise of First Corinthians, maybe I don t want to put Apollos and God to the test! The truth is, these seeds would be sewn very close together, and I know that I would not be able to tell the difference between Catchfly, Monkeyflower and a weed! According to Jesus parable the same is true of people: hard to tell the difference between the good and the bad, especially when they are in close proximity. The news this week has been excruciating with the flare up of violence between Israel and Gaza, the shooting down of Malaysian Flight 17, and the continuing plight of Central American children seeking refuge from violence and poverty at the border of the United States. In any one of these situations it can be hard to tell where the root of the evil began. I imagine we could all agree that much of it begins in an ideology of terror, but many 2

3 factors have fertilized that soil: poverty, oppression, isolation, desperation, even religious fervor. Is the Guatemalan mother willing to send her child away from the known realities of certain poverty and violence toward a vision of hope and freedom Weed or Wheat? Trapped between Hamas extremism and Israel s drones and tanks is the father who just buried his son Weed or Wheat? When you are on the ground, and the narrative changes depending on who you talk to it is frequently hard to tell. From a recent conversation about the situation in Israel with my friend at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, I am grateful to Cynthia Jarvis for the reminder of something Reinhold Niebuhr said. The preeminent Reformed Theologian coming out of World War Two, Niebuhr wrestled with issues of Christian morality in an immoral society such as when is violence necessary to counter a greater evil, and how do we discern what is justifiable. Anger, he said, is the root of both righteousness and sin. The proper attitude toward evil is anger. Yet anger is also the root of much evil. If we repay hurt for hurt in anger, we usually repay with very heavy interest. We have certainly seen that heavy interest in the deaths of cousins on a Palestinian beach, innocent airline passengers scattered across a field in Ukraine, children awaiting an uncertain future at the United States border with Mexico. Niebuhr went on to say, Evil, in its most developed form, is always a good which imagines itself, or pretends to be, better than it is. The devil is always an angel who pretends to be God Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves, and who do not probe deeply. 1 1 Niebuhr quotes from Cynthia Jarvis sermon The Good We Would Do, 7/13/14, Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church. 3

4 Jesus was trying to help the people who followed him and listened to his teachings, probe deeply. It is one reason he spoke to them in parables. We have to walk around inside a parable, discovering its contours and unexpected turns, to reach deeper levels of meaning. We cannot sum up a parable in a sound bite; it has a life of its own that challenges us to consider all manner of things from different points of view. A parable forces us to think, and refrain from making quick and easy judgments. The Parable of the Weeds and Wheat before us this morning, appears only in Matthew, several chapters after the Sermon on the Mount which lays out a tough row to hoe as far as true discipleship is concerned. The Sermon on the Mount is three full chapters of instruction that includes tough lessons, like: Love your enemies; pray for those who persecute you; do not judge others, lest you be judged; if you are going to fast, at least don t tell anyone; don t store up your treasures on earth, but in heaven; you cannot serve God and wealth; do not worry; do unto others as you would have them do unto you; enter the narrow gate, for the road is hard that leads to life; be doers and not just hearers of God s word. I don t know about you but I m feeling more like a weed than wheat right about now Do you remember the grand finale of the Sermon on the Mount? The closing verse reads: Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes. In other words, the people who were generally good and well meaning folks, leaders of the religious community, had ceased to discern what is a measure of goodness and faithfulness, and what is not. 4

5 Matthew s community, you see, was a mixed lot. Most likely located in Antioch of Syria, they were a congregation made up of early Jewish- Christians, practicing Jews who had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and Gentiles who were coming to faith apart from the traditions of Judaism. They were struggling with their identity. How can the church be morally pure and live in an immoral world? There was a concern that Jesus new disciples were not following as they should, that they were somehow being corrupted, and that the church was suffering from weeds growing up among good wheat. We can infer that there was plenty of finger pointing about who was right and who was wrong, who should be in and who should be out, who did not measure up to a certain standard of orthodoxy or piety or politics or morality. As the circle of Christian believers expanded, more intense questions arose about how they would be Children of Light in a world of darkness. They were not perfect followers in and of themselves, and the world around them was filled with powers contrary to the teachings of God s love, mercy and justice. This is why Jesus tells the Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat, and probably why it is one of only two parables out of forty that Matthew goes on to interpret for us. Weeds and wheat look a lot alike, Jesus says, and you cannot always tell them apart; so let them grow together, and only when the harvest time comes, will they be separated by God. 2 He is calling for the community to practice patience with one another, and forbearance in the world. Ultimately, God will be the judge between weed and wheat, and we can trust God to be a fair judge. 2 Robert Farrar Capon, The Parables of the Kingdom, p

6 Now, this Parable is not suggesting that we do away with law enforcement, courts and jails and let criminals run free, because they ll meet their Maker someday, and only then be held accountable for what they have done. It does not mean that we should just let the militants and terrorists do their thing apart from any intervention or attempts at brokering peace. Nor does it mean that the church s proclamation of grace means we have license to do whatever we want because God will deal with all of us justly in the end. Within the bounds of God s grace and freedom, there are limits, and there is huge responsibility. But this parable does ask all of us to struggle together to discern how to be moral and ethical when the lines are not clearly drawn, and how to live in the world where sin comes in by stealth, even among us and our best intentions. Jesus himself says, that While we were sleeping Satan entered the field and scattered bad seed. He does not chastise us for going out looking for evil; but understands that sometimes it arises nonetheless. In the world around us, and within us, there is a mixture of good seed and bad seed, and even the tallest grains of goodness among us, stretching upward toward the sun, can get entangled in weeds. Derek Bok served Harvard University as Dean of the Law School in the late 1960 s as all of us know an incredibly turbulent time in this country and then as President in the 1970 s and 80 s. When asked about his expectations for students who would receive a Harvard education, he said, Tolerance for ambiguity. Not a bad summary of the purpose of this parable. Bok went on to explain that in this kind of world, some problems are so complex that the most you can hope for is different opinions from people of 6

7 integrity, rather than a clear delineation of who is absolutely right and who is wrong. 3 Jesus understood this looking at that motley crew of fishermen, and tax collectors, and all kinds of people who were trying to be faithful but did not always get it right. Jesus understands this about us too. The challenge of being in the church, and of being the church in the world, is to try to look upon other people through the eyes of Jesus Christ, rather than through our own limited, judgmental, human perspective. Because the truth is, the good and the bad among us, and the good and the bad within us, and the good and bad in the world, are often inseparable. Seemingly good intentions can have evil consequences. At the end of the day, this parable calls us to trust. It is a hard word to hear. Amid good and evil we are called to trust God to sort it all out. In God s garden, good wheat and bad weeds flourish together, Jesus says, Leave the final judgment to me. AMEN. 3 Derek Bok story, Mark Trotter, What Are You Waiting For? Sermons on the Parables of Jesus, p