|
First
Reading
|
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| Genesis 28:10–19a |
Psalm 139:1–6, 10–11 |
Romans 8:26–39 |
Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43 |
The Gospel of Matthew was likely compiled in Palestine or Syria in the fourth quarter of the first century. By then the young church had experienced the initial exuberance of some converts and their subsequent falling away, social pressure that during times of persecution made a number of people recant their profession of faith and unfortunate infighting and petty arguments that inevitably may have been introduced into community life. In today's parable it is probable that early Christians identified it with the betrayal, dissention and accusations within their community. What is truth? What is heresy? What is wheat? What is a weed? How and when do you separate the two? It's been a problem the church has struggled with ever since.
Yet Jesus gives us wonderful insights as fresh and insightful today as two thousand years ago. In the parable, the weed that has sprung up, is described specifically in the original Greek as darnel or cheat, which when it first sprouts and grows in its early stages, resembles wheat so closely that it is almost impossible to tell the difference. Evil often masks itself as good and at first it is very difficult to distinguish it until real damage has been done. The more sophisticated the evil, the more closely it resembles something else.
During the night an enemy came and sowed the darnel or cheat, and then went away. The enemy doesn't have to do anything more, for the enemy did not only sow the cheat, the enemy sowed the seeds of confusion among the workers. People often become confused by the disguise that evil hides behind, as well as become befuddled and agitated over what to do about evil once it is recognized. That very confusion can wreak as much harm as the evil itself. When the workers discover the weeds for example, their panic and confusion leads them to suggest to the farmer that he root up and thereby ruin the entire crop.
Fortunately, the farmer doesn't succumb to confused thinking. Instead he says to the workers, what you suggest will destroy everything, but let the field be, perhaps much of what we thought was weed, will turn out to be wheat. In any event there will be a way to separate it at the final harvest. For now the way to deal the sowing of this evil is, to --and the word the farmer really uses is the word to forgive , forgive and let be what you think are weeds. It is the same word used in the Lord's Prayer, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and the word Jesus uses at the Last Supper when he talks about his life given for the forgiveness of sins.
When we are confused about evil, we tend to indulge in an overdose of fantasy in settling scores. Such fantasy if relied on, serves to destroy everything. Jesus is cautioning us that jumping over forgiveness into fantasy won't help us deal with the mixture of good from evil in the world or even the mixture within ourselves. I suggest that the parable tells us that forgiveness is likely to be a more effective tool than a blowtorch or a bulldozer in sorting through our own motives and dealing with the similarity of wheat and weeds.
It is difficult to be a North American Christian today and not be aware of the polarization and bitter battles over what is true Gospel, what is heresy, what is incompatible with scripture and what new horizons the Holy Spirit may be revealing. It is easy to make harsh judgments of what is wheat and what are weeds and in becoming filled with agitation and indignation, insist on tearing out the weeds as fast and as thoroughly as possible. I wonder if Jesus would not frown at this approach. Inquisitions seem to bear bitter and inedible fruit. That is why today's parable seems surprisingly relevant for today's church. God can be remarkably patience. The Gospel depends on God's planting much more than on our weeding. Jesus seemed to depend on fertilizer to expand our minds than on insecticides or herbicides. Perhaps one of the few guideposts we can count on as we grow as disciples is to remember that hope and forgiveness are much more reliable signs of God's genuine grace than actions fueled by anger and devoid of mercy.
And
I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
