School for Love
Proper
11 Year A
23
July 2017 8 a.m. Said and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Parish
Church of Trinity Ashland (Oregon)
What is the Church? Is it a gathering of righteous people,
screening out bad influences so the righteous can become even better, or is it
a kind of hospital ward where all and sundry—the wicked, the mean, the lustful,
the morally weak, the heretical, the bizarre—come together to help heal each
other? If the former, is it the ultimate
exclusionary, elitist club? Is it the
acme of hypocrisy: pretending to be better
than we are while trying to remain the same or even sink lower? And if latter, is it the blind leading the
blind?
In the Church, we hear a lot about
distinguishing between the righteous and the wicked: and it is almost always the righteous who
make the distinction. The incongruity
leads some perceptive and thoughtful people in our society to claim, along with
the militant godless like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. “God is not
great. Religion is not good.”
When the self-styled righteous talk
about those they see as wicked, it reminds me of repeated scenes in Elena and
Tony’s growing family, years ago: one
child would come to us in tears, quivering in hurt and rage. Pointing to a sibling, they would recount
some horror perpetrated, and say “PUNISH HIM!”
Today’s Gospel, the parable of the
wheat and the weeds, is simple enough: Jesus
tells us “It’s a mixed field out there, but don’t be quick to weed out the
bad. You’ll end up killing the good
plants too! Let them grow together. It will sort itself out at harvest.”
While the Gospel of Matthew here clearly
is thinking about the church and how we should respond (or rather NOT respond)
to evildoers in our midst, the story raises the larger question that theologian
Walter Wink said was the biggest of all theological questions: how do we react to evil?
The tale ends with a promise that the
weeds will be gathered together and burned.
This may lead us to think, “We may not be able to weed as we’d like now,
but in the end GOD AND THE ANGELS WILL PULL THE WEEDS AND BURN THEM UP.” This is about as small-minded as St. Paul
saying that we should do kindness to our enemies because by so doing “we heap
burning coals on their head” (Rom. 12:20). It misses the main point of how the
story ends: joy at the harvest (rather than smug self-satisfaction that one’s
enemies got their just deserts.)
In this, as in so many other parables, Jesus is taking apart our preconceptions, reworking our definitions, deconstructing our world-view. The weeds here are noxious, but indistinguishable from the good wheat. Our rules for identifying weeds and wheat may be flawed. We run too much risk of confusing them.
That is how it is, isn’t it? We know who fits in and who doesn’t. We set up boundaries for our little gardens. We set up categories and demarcations that label some as unwelcomed weeds. In our community, we are afraid of those we call “transients.” In our state, at one point we had a law against free people of color residing here. In our nation, we have borders, and try, with varying degrees of success, to keep outsiders out. In church, we divide people into categories: saints or sinners, orthodox or heretics, conservatives or liberals. We Episcopalians have a besetting sin of snootiness, so while we may not talk about saints and sinners, we label those with good taste or bad, contributors or ‘the needy,’ those who value ‘traditional and beautiful worship’ or those who ‘prefer the latest cheap fad.’
We are tribal creatures, always wanting labels and markers: Outsiders or insiders. Israeli or Palestinian. Ukrainian or Russian. Citizens or illegals. Saints or sinners. Wheat or Weeds.
But Jesus says: your definitions are flawed. Your boundaries are wrong. You don’t know the garden’s plan well enough, or the plants well enough. Let it be. Let them grow together. Don’t try to sort this out, let God sort it out.
Jesus calls us to live in peace, non-judgment, and mutual support. That does not mean he calls us to not confront and work against evil. No. He wants us to fight evil with good, not with evil. Meet hatred with love. He sees tribal divisions, factions, dividing God’s creatures into “us and them,” and violence, all as evil.
Implied here is the idea that the division between good and evil is not between different groups of people: it is actually down the middle of each of our hearts. We do not know enough—either about each other or about God’s plans—to judge the case.
Look at Jesus’ words. “Judge not so you yourself won’t be
judged.” “Be perfectly compassionate
like your Papa in heaven, who gives the blessing of rain and sunshine both on
the good and the wicked.” “This man was
born blind not because God was punishing him or his parents—this happened so we
can help the poor fellow!” “Be salt, be
light.” “Don’t be a judge. Don’t sit there criticizing others.” “A truly wicked person who goes to God in
sorrow is healed by his prayers. The
so-called righteous person who prays but only feels superior to others will
never find that prayers help at all.”
Look at Jesus’ example. He didn’t weed out Judas. He never rejected him, but loved him to the end. He also refused to weed out Peter, as conflicted, impetuous, and changeable as he was. He counseled against violent resistance of the Roman Imperium and its religious establishment toadies in Judea, yet remained so constantly engaged with it, good and evil alike, and was so effective challenging oppression and injustice that in the end the Roman authorities finally felt they had to kill him as a political rebel.
When we see evil or malice in front of
us, we go into fight or flight mode. In the Church, we often try to prettify
flight as “finding a better match” or “not having time” for a person. We prettify fight by making it all beneath
the surface: love the sinner hate the
sin, appear to try to respect boundaries even as we wage decades-long
skirmishes of passive aggression and subtle undermining. It’s still fight or flight, regardless of how
it’s tarted up.
But Jesus’ advice is peaceful
engagement, strategic inaction. Jesus
teaches us, “Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.” Wish well
for those who spitefully use you (Matt. 5:44). Let God decide. Be a light, not a judge.
God knows it is all too easy to point
fingers at weeds out there needing to be plucked up and burnt rather than
looking at our own heart. It is hard
not to want to fight fire with fire or pray that God fight fire with fire, or
just totally give up on people when they push our buttons, pull our triggers.
We all have deep-seated emotional
triggers that can really set us off and make us want to go running and demand
that that weed be plucked and thrust into the fire. But even the most sterling “righteous” anger
in most of us is mixed with self-interest and fear. Think about it carefully.
In this messed up world, why is it that only some bad things cause us to
lose our serenity and calm?
My spiritual directors have taught me
over the years to identify things that throw me off as opportunities to learn
about what is going on in my heart. I
have found that at root of things that really throw me off kilter is fear: fear of loss of status or
prosperity, fear of embarrassment or humiliation, and most importantly, fear of
losing my own high opinion of myself.
What is the Church? I believe it is the same thing that St.
Augustine said that Marriage was: a
school for love.
God loves us, each and every one.
So we must learn to love each other. Not pretend to love each other. Not
fight fire with fire, or practice passive aggression as we continue to despise
and judge. But love. Despite faction, tribe, party, or sect, we must
learn to focus on the weeds in our own heart, and not label others as
weeds. We must learn to love as God
loves, which almost always means challenging the beloved and being patient,
very patient.
In
the name of God, Amen.
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