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 at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, July 23, 2023 by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“I DON’T MUCH LIKE THIS PARABLE”
(Homily text: Matthew 13:24–30, 36-43)
We continue, as the season of Pentecost
unfolds, to make our way through Matthew’s Gospel account, hearing - in
succession - one of Jesus’ parables after another.
This morning, we hear a teaching about
good and evil in the world, a parable often known by the title the Parable of
the Wheat and the Tares.
I will admit to you that much about
this parable bothers me. I find its teaching to be one that is hard to accept.
I don’t much like the truth it proclaims.
Why would that be, you might ask.
The reason is that our Lord tells us
that – in the world – evil and good will continue to exist, side-by-side, until
God’s purposes for all things are complete. At that point, God’s holiness and
God’s perfection will be known in the world, and power of evil will come to an
end. (I can’t help but reflect on that state of perfection and holiness which
is to come, because it resembles the situation in the Garden of Eden before sin
entered it.)
But my objections to this parable and
to the truth it proclaims comes from a deep desire to see evil banished from
the world. I would love to see all things that we human beings do to one
another that denigrate others, that harm them, that diminish their God-given rights
be a thing of the past.
In other words, I’d like to see God
“smite all the evil-doers”, as a friend of mine says.
“Come Lord, and usher in your kingdom
in all its fulness and in all its power,” is my prayer. Bring in the time when
the circumstances on earth resemble those in heaven, as we pray in the Lord’s
Prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
But this state of earthly perfection
isn’t what our Lord tells us is going to be. The truth of today’s parable is
that the struggle between good and God and evil and the Evil One will continue
until God’s power and God’s timing are in effect.
Ugh!
Given this reality, then, we who are
God’s people in the world, are faced with a choice. It seems to me that we have
two options when it comes to dealing with the ongoing activity and threat where
the Evil One’s ways and power in the world are concerned.
One choice is to hunker down and
withdraw from the world. Build a holy community, surround it with walls, and
ignore the world and the evil in it. That’s one choice, and it’s a choice that
some Christians in times past (and even today) have made.
The other choice is to see evil for
what it is, to recognize it, and to continue to be a force for good and a force
for God in the world.
This second choice is indicated in the
parable.
An explanation is in order: The weeds
that our Lord describes aren’t just any sort of weed. The word Jesus uses to
describe the weeds refers to a rye-like plant called darnel. Darnel, in
its early stages of growth, resembles wheat. It is only later on, when the
growth has reached some level of maturity, that the difference can be seen.
In this detail about the parable, one
which is often lost in translations, we see that those who’ve been looking at
the field (the world, as Jesus tells us in His explanation of the meaning of
the parable) notice the darnel for what it is. They’ve been looking at the
makeup of the field.
The point here, then, is that God’s
people are to be on the lookout for evil whenever and wherever it manifests
itself.
The next thing we ought to notice is
that Jesus tells us that the darnel isn’t to be removed from the field, for in
so doing, the wheat – that force for good which gives the field and the crop in
it value and worth – would be removed.
Implied here is that the worth of the
field lies in the continued presence of that which gives it value.
The Church is God’s vehicle for good in
the world. We are called to proclaim God’s truth, and to counteract the effects
of sin and evil, those things that separate people one from another and which
separate us from God. If the Church doesn’t do these things, then the field
(the world) has little value.
One final thought: In order to be God’s
agent in the world for good, the Church must keep its focus on its core values
and reason-for-being. It’s easy to get caught up in various causes and concerns
which offer some level of attraction. But the Church’s business is to connect
people to God and God to people, and to nourish that relationship. Anything
else and everything else is secondary to the reason that God founded the Church
in the first place.
AMEN.
