Pentecost 7A
July 19, 2020
July 19, 2020
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Romans 8:12-25
INTRODUCTION
Today we continue through Matthew’s parabolic discourse, this series of parables. Remember last week I mentioned that Matthew has set up his Gospel with five discourses – the first is Sermon on the Mount (instructions for faith), the second is the missionary discourse (instructions for the apostles proclaiming the kingdom of God), and now we are into the parable discourse, which will teach us some truths about God. Today’s story is the parable of the wheat and the weeds, in which an enemy sows weeds among the good seed, and the farmer tells the workers not to pull the weeds, but to wait until the harvest, when all will be sorted out. This powerful parable, along with the other readings today, bring up some tough questions about evil – where it comes from and why it is among us. Each reading offers a directive that brings us both comfort and discomfort: wait. God’s got this under control. Evil and suffering will, finally, come to an end. “Hope for what you do not see,” Paul urges in our reading from Romans, “and wait for it with patience.”
In the midst of so many unknowns in our world, that “wait and see” message can be a difficult one to hear. But friends, do hear it today. And try to find in it some comfort and solace for the uncertainty before us, as we wait with patience “for the glory about to be revealed to us.” Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
On this day, July 19, 2020, the economic recession and high unemployment is still an issue. Racism is still an issue. How the US is dealing (or not) with the rapidly rising numbers of Covid-19 cases is still very much an issue. But the issue that I have heard more about this week than any of those is the question of what to do about opening schools in the fall. Guidelines from the NY Department of Health came out on Monday. All week (and for the past few weeks) I have seen roughly a zillion posts on social media about the myriad concerns at play: health of students, teachers and staff; the particular needs of at-risk students who lack resources, or who depend upon in some cases life-saving services the school provides; for parents the balance of work and childcare. On Tuesday I received a survey from our school district asking about our hopes, needs, and preferences for the fall. When I opened it the first time, I could feel my chest tighten as anxiety crept into my heart. The realization hit so hard that: there is no right or just answer here. Each solution brings up another problem. Every possibility puts someone at risk, and most often the ones who lose the most are those who started at greater risk, namely, the poor and those with special needs. Every bad weed we try to pull out of this mess, we inevitably pull up some good wheat with it.
The wheat and the weeds. I have a real love-hate relationship with this parable. On the one hand, it seems straightforward enough: leave the judgment to God. You do you, and let God do God. Everything will work out. Nice enough message. But on the other hand, it makes me feel very stuck and helpless, because it clearly names that evil is real and it is among us, but also tells us, “Don’t do anything about it right now.” Paired with the Romans text, a beautiful text that I love about waiting in hope and patience, this message about waiting is an especially difficult one to hear right now.
Because friends: I’m tired of waiting! I’m done being in limbo. I’m done not knowing what to expect out of school this year, and it hasn’t even started! I’m done waiting for racial justice just to magically happen. I’m done waiting to see how bad (or how long) this pandemic will really be. I’m done waiting to see if the economy will recover, if people will be able to make rent, if we will ever travel again, if I’ll have to wait yet another year to see my parents or my brother’s family. I’m done “waiting for what I do not see with patience,” as Paul says, because I already do see some things, I’ll tell ya what, I do not like it! I don’t want a parable today about waiting for God. I want a parable that says, “Okay, Johanna, here’s what you have to do next. Here’s how you can safely get some of the bad stuff out and leave only the good stuff.” Where is that parable?
Of course, that is first of all not the purpose of parables. That was what Jesus was doing in the first two discourses: he gave instructions for living a life of faith. Now, Jesus has turned to teaching us about who God is and how God works. And it turns out, black and white certainty about every situation is not how God or faith work. If we could peg God and know exactly everything, if our human minds could comprehend that, what kind of God would that be? One with enough limits to fit inside the human mind? No instead, ours is a faith full of paradox: God is one in three, and three in one; Jesus is fully human and fully divine; we are justified by grace through faith alone, and also faith without works is dead; we are simultaneously saint and sinner, at once freed from sin and captive to sin. It’s a wonder any of us can sleep at night with all this uncertainty!
I find some relief in recognizing that it is not the purpose of this parable to provide certainty, nor to tell us what, specifically, to do about evil. If I can put aside that expectation, I can instead focus on what this parable can show us – about faith even as we struggle, and about God’s faithfulness in the face of evil.
So with that focus, what can we learn from the wheat and the weeds? The first thing I hear from this parable is this important truth: Yes, there is evil in the world, but no, God did not put it there. We must acknowledge that there is evil about, and it is a real force whose goal is to turn us away from the God of life. There is an enemy, as Jesus calls it. Did you notice that line? The workers say, “Didn’t you sow good seed? Where’d the weeds come from?” and the master’s ominous response is, “An enemy has done this.” In other words, this evil is not of God. God never wills evil. Despite many common platitudes, such as, “God has a plan…” or, “God will reveal his purpose…”, evil is not a part of God’s plan. It never was – remember, God created all things good.
That said, God can and does always use the evil we face to bring about God’s purpose. God is always powerful enough to overcome the evil and use it for good. Let me tell you a real-life example: we have been praying each week in worship for Chelsea Ellis, who is the 30-year-old niece of Tim and Linda Jackson. Chelsea is a vibrant young woman who works with refugees, has done missions in 13 different countries, leads Bible studies out of her home, and whose dearest hope in life is to bring people to Christ. On April 15, she was walking down the sidewalk and was struck by a police car responding to what turned out to be a phony call. She was thrown 58 feet and sustained injuries generally incompatible with life – including what appeared to be a severely damaged brain stem. Yet God spared her life. She is currently unable to move anything below her neck, is on a ventilator, and has had several setbacks in the past three months, but she keeps recovering, and each day God brings about more miracles in her healing. She is now in rehab, learning to talk, swallow, stand, and move her wheelchair around with her eyes. She intends to play her guitar again soon, and has every intention of walking, singing, and dancing once again. More importantly, you cannot believe the number of people who have expressed that, through their encounters and interactions with her and her story during her recovery, they have come to see and know God in ways they never had before. People are coming to Jesus through her story. No matter what roadblocks “the enemy” throws in her way, God is finding ways to overcome them – and not just barely, but in huge, miraculous ways!
God did not put Chelsea in the path of the police car. That was the enemy. God does not cause the various infections she’s endured. That is the enemy. What God does is show Chelsea, and the thousands of people around the world who are following her story, that evil is not more powerful than God. (See Chelsea's Go Fund Me page here to participate in her recovery.)
No more profoundly do we see this than in the very central story of our faith, the story of the cross. Evil put Jesus on a cross. Evil mocked him and flogged him and left him for dead. But God did not let that be the end. God turned even that horrific evil into the promise of and the gateway to new life. The cross is testimony that evil is real, but that it is not powerful enough to overcome God. God always wins. That is who God is. For all the uncertainty in the world, and all the paradox, and all the gray area, this is sure: that in the end, God will always win over evil.
I do still wish I had a parable to instruct us about how exactly to address the pandemic, and racism, and recession, and what on earth to do about school in the fall. But that is not the role of this parable. The role of this parable is to assure us that God has got all of this under control. It urges us to name evil for what it is and to acknowledge its presence among us. It does not grant us the power to decide for ourselves who or what is wheat and weed (that’s God’s job), but it does encourage us to live our lives knowing what is expected in a life of faith – to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God – to live that life trusting always that whatever ways we try and fail to live the faithful life to which we are called, God will win in the end. God will sort out the evil from the good, burn it in the fire, and welcome us into eternal light and life.
Let us pray… Victorious God, we get discouraged when it seems that evil is overcoming good, and we long for the time of waiting to end. Grant us patience and hope, and the assurance that whatever evil crosses our path, it will never be more powerful than you. Help us remember that you will win, every time. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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