Trinity 9 2008

A sermon preached by Revd Fr Douglas Fenton (Head of Youth Ministry for the Episcopal Church of the USA)

Today in our readings through Matthew’s gospel we’re confronted with a second parable, except, as someone once noted, parables are not pointed, but round; so perhaps invited, rather than confronted, is a better way to describe our opportunity through today’s parable, to explore the mind of Christ, the church’s response, and or own inner convictions.

The parable we hear today, often called the parable of the wheat and the tares or the wheat and the weeds, on the surface, presents the eternal question of bad amongst good. For a parable, this question raised may seem sufficient unto itself, however, I would suggest that since it is a parable, it is a much more complex set of options being offered for parables are multi-layered, multi-dimensional matrixes.

A couple of years ago, in order to gain some clearer perspective for my work with young adults in the Episcopal Church USA, (in the US this age group is understood to be 18-30 years); I brought together three cohorts from across the US. One group was made up of those who were heavily committed and invested in the church as institution, a second group were those who had had some historical contact with the church but, were no longer involved, and the third group was made up of those who were in the middle-space, neither committed to, nor intentionally separated from, the church.

With all three groups gathered together in one room I invited them to self-select themselves into the three cohorts as I have described them and with each group needing to have equal numbers to the others. Within moments the most unexpected thing happened. Those who identified themselves as members of the group most heavily invested in the church began to define the rules for belonging: you must attend church every Sunday, you must pay your tithe, you must be involved in daily Bible reading and prayer, you must participate in the outreach of the church, and so on. They were defining who were wheat and who were weeds—and, to mix the metaphor, no weeds were going to infest their field. To follow on the allegorization that Jesus offered his disciples, the ‘insiders’ were deciding upon who were in and who were out, who would be harvested and who would be discarded, who gets eternal life and who gets separated eternally.

Matthew has a serious concern for ethical behavior, because the church of Matthew's day faced serious ethical lapses. The Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7) is especially significant in this regard. At the sermon's climax, Jesus says: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven" (7:21) .

Matthew clearly would feel more comfortable in a purer church. Nevertheless, to his credit, he also includes a different perspective. He knows that scribes and Pharisees, who personified high ethical standards among the Jews, caused most of Jesus' problems. Therefore Matthew mutes his concern for purity, and includes Jesus' words, "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged" (7:1).

This seems to be one, if not the main point, that Jesus is responding to by telling the parable of the wheat and the weeds we hear today. Jesus has been confronting a holiness code subscribed to by the Pharisees who were in favor of separating themselves from all who did not adhere to the very strict code of conduct prescribed by Levitical laws. The Qumran Covenanters, the purported writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls, were so strict in their observance and open contempt for those less so, that they removed themselves completely to a secluded place so as not to be compromised in their absolute observance of the holiness code of Leviticus.

Both Pharisees and Qumran Covenanters were in open conflict with Jesus. Jesus was not about who were sinners, outcasts and unclean, or what one should do on the Sabbath, or who should eat with whom, -- rather Jesus was about mercy. Jesus rejected the holiness code in favor of a code of mercy. Jesus was interested in forgiveness, reconciliation, and transformation of the individual. While judgment may be the end result for us all, Jesus is clear in speaking both to the crowd in the parable, and to the disciples, that it is not their role to be judging others, but a task best left to the Son of Man. Jesus clearly illustrates through the parables of the signs of the kingdom that he is rather more interested in our judging our selves for the sake of our selves.

So who are you in today’s parable? Who are you among the many characters? Can you find yourself? There is a whole cast of players: the crowd-are you a member of the crowd who hears this parable? Are you the sower, the householder, a slave, a disciple, the Son of Man, an angel, the enemy, a child of the kingdom or a child of the evil one? It can sound both comforting and ominous when we hear the parts so clearly listed, can it not? Finding who it is we resonate with most in such a parable often allows us to see the story from the inside out. It can also allow us to view differing points of view from the other characters. And while we may well be cautious about naming aloud that we see ourselves as the Son of Man, I would dare say we all have put ourselves in that position—judging who is in and who is out.

Matthew provides a comprehensive list of parables told by Jesus as he offered glimpses of the kingdom to the disciples whilst preventing the other hearers with an ability to comprehend. Matthew records many contrasting roles such as sheep and wolves, and later sheep and goats, and he tells how one must be both separate and distinct from the other. In Matthew 7:15ff we have the story of the wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing suggesting some among them were not who they claimed to be and should be recognized for who they were; in Matthew 10:16 we have disciples sent out as sheep and wolves again, this time ready to harm them, and even destroy them. Jesus reminds the disciples that there mission will cause a disruption in their status quo, it will cause a separation from family members and from society itself.

Scholars tell us that that the weed to which Jesus refers in today’s reading is commonly called darnel. It is a weed which in its earliest stages resembles wheat, and as it grows it darkens becoming almost black at maturity and much more distinctive, but too late to be pulled out, it becomes intertwined with the roots of the wheat, inseparable and therefore impossible to remove without doing considerable damage to the entire crop.

The place of the weeds in the parable in Greek would be called ta skandala, ‘lawless’, they cause scandal, they’re disruptive, obstacles to growth, to fulfillment, to mercy. It’s back to us: who do we identify in our everyday as disruptive? As obstacles? We do it ourselves, do we not? As parents, as spouse, as children, as friends—at work, church, everywhere. If often comes from our desperate desire of wanting people to be like us, to behave as we behave, see the world as it so rightly appears to us but, at the same time, not wanting ‘them’ to be better than we are—as perceived by us.

And we do cause a scandal. We cause a scandal when we fail to observe that great set of challenges we will soon encounter in Matthew’s gospel (25:31ff) in the great mission: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, tend the sick, visit those in prison.

The parable of the wheat and the weeds is indeed a gospel for our day. The church has wandered down the holiness code path of rules, of whose in and whose out whilst the parable is inviting us instead into the way of mercy—of finding a way forward as a community—a communion.

It seems to me to be the primary scandal to which Archbishop Williams is drawing the church’s attention and just now at the Lambeth conference. Who are we in communion with one another and how much more effective can our witness be to Christ? It’s not about homosexuality or the gender of a priest or bishop. It’s about the scandal that we, the church wander into when we focus outside of the gospel mandate to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick—do not be preoccupied with acts of holiness, but rather be about acts of mercy.

One writer has suggested, ‘Jesus does not teach that we shall be lost, he does teach us that what we have called the story of our life may, in the end, turn out to be a false self-interpretation. We do not perish, but our self as self-interpreted does and that is why there is great sorrow ‘wailing and gnashing of teeth.’ Whatever about us is not like Jesus is consumed in holy fire. Jesus is the only standard of judgment. Only his image in us will remain.

So, rather than turning this parable outward to distinguish others from us, which goes against the very grain of the parable, we can each of us ask instead whether or not we ourselves are like Jesus? We can ask whether we ourselves turn the other cheek, whether we are agents of continual forgiveness, whether we ourselves feed the hungry, clothe the poor and care for the sick. We need not ask ‘what kind of seed are they?’ but ‘what kind of seed am I?’

As Christians who gather weekly around this table we come seeking not so much a set of rules by which to live, but a place where divine mercy is meted out. Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar invites us into an intimate relationship where we might know and be known by him as we truly are. It is in this intimacy, in this love-giving and love-taking that we are both confronted by who we really are and at the same moment, when we allow ourselves to be saved, to be transformed, refashioned, mercifully, once again, into the image God had in mind for us, each of us, at Creation. It is then we are prepared, through Christ’s love and mercy, to be effective witnesses, to be about the mission of the church.

Let anyone with ears to hear, listen.

Amen.

© Revd Fr Douglas Fenton July 2008