July 20, 2014

Helen Jacobi
Isaiah 44:6-8   Psalm 86:11-17   Romans 8:12-25   Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

The Church of England has been in the news this week for finally getting women bishops over the line.

What also made the news was that they are giving clergy the option of taking the devil out of the baptism service.

Instead of asking parents do they “reject the devil and all rebellion against God” and if they “repent of the sins that separate us from God and neighbour.” They will now “reject evil, and all its many forms, and all its empty promises”, with no explicit mention of the devil or sin. There was a great soundbite of one of the Synod members making an impassioned speech “I urge you to keep the devil” – the mind boggles!

Our baptism service says “do you renounce all evil influences and powers that rebel against God.” [1] Still pretty strong language but without the devil in person. When I talk with parents ahead of a baptism we talk about the strong language which seems a bit much when they are bringing their perfect little baby for baptism. But I am often surprised how easily the parents get what this is about. They want to make a choice for good for their children; they want to protect them and lay claim to the goodness of our world, while recognizing that evil is a reality their child will contend with.

In the parable we have today, Jesus brings evil into the picture. Matthew the gospel writer labours the evil part rather heavily in his explanation.

Jesus again reminds his listeners that he was not really a farmer. Last week he was sowing seed on rocky paths and in thorny ground and this week he tells a story of a farmer who leaves the weeds to grow.This time the farmer sows good seed for good wheat in his field, carefully plowed, and tilled and prepared. And overnight an enemy – a rival farmer? sows weeds among the wheat. And the farmer’s slaves say – oh dear let’s get in there quick and weed the plot so the weeds won’t strangle the wheat. But the farmer says, no leave them, we will sort them at harvest time.

Now I know nothing about wheat but I am reliably informed that the weeds here are “darnel wheat” which look exactly like ordinary wheat until the ears of the wheat grow and the real wheat bends over with the weight of the ears; and the false wheat, the darnel wheat stay straight because they bear no fruit, no harvest. [2]

So it is not until the harvest that you can tell the difference. Jesus says “let both of them grow until the harvest”; That little word “let”, apheimi in the Greek, also means to forgive; Forgive them until the harvest …

Matthew adds an explanation and says the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one. But you can’t tell by looking which is which. You can tell later, when they bear grain for the harvest. And Matthew spends a lot longer than Jesus on throwing the weeds into the furnace.

Like Matthew I think we are often quick to condemn, to judge, to put people in categories and demonize them.

We are always very quick to name the evil ones of our world. Right through history but also in modern times:

Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda; Bosnian Serb and Croat; Palestinian and Israeli. We think we know what evil looks like and think it should be rooted out.

We don’t recognise the humanity of our opponent; we do not see that they are children of God as well.

As the conflict escalates in Gaza there seems to be no way out of the violence and suffering. And yet ordinary Israelis and Palestinians are trying their hardest.

I read this week about a group called the Parents Circle – parents who have lost children to the violence – one mother writes

“To all the mothers who have just joined the dreaded club of the bereaved, both Israeli and Palestinian, we at the Parents Circle-Families Forum extend a hand to you. We too have heard the knock on the door which changes your life forever. We understand that the pain of a mother losing a child is the same no matter where she comes from, what colour her skin is and to whom she prays at night. The tears falling on the pillow are the same colour. We cannot allow the violence to continue. Let us raise our voices together to stop this senseless killing. Stop the violence, stop the horrific rhetoric. No-one has the right to use our beloved children as pawns in a battle that can never be won.
Let us join together as one and beg our leaders to … stop and understand that the cycle of violence will continue until all that is left is the sharing of graves.”[3]

If God were to judge humanity today as Matthew describes and root out all the evil, all the darnel wheat; none of us would survive.  We all have the capacity for evil; we all sin at times. We know from history that good people can do unforgivable things. And yet God allows us to grow in God’s world. God allows us to grow and lets us grow; forgives us as we grow; and waits to see the bearing of the grain, the fruit of our lives.

Paul promises in his letter to the Romans that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in* hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes* for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 

And so we yearn for a world set free from the bondage to evil; parents who bring their children for baptism claim freedom in Christ, they want their children to be blessed and to grow with love not hate in their hearts. We cannot fix wars and massacres and genocide but we can reflect on our own attitudes to those we think of as “other” or “children of the evil one”. We all have people we label, put in boxes, make assumptions about.

We all have people in our lives we jump to conclusions about; and write off. In this election time there is lots of labeling and writing off of people, politicians and policies going on. As people of faith we are called to be discerning, to reflect, not to be quick to judge. And our discernment involves not just our personal actions but the way we react as a society; the way systemic evils of racism and sexism and homophobia wrap their roots around the good wheat and try to strangle them.[4]The way we live and act towards each other can reverse that process and the good roots can instead strangle the weeds.

Jesus says to us, let the wheat be, let everything grow and take their place in the field, and chances are they will turn out to be good wheat too. The harvest will come, in the meantime you get on with loving and forgiving and believing in the good of my created humanity. Get on with claiming life and hope for your children.

The second question in our baptism service is “do you trust in Christ who brings forgiveness, freedom and life” and the parents reply “in faith I turn to Christ”; like the wheat turning to the sun to grow and thrive, we turn to Christ and seek help for our broken and suffering world. We cry out as a woman does in labour and “we hope for what we do not see and wait for it with patience” certain that the good wheat will prevail in the end.

[1] NZPB p 384

[2] New Interpreter’s Bible vol 8 p308

[3] Robi Damelin http://www.theparentscircle.com/Article.aspx?ID=1155#.U8g0zqBD9SU

[4] Joni S Sancken p330 Preaching God’s Transforming Justice; a lectionary commentary ed Ottoni Wilhelm