July 17, 2011

Sarah Park

Pentecost 5     Matthew 11:16-30

Nearly ten years ago, on the night of my ordination as a deacon, a priest of this Diocese came to me with a gift in hand. It was obvious, without unwrapping it, that it was a book of some kind. As he gave it to me he said, “I hope you haven’t already got it.” “Is it a Bible?” I asked, tentatively. You see, what with being ordained and everything, Bibles and crosses seemed to be the gifts du jour. I already had quite a collection of both.

It turned out not to be a Bible – for which I was quietly grateful. It was however, a deeply theological book. A book that whetted my appetite for exploring some big questions about good and evil, about the nature of friendship and about the enduring quality of love. A book that instilled a childlike fascination which turned into the obsessive. It was, if it’s not completely obvious, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. And this week, in which the final movie-adaptation of the series was released worldwide, I find myself preaching in the church of that same priest who gave me the first book ten years ago. If that’s not a sign then I don’t know what is!

While I loved whimsical, innocence of that first book, what I appreciated as the series unfolded, was the way in which J K Rowling depicted the growing up of the characters. In the earlier Potter books, good and evil were easy to distinguish – they were cast in a child’s perception of black and white. But as the characters matured, the stories became much more complex, they presented a much more adult consideration of good and evil. The reader discovered that what was apparent and what was true, were not necessarily the same thing. This is the storyteller’s art; to leave some things unsaid, unexplained, to foster curiosity in the audience.

If only the writer of Matthew’s gospel had possessed the storyteller’s art. In this morning’s so-called parable about the wheat and the weeds, the reader is given no chance to do the work, to explore the nature of good and evil, to grapple with the obvious and less obvious implications contained within. This is because the writer insisted on having Jesus explain the thing, killing it dead by turning a parable into an allegory. Good is good and bad is bad. Some people are wheat and other people are weeds. Evil will get its reward. End of story.

But I protest this allegorisation of the parable. I’m neither original nor alone in that. Plenty of scholars who know a lot more about things than I do are certain that the explanation doesn’t fit. “Jesus was not an allegorist, though his followers frequently have been. Most recent parable scholars label the story a product of the early church…” [1] The explanation is perfectly logical and tidy. Which, in itself is compelling evidence that it didn’t belong to Jesus. Jesus was far less concerned with tidiness than the church is. What’s more, this explanation domesticates the parable and makes it all rather dull and predictable.

Such a summing up leads to only one interpretation: good once planted, remains good, and evil is always evil. The best bit is when the eschatological fire gets cranked up and those nasty evil weeds get their comeuppance.

But it’s not only simplistic, it’s presented in such a way that I am given an excuse not to do the work, not to grow up. It’s so straightforward that I have no need to question which side of the field I must be on. Stands to reason that I’m the wheat, right? I’m the one reading the Bible, so I must be. That means, that not only does the parable ask nothing of me, but consequently it is easy for me to arrive at smug self-righteousness. Because, certain in my identity as wheat, I’m in a pretty good position to recognise weeds. (That gluten-free lot over there!) This is a parable of judgement after all.

Or is it? Robert Capon draws my attention to the proportions of this parable as Jesus first told it. The majority of the parable is spent examining and rejecting certain strategies for eradicating the weeds. Capon writes, “The words [of judgement we] have all along been holding [our] breath to hear constitute only two thirds of its final verse. The rest of the parable – [verses] 24-30a – [are] entirely about [living with] evil, not about the avenging of it.” [2] “The parable’s main point, is not eschatological redress of wrongs, but present forbearance of them.”[3]

It’s a compelling and disturbing idea. But one that is completely invisible until we understand how ludicrous is “the command from the farmer not to pull up the weeds. Every good farmer weeded his fields to protect his crops.” [4] As is often the case, the most jarring detail in a parable gives a clue to its meaning. While leaving the weeds to grow “may not be sane policy for a farmer, when it comes to human nature, it makes sense. Why? Because more often than not our attempts to eradicate evil become an evil in themselves. Whenever we Christians try to eradicate evil we end up being self-righteous and cruel.” [5] “Goodness itself, if it is sufficiently committed to plausible, right-handed, strong-arm methods, will in the very name of goodness do all and more than evil ever had in mind.” [6] One wonders, for instance, what the killing of Osama Bin Laden – celebrated by many Christians as a triumph over evil – will lead to in time to come.

“Worse yet,” writes Capon “since good and evil in this world commonly inhabit not only the same field but even the same individual human beings – since there are no unqualified good guys any more than there are any unqualified bad guys – the only result of a truly dedicated campaign to get rid of evil will be abolition of literally everybody.”

The parable in the way that Jesus told it, focuses on the reality of good and evil as neighbours, relatives even. If it had been left to its own devices, and not explained to within an inch of its life, it would have been an invitation to hone our skills of discernment, to look at the way good and evil reside in the world, feeding on the same soil, and extraordinarily difficult to distinguish. It would have provided a valuable critique about our individual and corporate responses to evil and whether our responses risk perpetuating further evil. Even more confronting, if we allowed this parable to really get under our skin, it would require us to examine the way that good and evil are present and intertwined in our own lives.

This is a deeply disturbing parable, as most parables are: but not because of the fiery scene at the end. It is disturbing because it reminds us that evil flourishes in good soil. It calls us to resist the temptation to put ourselves in the role of judge, to resist arriving at premature clarity, to do the work of daily conversion and allow God – the gracious one – to “harvest the good, pull out the bad, and feed the hungry with what we’ve grown.” [7]

I can only imagine that if J K Rowling had got her hands on this parable about good and evil, it might have been a whole lot more interesting. But then, on second thoughts, perhaps that’s precisely what she did.

[1] David Buttrick, A Homiletic Guide: Speaking Parables, (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky, 2000), 93.

[2] Robert Farrar Capon, The Parables of the Kingdom, (Zondervan Publishing House: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1988), 108.

[3] Robert Farrar Capon, The Parables of the Kingdom, (Zondervan Publishing House: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1988), 101.

[4] Craig L Blomberg, Preaching the Parables: From Responsible Interpretation to Powerful Proclamation, (Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2004), 120-121.

[5] David Buttrick, A Homiletic Guide: Speaking Parables, (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky, 2000), 96.

[6] Robert Farrar Capon, The Parables of the Kingdom, (Zondervan Publishing House: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1988), 102.

[7] Rebecca Stringer, http://sermonsineverpreached.blogspot.com/2011/05/weeds-and-wheat-prayer-from-matthew-24.html