Matthew
13:24-30, 36-43
Many
of you already know that for me, the most intriguing topic in Christian
theology is the problem of evil. I have
this well-rehearsed and very elongated rant I go on as to how a loving,
all-powerful God could co-exist with evil.
I am sure that I have preached that sermon at least a dozen times in my
twenty-one years as your pastor. If you
want to subject yourself to a refresher, just let me know. As I said, that lecture of mine is
well-rehearsed and always at the ready.
Today’s
Gospel lesson includes a reference to how evil enters our world, and it was
tempting for me to return to my well-rehearsed pre-conceived comments on this
topic. But I had to admit that in this
parable the origin of the evil is a side topic; the point of the parable (or so
it seems to me) is what are we to do with the evil that is among us.
(Jesus)
put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to
someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everyone was asleep, an
enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away.”
Just
a word about parables and why so much of Jesus’ teachings are in parables. Here is another place where it would be handy
to have a bible. If you do, open it to
Matthew 13. Matthew 13 begins with last
week’s Gospel lesson – the parable of the four soils. That runs from verse 1 to 9. In verse 10ff, Jesus offers an explanation of
why he uses parables. He speaks of those
who “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen.” Jesus speaks in parables, at least in part,
so that the task of interpretation is left open. Not so much to test us, I would suggest, but
rather to challenge us to perceive and to listen. We can’t simply be told what scripture means,
we need to determine what it means for us.
That
is why I look with suspicion to the “explanations” offered for last week’s
parable and the one for this week. I am
more than a little suspect of these explanations. They tidy the whole thing up just a little too
cleanly. I am not sure Jesus would have
taught in parables and then turned around and explained what the parable
teaches. That is not a critique of
Jesus, but of Matthew.
So,
back to our parable…
“The
kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field;
but while everyone was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat,
and then went away.”
The
seed is good seed. While some of the
servants question the Master’s seed selection, he insists that what he has
planted is good, pure, uncontaminated. If
we are looking for someone to blame for the existence of evil, it should not be
the one who planted the seeds. This is a
bit of a rebuff to my preferred answer to how evil comes into the world. As one who believes that God is the creator
of ALL things, everything in
the cosmos answers to God and came into being because of God’s actions. So, even this “enemy” is a creature, created
by God. If God wants to prevent the
weeds, then why doesn’t God stop the enemy from sowing the bad seed?
This
parable isn’t going to answer those questions.
What it does is acknowledge that as pure as God’s intentions and hopes
may be, those who oppose God will find a way to contaminate God’s fields. The fields which we observe will have the
wheat that God has planted, along with the weeds which were over-seeded among
the choice grain.
I
have learned, as a result of my often-repeated rant on the reality of evil in
the world, that we don’t always agree as to what constitutes “evil.” So let’s work together to come to some shared
understanding of what constitutes “evil,” or the weeds which grow from the bad
seeds in this parable. Turn to someone
near you (make sure to look for the person behind or in front of you who doesn’t
seem to have a natural conversation partner) and arrive at three examples of
evil; three instances where you can see the weeds growing among God’s beautiful
wheat field.
(Pause)
I
thought of the downing of the Malaysian airliner and the whole mess in Ukraine.
The
war in Gaza; which includes the shelling of Israeli neighborhoods.
What
of the human trafficking across the US-Mexican border? And the circumstances
which have led to the increases in unaccompanied minors coming across.
There
was a horrific murder reported in the Greenville news this past week. A father could not bear the thought of his
wife and child living without him, so he shot them both. The little girl didn’t die immediately and he
reported holding her in his arms and trying to comfort her as she asked, “When
will it stop hurting?”
It
may be difficult to arrive at a full and completely shared definition of evil precisely
because we can’t agree on what caused the evil to emerge. To use the parable’s language, the seed is in
the ground, we never see it. What we see
is what emerges from the seed. Where is
the evil in Gaza? With the death of the
civilians? Or is it the attacks of Hamas
on Israel? Or the mistreatment of the Palestinians by Israel?
This
is where the parable seems to have something to teach us. The parable is not telling us something we don’t
already know when it tells us that there are weeds (evil) among the wheat. Nor is this parable’s explanation of how the
weeds got here all that helpful. The word
of God which challenges us to perceive and to hear is Jesus’ instructions on
what to do about those weeds.
The
common agricultural practice was to go into the field and pull out the weeds. This is what we do in our garden, isn’t
it? How many days have I come to this
church to find Jean Ashkew and her crews out there pulling up weeds and placing
them along the curb for pick-up? But in
this parable is the master won’t allow the servants to do what is the common
practice. He tells the servants to leave
the weeds alone.
I
am going to say to you (and probably with you) that this is not an option with
which I am entirely comfortable. When I
see bad seed, I tend to want to reach over and pull it out. I put fertilizer in my garden; I don’t want
the chokeberries getting the benefit of my nitrogen. Sometimes I have to irrigate; I don’t want
the briers to get a drink of water because of my efforts. I tend to want to reach over and pull it
out. But Jesus says, “No. Let them both grow together.”
There
is evil (bad seed) in the world. I would
rather get rid of it. But Jesus says to
leave it alone. “You might uproot the wheat
along with the weeds,” Jesus warns.
Murder
seems to be the simplest example of evil where plucking out the weed would be
appropriate. But I will never forget the
response of Lorraine Watts, member of the congregation we served in Houghton,
MI, when her daughter was raped and murdered.
When attempts to comfort her included comments of “finding the so-and-so
who did this and making him pay,” Lorraine’s response as “He has a mother, too.”
How
do you pluck out the weeds, without disrupting the wheat?
I
am sure that I could ignite a heated narthex discussion by suggesting how to
pluck the weeds in Gaza/Israel. While we
are here this morning, there are a whole host of political spokespersons
telling Sunday morning news shows exactly
what weeds need plucking. But are the
lines that clear and simple?
Everyone’s
heart is with the 298 who died on that airliner. The world’s outrage is over the downing of a
passenger flight. Those whose lives are
being ripped apart might ask where is the outrage at the conflict which gave
rise to the launched missile?
We
look for someone to blame. We want to
find the responsible one and snatch them away from the remainder of the
wheat. But it may not be that simple. And it may not be our place to do that.
It
may be our job to run to the Master and point out that among His beautifully
established field there have emerged the growths of bad seed. It may be our job to brush up on our
identification skills and know the difference between those things that are of
God, and those which are present because of the activities of an enemy. It may mean admitting that we are never fully
capable of determining who is to be removed, plucked out, cast aside.
This
is why so many within the community of Christ’s followers remain adamantly opposed
to the death penalty and to war.
This parable challenges us to learn to be
patient. To trust that God will handle
the bad seed, and the enemy who sows it.
We can identify it and cry out to God about it, but following the way of
Jesus does not mean that we become the one who separates.
How
I long for a field where there are no weeds.
Why can’t I be in that place where no enemy sows bad seed? That may be preferable, and surely it is
desirable; but it isn’t the place to which Jesus invites us. Our field has wheat and weeds. And it is not our choice what to do about
it.
As
stated earlier, I don’t always agree with what Jesus has to say. And sometimes I don’t really want to do what
he tells me to do. Maybe you have had a
similar response. Maybe you are having
one this morning.
The
evil in the world is not the seed planted by God. The enemy who plants the bad seed is not our
enemy – but God’s enemy. We can name the
evil for what it is, but removal is not left to us.
Amen.
