Pentecost 7, Year A (2017)
Proper 11 :: Genesis 28: 10–19a; Psalm 139: 1–11, 22–23;
Romans 8: 12–25 ; Matthew 13: 24–30, 36–43
This is the homily
given by Fr. Gene Tucker at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, July
23, 2017.
“WHY NOT A PERFECT WORLD,
WHY NOT A PERFECT CHURCH?”
WHY NOT A PERFECT CHURCH?”
(Homily text: Matthew 13: 24–30, 36–43)
Since
we are in the season of the Sundays after Pentecost, we are making our way
through Matthew’s gospel account, which is the gospel text which is assigned to
most of the Sundays in Year A of our three-year lectionary cycle.
This
morning, Matthew puts before us Jesus’ teaching about the nature of the kingdom
of heaven, the Parable of the Weeds, or – as it was known in a previous time –
the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. Matthew provides us with a generous
account of Jesus’ teaching, while Mark provides only a very brief summary of it
(see Mark 4: 26–29).
This
morning’s parable brings with it Jesus’ explicit explanation of its meaning and
its application. In that sense, then, it is like the parable we heard last
week, the Parable of the Sower. (At this point, it’s probably worth mentioning
that it is relatively rare for the Lord to provide such an explicit explanation
of His parables ... we are blessed to have such an explicit explanation!)
As is
true with much of what Matthew imparts to us in his gospel account, this
parable strikes us with its image of the world, the existence of evil, the
enduring character of evil (until God’s judgment separates evil out, leaving
only the good), and the place of the sons and daughters of the Son of Man in
such a place which seems to be a complex mixture of good and bad: Matthew’s
account often has a harsh and biting character.
I
don’t know about you, but my heart’s deepest desire is for the Lord’s way to
become known and to be followed by everyone. I yearn for the world’s
perfection, and for the elimination of evil and all of its harmful effects on
humankind. These desires are succinctly summarized in a phrase from Eucharistic
Prayer B of our current Prayer Book….the phrase that comes to mind is a prayer
that the Lord will “in the fullness of time, put all things in subjection under
your Christ.” (See the Book of Common
Prayer, 1979 edition, page 369.)
After
all, the Lord has come. His way has become known through all the world. He has
shown us the way to the Father. He has demonstrated, by His example of love in
His death on the cross, the way of love, which conquers the ways of hate and
evil. He has begun the conquering of evil and death in His rising to new life
on Easter Sunday morning.
Then
why can’t the world simply fall in line with the Lord’s teaching and His ways,
which are superior to all other ways? Why can’t the world reach the perfection
that Jesus sets before us? Why can’t the Church, for that matter, also attain
perfection?
Jesus’
parable, set before us this morning, offers some insights into all this.
But
we’re going to have to dig into the text to discover the nuances of what the
Lord has to tell us about good and about evil, and about the ways in which the
two find themselves side-by-side in the world.
Turning
to the parable, the first and perhaps most notable detail in the Lord’s teaching
has to do with the word which is translated as “weed.” The Greek, however, uses
a particular word[1]
to describe what sort of a weed the Lord has in mind: It is darnel, which the dictionary describes
as a noxious, poisonous weed which resembles wheat in the early stages of its
growth, but which can be distinguished easily from wheat once it matures.
With
this bit of information in hand, we are ready to make some observations about
the nature of good and the nature of evil as we find it in the world in which
we live. I offer the following observations by topic.
The
world is a complicated place: As we consider what we know about the way
wheat grows, and about the way darnel grows, we notice – from the Lord’s
teaching – that it is very difficult to tell the difference between wheat and
darnel, between good and evil, in the early stages of growth and development.
No wonder the Lord tells the disciples that - should they want to go out and
pluck up the weeds (darnel) - they will risk pulling up the good wheat at the
same time. Why? Because the roots of both the wheat and the darnel are
intertwined, one with another. The reality is that the good in the world is
often in close, intertwined connection with evil. We, as sons and daughters of
the Son of Man, cannot avoid contact with evil.
Knowing
in part, but not completely: A
fine point in Jesus’ teaching has to do with the remark made by the servants,
who seem to notice some evidence of the presence of weeds in the field. But,
the Lord cautions them, reminding them that their knowledge of what is wheat
and what is darnel is incomplete. So the lesson to be gained here is that our
knowledge of what is actually evil and what is actually good is oftentimes imperfect,
and is often based on partial knowledge of an given situation. The world (the
field in Jesus’ teaching) is oftentimes anything but black-and-white in its
clarity.
The
ripened plant shows its true identity:
Jesus seems to caution His disciples (those first disciples who heard
today’s teaching and all those down through the ages who have followed Him) not
to rush to judgment about the difference between good and evil. The weeds
(Greek: zizania) can be distinguished
from wheat only when the plants produce the seed, which is the fruit of their
growth. So the Lord seems advise us to be patient until such time as the true
nature of things is known. Elsewhere, the Lord cautions us that a tree will be known
by the fruit it produces (see Matthew 7: 15 – 20). So, too, here the Lord seems
to indicate that – in the fullness of time – the nature of things will be
known, although not always immediately. I don’t know about you, but sometimes
I’m very impatient in wanting the Lord’s ways and the Lord’s will to be known
and followed in the world.)
The
world has value to God: Notice how
Jesus tells us that the world has a purpose. He says that God will, in God’s
own good time, cleanse the world of the things which corrupt God’s good design
in creating that world. Inexorably, God’s purposes are being worked out, until
the time when God will intervene to bring the world into the likeness which we
see in the Genesis creation account, that time and place which is characterized
by the Garden of Eden. (At this point, it’s worth noting that God’s final
purposes are never far from Matthew’s mind as he records Jesus’
teachings….peppered throughout Matthew’s account is the view that God is going
to have the final say in the judgment on the Last Day.)
If
the world has value to God, and if the sons and daughters of the Son of Man
(one of Matthew’s favorite ways to describe Jesus) have a role to play in
preserving the worth of the world (after all, what value does a wheat field
have if there is no wheat in that field?), then what response should the sons
and daughters of the Son of Man make to the circumstances of the world as it
is, being composed of intertwined good and evil?
The
Church is not the kingdom of heaven: Notice how Jesus places His children (the
sons and daughters of the Son of Man) in the kingdom of heaven, but He does not
equate the kingdom with those children of His. They are differentiated in His
parable. The kingdom is the entire world, all of what God has created. His
disciples (sons and daughters) are placed in that world to increase its value,
and to produce fruit which is worthy of the kingdom. (To bring this point home
to our own situation, we might ask ourselves how often we think of St. John’s,
Huntingdon, as being an outpost of the kingdom of heaven.”
The
Church’s role in bringing about the kingdom of heaven: Down through time,
Jesus’ disciples, which make up the body of Christ which is generally equated
with the Church, have responded to the presence and the power of evil in the
world in three ways:
- Withdrawal from the world: In the fourth century, with adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, and then with the collapse of that empire and the beginnings of what became known as the Dark Ages, Christian communities were established in which monks and nuns cloistered themselves off from the world. Some of the initial motivations for the establishment of the monasteries and convents stemmed from a strong reaction against the evil which seemed to predominate in the world. In succeeding years, other Christians would withdraw from the world in a number of different ways: Some would long for the kingdom of heaven to come in all its fullness, some even to the predicting of a specific time and place when the Lord Jesus would return to usher in His kingdom (notice that all such persons who have made those predictions were wrong!), while others would long for heaven to be known on earth (as the Lord’s Prayer states, “thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven”) to such an extent that the temporal affairs and concerns of the world were neglected. (I can’t resist saying that such persons are often “so heavenly minded they’re no earthly good!”)
- Passivity in the face of evil: Another response to evil that Christians have made - historically and in our own day – is to be passive in the face of evil. It’d be possible to draw such a conclusion from this morning’s parable. After all, the Lord makes it clear that, at the final judgment, all causes and presence of evil will be removed from the world. But until then, evil will be present. It’d be easy to simply accept the presence of evil, and to say, “Well, it’s the Lord’s business to sort all this out and to rid the world of the work of the evil one.” To a partial extent, such an observation is true, for it is the Lord’s role to make the final judgment. But the parable tells us that God’s people have a role to play in preserving the worth of the field, that is, the world. So, to the last observation we will make in this homily, we turn to this:
- Producing fruit which will guarantee the harvest: Healthy wheat produces seeds which will, in turn, make it possible for future growth and future harvests, to take place. The field, as we noted a moment ago, has value only so long as there is wheat in it. Otherwise, the field becomes a worthless place full of noxious weeds. So the Church – which is composed of the children of the Son of Man – has an important role to play in giving the world value. We are called to produce fruit for the kingdom. Put another way, we are called to counteract the presence and the fruit of evil. Essential in this process is the importance of day-in-and-day-out faithful living, just as wheat grows constantly to come to the place where it will produce a valuable crop. So, too, are we called to show our true character as children of God by the daily produce of our lives.
AMEN.
[1] The Greek word is zizania. None of the more modern English translations differentiate
the Greek word from a generic sort of weed, although the Authorized (King
James) Version uses the word “tares”, which does tend to identify the type of
weed more specifically.
