July 19, 2020

Cate Thorn

Ordinary 16     Genesis 28:10-19a     Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

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Today we hear the parable of the wheat and the weeds, a theme close to last week’s parable. But last week it was all about the soil, this week it seems to be all about the seeds. Just as with last week we get Jesus telling the parable then after some intervening verses we have the parable explained. As Helen said last week, Jesus wasn’t in the habit of explaining parables, spelling them out seems to make them something they’re not. The power of the parable is that it confounds. Riddle like, the parable opens us up to wonder, it continues to speak to us in many and varied ways. The very specific explanation we hear might suggest these are words from a Matthean community under stress. Jesus words enable them to make sense of their world in the midst of oppression and struggle.

As we hear today both wheat and weeds are sown in the world are included as part of God’s creation. Weeds are part of the growing environment of the wheat, part of what enables the wheat to grow to fruition. It’s not until the fruit of each plant, of wheat and of weed, is borne that the difference between each can be discerned.

Perhaps a salient reminder to us to be careful when we think we’re able to discern and judge that which is good from that which is evil. Are there echoes here of that mythical Garden of Eden tale that tells of our human desire to eat from a tree that would grant us knowledge of good and evil.

What makes for a weed and what makes for wheat – if we extend the imagery beyond the specific? Perhaps a couple of examples might push us to wonder. Some years ago as part of the Leadership NZ year we visited the Hinewai reserve on the Banks Peninsula. It’s a reserve that fosters the natural regeneration of native vegetation and wildlife. Much to the dismay of the neighbouring farmers, Maurice White, the initiator of this project lets the gorse grow. He discovered gorse to be a highly effective temporary nurse canopy for native regeneration. Rather than competing as do Manuka and Kanuka, when the regenerating native trees overshadow the gorse it dies off from lack of light. Gorse for him was not weed but, I guess, wheat in the process of native bush regeneration.

Likewise, we can be quick to decide or judge good from bad in our human environments and to act on this. And yet, what if we shift the frame a bit? During a workshop on the transforming power of place making an example was given of such perspective shift. There was a shopping mall in Australia that was struggling with an overabundance of under occupied youth. The larger number of them was male and they got up to the usual mischief that comes with under occupied young men. There had been a number of complaints made about this, especially by the elderly frequenters of the Mall who felt intimidated and had become afraid of them and so of coming to the Mall. The Mall decided to bring in David Engwicht an expert in place making. After consulting with all being affected a consensus was reached. These under occupied young men became wardens for the Mall. With vests to identify them, they became the custodians of the Mall, with a responsibility of care to look after the elderly and so forth. It transformed both the young people and the Mall. That which had been deemed bad, wasn’t inherently so, it needed understanding and to be given purpose.

Such examples we can understand – the idea that we might set up, from our own understanding or perception, ourselves or something as good, (not in an absolute but relative sense) compared to something else, which isn’t exactly evil, but not good. And we see in this way that ‘good and evil’ coexist in the world. Yet, as these stories illustrate and warn us we need to be wary of thinking we’re actually wise enough to judge. Which is all fine in theory then something dreadful happens, we could say the Covid-19 pandemic, we could say the actions that led to the Black Lives Matter campaign – surely this is evil? Who can we blame for then we can make meaning, understand somehow.

Let’s turn to today’s story of Jacob, Jacob’s on the run. Jacob’s not on a holy quest, Jacob’s fleeing from the consequences of his actions, the repercussions of him duping his brother first out of his birth right and then of his father’s blessing. Jacob is fleeing for his life. Night falls, Jacob makes do with what he has, where he is to sleep. Something happens in the night in that place. Written back or written forward what happens there changes how Jacob is in the faith story. It changes him, our hearing of him – from shady character of questionable moral fibre, self-focussed, without regard for the one closest to him – to divine agent. The one in whom God invests the future posterity of this emerging nation and identity. As we learn later this is the one who’ll be renamed Israel. This night changes who Jacob understands himself to be, he awakens – same place, same landscape, same wilderness and yet … not, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it” Afraid, he says “How awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.” Nothing had changed and everything had changed.

We’ve this great theological word we have when we wrestle with God and the presence of evil in the world, the word is ‘theodicy.’ I sometimes think it’s so befuddling a word it’s usefully deployed to deflect from the genuine issues it faces. But actually it’s a prevailing question asked of me by different people from all number of different contexts, “If God is good, why does bad stuff happen? Why does God let it happen?” When such things are asked of me, when I hear this, I feel a bit like a jar of muddied water. A jar, with the water swirling and turning about, all shaken up. The thoughts and fears, confusions, ideas and ideals of the person asking and my own are swirling and turning about.

So many things I can’t answer, layers of confusion, of meaning seeking, of pain and disillusionment eddying about. I want the jar to be held still for a bit, so the confused and confusing demand to know can settle. So the drifting motes that make up the muddied confusion can be seen more clearly. Not because I’d then know but because then I’d have chance to see what was there. For things to settle in the jar I also need to be still. I can then discern that I am, over against the relentless weight of bad happenings.

Stilling myself gains me perspective – not so to disengage myself from concern or my contribution of care. But when we don’t still ourselves we become like Jacob, running from the repercussions of actions – mine or those of collective humanity, running for our lives in panic and disarray. We find ourselves in a darkening wilderness. We make camp as best we can. And as darkness falls in this wild and lonely place we, like Jacob, must rest. In our somnolent letting go, in our resting stillness, we discover a presence with us, we’re not alone, God is standing by us.

This isn’t to suggest God caused or let happen or made happen this pandemic, or the prejudice and hatred that led to the killing of people of colour – we humans are quite capable of crossing boundaries of nature or declaring that which is other to be of no value! We abdicate our responsibility when we attribute such things to God. But it might suggest that God is with us even in the bad stuff. Not as cause but as presence, with us even in our folly, with us even when we turn away. This isn’t exactly comforting, it doesn’t make everything all better, it doesn’t make everything all right and it doesn’t punish evildoers and those who transgress against us.

Last week the seed planted in good soil bore fruit abundantly. This week in good soil the weeds bear their unique fruit abundantly. Who decides whether the fruit it bears is of less worth than the fruit of the wheat? Last week we were directed to see the seed that did not fall on good soil as falling short. Yet we also know that some seeds need to go through the gut of a bird to propagate, some need extreme heat such as fire, some need the shelter of plant such as gorse and some need good soil to flourish. We’re accustomed to organising our world with binary opposites, it alleviates our anxiety, reassures us, but it’s not the world we live in.

We live in a world of wheat and weeds – it’s not as we’d prefer it to be, even as it is the way the world is. Of this we haven’t much say or choice. But each day, each moment we can choose to pause. To pay attention to the turmoil, to let it be as it is and see it for what it is – it isn’t who we are. As we put down the burden of our confusion, as we settle, we awaken to a sense of presence with us. Surprised, perhaps we too declare, “Truly God is in this place and I did not know it!!!” We might then wonder, “What have I to learn of divine presence in this place? Nothing is changed and yet everything is changed and it could make a world of difference.