The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture
Hebrew
Scriptures – Genesis 28: 10-19a[1]
10Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward
18So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had
put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19He
called that place
Gospel
Lesson – Matthew 13: 24-30, 43b[2]
24He put before them another parable: “The
kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; 25but
while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and
then went away. 26So when the plants came up and bore grain, then
the weeds appeared as well. 27And 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?’ 28He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’
The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29But
he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along
with them. 30Let 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.’”
43b….Let anyone with ears listen!
“Where Did These Weeds Come From?"
I can't say that I remember hearing the Orson Welles radio
drama of The War of the Worlds[3] that
back in 1938 had thousands of listeners in a panic that earth was actually
being invaded by extraterrestrials; but I do remember enjoying the BTC
("before Tom Cruise") movie version made some fifteen years later. I'm a fan of science fiction; Jean-Luc
Piccard, of Star Trek: the Next
Generation seems like everything a starship captain ought to be as he
confidently intones the command, "Make it so."[4] In light of yet another remake of that famous
H. G. Wells-inspired screenplay about alien invasion that Steven Spielberg
brought back to the theaters just last month, I remember another remarkable
quote that appeared some years ago in the New
York Times magazine, saying, "You may not believe, but that doesn't mean you can't prepare."[5] That's how the column began as it reported on
a company that might still be producing "silly but haunting survival gear
for the approaching invasion of extraterrestrials." They want to equip us "unbelievers"
with such bizarre things as "a paper Alien Imposter Mask to help you blend
into the new crowd…." Could this be
another twist on our parable about the "wheat" and
"weeds?" We might well ask
ourselves: "What mask, if any,
might I currently be wearing?" We
are not weeds! Surely! We are citizens of the "
As far as masks go, read a little bit of the psychology of
Carl Jung and you'll begin to understand that each of us has a
"shadow" side[8] –
a dark side of our personality that we usually don't recognize but tend to
project onto others, calling them the enemy or alien. I'm reminded, however, of the classic line
from that old cartoon character, Pogo:
"We have met the enemy and they are us." The human story, it seems, is one of both
grace and disgrace. There will be no
"caped crusaders" to sail down from the tops of buildings to save us;
salvation will come as we offer it to one another, or it will not come at all.
What's more, fists and karate kicks have no real
long-lasting impact against evil. "Preemptive
strikes" into a foreign country labeled part of an "evil empire"
have never worked either. Those who do
evil plant it everywhere like tiny awful seeds.
Some of it starts out small, maybe only between two people, or as an
almost casual dumping of toxic waste by a single individual. It's hardly noticed by the rest of us, until
these seeds of "care-less-ness" have taken root and finally, now,
seem to have overwhelmed us. Then we cry
out in anger, surprise, and frustration, "Where did these weeds come
from?"[9]
These kinds of weeds, though, aren't like the ones that
many of you helped remove from the yard of the parsonage before
I'm not telling you anything that you don't already
know: this is not an agricultural
problem. It's a crisis of the soul. The "field" is all of God's
creation. The weeds are the evil that we
do – individually and collectively – turning up in the midst of the wheat. Name the ones that you know: terrorism and the warfare bred to combat it,
betrayal and the abuse that follows any such "kiss of death," a whole
host of injustices that have led to the terrible oppression experienced by far,
far too many in our world, secrecy and lies – all manner of corruption that is
sown not only in world or business affairs, but in the church and in our
personal lives. "Where did these
weeds come from?" Jesus reminds us
this morning that they're no accident of nature – they didn't just drift in
with an evil wind from somewhere else.
We planted them.
"Why?" Who
among us hasn't felt the agony of that question? But to remain in the grip of the pain of that
one-word question, all too often leaves us without any satisfactory answers and
only prolongs the agony. "What can
I do?" on the other hand, is a question that opens up practically
countless creative possibilities from which we might choose a response. Think of what Christians alone do to each
other and to their neighbors, and this seemingly ridiculous question about why
weeds exist, becomes all too obvious.
The parable's real challenge is its blunt division between "wheat"
and "weeds" – its dualism. How
can we be convinced that two such hostile crops can and do, in fact, grow in
the same field? And if God isn't taking
care of things now, how can we be so sure that they'll all be neatly separated
in the end? How do we know that it'll
all work out, when it's so obvious that we continue to struggle with, and often
fail to even notice, the weeds in the midst of the wheat? We don't see weed-like behavior in
ourselves. How can we assume that we
know how to see it in others? I'm just
as troubled by this parable as I am about the one that speaks about separating the
"sheep" from the "goats."[10]
If it's hard to imagine all of the human race neatly
divided into two categories, then seeing where we fit into this image can be
even harder – viz., as a field in
which two antagonistic crops grow, one that we're supposed to nurture and care
for, while the other – unwanted and ill-conceived – has got to be seen as
somebody else's fault. Are you sure that
you can spot the wheat from among the weeds?
I'm not sure that I can. As
newly-arrived "city slickers" to the rural town of Etna, CA (one of
the first churches that I served twenty-five years ago), I remember that
Like the householder's servants in today's parable, though,
we want to do something about the evil that we see! And yet as someone who has reversed that
well-known adage into an epigram of a different sort, Jesus is saying to us
here: "Don't just do something; stand there!" Evil
outrages us: terrorists with their
bombs, corporate bigwigs fudging their books, politicians who betray our trust,
the man who chooses to reinforce his grudges with a gun, the drunken driver
behind the wheel…they all make us crazy!
We are God's wheat!
We're the ones who are trusting and careful! We work hard to shape good lives – for
ourselves and for our families. We work
hard to establish healthy work places and safe communities. We want freedom, not just for ourselves, but
for all people. We do all that we can;
and it's never enough. Weeds have grown
up everywhere.
When Jesus was betrayed by his followers (Judas wasn't the
only one!), one of them, you remember, drew his sword and cut off the ear of a
man that he perceived was their enemy.[12] Shouldn't the "enemies of God" pay
a very high price? But (and I'm sure
that you've heard this said before) one religion's "freedom fighter"
is another's "terrorist." We
understand this sword-wielding disciple very well; so Jesus' response leaves us
dumbfounded: "Put your sword back
into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword."[13] Leave the weeds. Let them grow alongside the wheat until the
harvest.
And yet still we ask, "Why?" Why shouldn't we cut off evil at its root
whenever we can, wherever we can, and as quickly and as decisively as we
can? But that's just the problem. At its root evil is a spiritual problem; and
we're part of it. Paul noticed this as,
in a moment of true insight, he noted:
For you
were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as
an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one
another. For the whole law is summed up
in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as
yourself." If, however, you bite
and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.[14]
Jesus doesn't forbid us from confronting evil, but such
confrontation must always be in the context of compassion – of tending to each
other's needs – so that if there is to be "peace with justice," it is
shared equally among all people. It is
based upon an active love that is strong enough, yet patient enough, to wait
until all of the defenses crumble. It is
not a justice of retribution, but a justice of restoration.[15] It's a love that will not let our neighbor
creep away into the long night of suffering unnoticed, alone, confused and desperate,
poor and hungry. It's a love that calls
deceivers to account for their deception.
With individuals like Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and others
like them, the justice of God is marked by a compassion that spreads like
ripples on a pond flowing from a point of stillness out to a still as yet unseen
and far shore.[16]
Two hours before his death – in fact, in his last public
appearance – Thomas Merton (Trappist monk and well-known author of books on
spirituality) said this:
The
whole idea of compassion…is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of
all these living beings, which are all part of one another and all involved in
one another.[17]
Even the renowned scientist
and reputed agnostic, Albert Einstein, expressed this same conviction well over
half a century ago when he said that…
Human
beings are part of the whole, called by us the "Universe," a part
limited in time and space. We experience
ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest – a
kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection
for a few persons nearest to us. Our
task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of
compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely,
but striving for such an achievement is in itself part of the liberation and a
foundation for inner security.[18]
So, what does this mean, for us, on a day that we've chosen
to mark as "Peace with Justice Sunday"…on a day that we choose to
recommit ourselves to, in fact, "live in peace?"[19] It means that in Rabbi Jesus we have
discovered that heaven and earth have met and become one. So anytime we speak about something like
"salvation" – eternal life, the "kingdom of heaven" – we
must speak about it as a present reality.
It doesn't mean that the weeds will disappear; and it doesn't mean that
there's going to be anything different, or surprising, waiting for us at the
"end of time." It does mean
that you and I are free enough now to
live our lives differently than we might have been doing: we don't need to kill the weeds.
Let me tell you what I believe about "heaven." Heaven is wherever God is. God is wherever
Jesus is. And Jesus is with us – right
in the middle of the wheat and the weeds.
If at least some part of heaven isn't here, then it isn't anywhere. How does this make any difference in our
lives? How does this make a difference
when you don't have a home or even enough money to live a decent life? How does this make a difference when someone
that you love dies? How does this make a
difference when people around us are starving – for food, for acceptance, for
love? What difference does it make when
people that we've entrusted with leadership betray us? When somebody that we wish were our friend
ignores us? When even our friends reject
us? When those that we love the most
turn against us? What difference does it
make, then, to hear that you and I are free from bondage to all of this
pain? To hear that Jesus is saying now
(even to us!): "…remember, I am
with you always, to the end of the age."[20]?
It makes all the difference in the world; because it means
that there is one thing on which we can pin all of our hopes, one promise that
will not be broken, and one person who will not reject us and that what's
happening to us now – whether it's good or bad – is not "the last
word." Our dreams for a good life –
for compassion, for "peace with justice" – are also signs of our
deepest hope. We all wait for the
fulfillment of those hopes, having come to learn that God's design on creation
may differ from our own. But we wait
with that promise from the one who still says to us: In your dreams of the good life, I am with
you. In one Jesus of Nazareth, heaven
and earth meet. Let it not be said of us
that we learned too late about how God is in this place – and we didn't know
it.[21] Peace, with justice, can happen. Make it so.
[1] This
legend in Genesis tells of the promise of Abraham and his descendants being
conferred on Jacob. It's a story come to
be known as "Jacob's ladder," but it's really been misrepresented in
that old Afro-American spiritual "We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder"
(#418 in The United Methodist Hymnal); the only beings supposedly climbing up
and down any ladder here are God's angels ("messengers" in Greek),
not people – of course we do forget that people can be angels (God's
messengers). But what's significant
about Jacob's dream is that this place is a place of the covenant. So he names the place Beth-el, which literally
means "house of God." It's a
place for all people to encounter their God, a place to know the power, beauty,
and awesome presence of their Creator.
[2] Who are
the "chosen people of God?"
Who will "inherit the
[4] This phrase originates with ship captains of the Royal Navy who, while commanding Her Majesty's ships under sail, were not the ones to put their hands on the steering wheel but, after determining the correct course and speed, simply told those under their command, "Make it so." …and they made it happen.
[5] New York Times, the Magazine,
[6]
Originally published by "Priests for Equality" over a decade ago,
this translation of the Greek word, basileia, is meant to remove the
royal triumphalism that's too long been associated with Christians who assume
that they're part of the "in crowd."
[7] This has been the reason behind "holiness (or "purity") codes" since ancient times. It's the reason for texts like Leviticus. If we're going to be able to recognize what's "unholy" (read "not ordained by God" here), we need to know what is "holy" and how to integrate it into our lives.
[8] Compellingly
portrayed by the character Darth Vader, by the way (in yet another science
fiction account), in the Star Wars
trilogy; only there it's described as "the Dark side of the Force" –
a force, supposedly, that seduces us toward evil with its power, but is also
available to us to accomplish great good.
[9] Matthew 13: 27.
[10] A favorite of conservative evangelicals, Matthew 25: 31-46, speaks of "Judgment Day" that, if true, I believe will have 99.9% of the world's population "weeping and gnashing their teeth" in "eternal punishment" – many devout Christians among them.
[11] See
"Noxious Weeds Currently in the
[12]
Curiously enough it was a "slave" of one of the high priests – the
"real" enemies of Jesus (See Mark
[13] Just as curious, this particular response of Jesus is only noted in Matthew's version (Matthew 26: 52).
[14] Galatians 5: 13-15.
[15] Restorative justice is a theory of justice that
emphasizes repairing the harm caused or revealed by criminal behavior. It is
best accomplished through cooperative processes that include everyone
involved. Typically programs reflecting
restoration of relationship will respond to crime by: (a) identifying and taking steps to repair the
harm, then (b) involving all of those touched by the crime, and (c) working to transform
the traditional relationship between communities and their governments in
responding to crime. Note, in
particular, our United Methodist website found at the URL http://archives.umc.org/interior.asp?mid=689,
but also take a look at http://www.pficjr.org/newsitems/reconstories and http://www.restorativejustice.org/.
[16] I'm reminded by this imagery, yet again, of a portion of T.S. Eliot's poetry about such a "still point" – from "Four Quartets: Burnt Norton" he writes:
At the still point
of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor
towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest
nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and
future are gathered. Neither movement
from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor
decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
[17] Thomas
Merton in The Asian Journal of Thomas
Merton, ed. Naomi B. Stone et al.,
1973, pp. 341-342.
[18] Albert
Einstein, "What I Believe," in Out
of My Later Years (London: Thomas
& Hudson, 1950), p. 123.
[19] The
special offering envelope that we use this Sunday says, in part: "Your gift makes a world of
difference…'Live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you' (2
Corinthians 13: 11b)." Half of this offering supports peace with
justice ministries globally through our General Board of Church and Society,
and half assists annual conference-related work such as "Faith Communities
Uniting for Peace."
[20] Matthew
28: 20b.
[21] From a
portion of our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures this morning: Genesis 28: 16b.