School for Love (Proper 11A)

  

Photo by Illiya Vjestica on Unsplash

 

School for Love

Proper 11 Year A

19 July 2026 10:30 a.m. Sung Mass

Mission Church of St. Paul the Apostle, Crescent City (California)

Wisdom 12:13, 16-19 ; Psa 86:11-17 Rom 8:12-25 Matt 13:24-30, 36-43

 

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

 

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 just plain 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 merely the blind leading the blind?  Or is it a bunch of imperfect people pretending to better than they are so that they can actually improve?  So they can fake it till they make it? 

 

Today’s Gospel, the parable of the wheat and the weeds, is about life in the church.  It is simple enough:  Jesus tells us “It’s a mixed field out there, so don’t be too 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.”

 

Jesus is arguing not for laziness of laxness, but for strategic inaction.  He chooses a particularly deadly weed, sown maliciously by a nasty business competitor, to make his point.  The Greek word for the weed is zizania, bearded darnel, which when it first begins to grow is almost indistinguishable from wheat.  But later, it grows taller than the wheat and produces very little grain.  It is usually infected with ergot fungus, the source of LSD-like hallucinations, convulsions, and death.  

 

And still Jesus says, “Don’t weed.  That will kill the good plants too. Let them grow together.”  Wait until harvest time, when the good and poisonous plants can be distinguished:  strategic inaction, intentionally doing nothing to let the course of events accomplish your goal for you.    Taoism expresses the idea in the phrase, 無為而治 wu-wei er zhi  “By doing nothing, accomplish everything.” 

 

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 DAMN WEEDS AND BURN THEM UP.”   This ignoble pettiness is like St. Paul saying that we should be kind to our enemies because by so doing “we will heap burning coals on their head” (Rom. 12:20). It misses the point of how the story ends: overwhelming 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.  Our rules for distinguishing between weeds and wheat may be flawed.  If we try to root out the weeds, no matter how noxious, we will in the process kill good plants too.   

But why shouldn’t start weeding?  We know evil when we see it.  We know who fits in and who doesn’t! 

 

But this is just because we have set up boundaries for our little gardens.  We have established categories and demarcations that label some as good and some as bad.  

 

In our nation, we have borders, and try, with varying degrees of success, to keep undesirable people from coming in.  But look at the cost of labelling any human being an “illegal (!)” How many innocent people have been harmed and even killed by the current regime’s “get tough” approach on immigration, that more and more clearly looks like the hatred and racism that drives it.   

 

In church, we divide people into categories: saints or sinners, orthodox or heretics, people who respect or flout tradition. And we vilify anyone who we think is on the other side of whatever group we identify with. 

 

We Episcopalians have one particular besetting sin: being snooty about “good taste” and “proper form.”  We may not talk about righteousness vs wickedness as much as evangelicals, but we turn up our noses up to those with what we see as poor taste or maudlin sentimentality.  We distinguish between solid contributors to the community and ‘the needy,’ between those who value ‘traditional and beautiful worship’ and those who prefer the latest “flavor of the month” liturgy.    

Human beings are tribal creatures, always wanting labels and markers:  Outsider or insider.  Citizen or alien.  Posh or tawdry.  Saint or sinner.  Wheat or Weed. 

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 doesn’t mean he doesn’t want us to 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.   

 

Jesus is teaching something very close to the idea of Satyagraha, the power of truth, l that was at the heart of the programs of action pursued by Mahatma Ghandi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Dr. King once said: 

 

 “Every time a riot breaks out it actually helps the cause of [racists] …  [W]e must recognize that the evil deed of the enemy-neighbor, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is. An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy. Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves.… [T]here is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies … We see [them] in a new light. We recognize that … hate grows out of fear, pride, ignorance, prejudice, and misunderstanding, but in spite of this, we know God’s image is ineffably etched in [each human] being. Then we love our enemies by realizing that they are not totally bad and that they are not beyond the reach of God’s redemptive love…  [So] we must not seek to defeat or humiliate the enemy but to win [their] friendship and understanding.” 

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.  

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 only to feel 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 those weeds 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.

 

We tend to want to avoid the ultimate questions by looking at side issues. We don’t look at the weeds in our own hearts, but want to label other people weeds.  We prefer instead to be judges—partisans of tribalism, sectarianism, and faction—instead of looking at what in our own hearts keeps us from being lights.

 

I invite us all this week to identify or review our triggers, what really makes us lose it, what rmakes us blame and demonize others and want to weed them out.  Let’s reflect on what it is about us not about them that causes this.  There is little we can do about weeding out the evil in their hearts, but plenty we can do about what is in ours. 

 

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. 

 

What is the Church?  I believe it is the same thing that St. Augustine said that Marriage was:  a school for love. 

  

In the name of God, Amen. 

 

 

 

 

 

Drop the Rock (Proper 9A)

  

Drop the Rock

Proper 9 Year A

5 July 2026 9 a.m. Sung Holy Eucharist

Parish Church of St. Mark the Evangelist, Medford Oregon

Zechariah 9:9-12; Psalm 145: 8 - 15; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30            

 

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

 

When I was in discernment for holy orders, I had a vivid dream:  I am standing on a pier, with one foot on the ground and one foot on a boat ready for departure.  The distance between the boat deck and the pier grows and grows, until I am stretched between the two.  I know I have to jump one way or the other, the boat or the shore.  But I want both:  I want to be on shore, with its restaurants, familiar friends, and the comforts of home.  I want to be on the boat, traveling to a far off and new land.  I want both, but cannot have both.  I’ll end up in the drink if I don’t jump soon.  And yet I hesitate.  Just as fall into the water and begin to sink, I wake up.

 

In my life, I have often had that feeling: torn between two goods, knowing I cannot have both. Sometimes I’ve been torn between a good and a not-so-good thing, that I wanted all the same.  One foot here, one foot there.  Indecisive, or decisive and rapidly changing my opinion.   I felt this when as a teenager I first came to faith.  I felt it when I married Elena and we started our family.  I felt it when I chose to pursue Biblical Studies at the Catholic University of America instead of Classics at Champagne-Urbana. I felt it when I joined the Foreign Service, and when Elena and I became Episcopalians.  I felt it when I was in discernment for holy orders.  I felt it when Elena died and I retired from full-time ministry.  I felt it when I came out of the closet and started dating men, and when Will and I fell in love and decided to get married here at St. Mark’s.  Sometimes, I felt this being of two minds as a “temptation” or test of my will when there seemed to be a moral dimension to the decision, when the choice was not between two good things, but between a good and an evil. But the structure underlying the feeling was always the same:  conflicting and unformed desires at war with each other. 

 

C.S. Lewis once made a profound comment about those who have difficulty with faith because they can’t get God to answer their questions or grant their petitions in prayer.  In his retelling of the myth of Psyche and Eros, the main character says bitterly near the end of the story that the gods cannot speak to us openly, nor answer us, until we ourselves find the ability to express the real desire of our hearts. Most of us, most of the time, desire what we know not, or want things that in and of themselves preclude other things we want:  profligate spending versus building up a hefty savings, health vs. the habits or vices that destroy it, a life of unrestrained pleasure vs. a happy family life--of any shape of family--built on trust and faithfulness, top professional success vs. high quality family life. The problem is that we often do not even have a clue what our real desire is, or are sadly mistaken about it.  Lewis writes, “[God] cannot meet us face to face until we have faces.”

 

This division within our minds and wills, this fuzziness of what we want, the contradictions between our competing desires are often put into metaphorical form by that image we know from the cartoons: a little angel sitting on one of our shoulders arguing with a little devil sitting on the other one, both of them looking like us, but one with halo, wings, and harp, and the other with horns, tail, and a pitchfork.  The image, as laughable as it is, comes a very real experience in our hearts. Sometimes our competing desires are so acutely at odds with each other and we are so conflicted that it feels like we are actually in the middle of an argument apart from us, that we are being enticed by different personalities rather than simply arguing with ourselves or being indecisive.  This feeling, I believe, is where the ancient tradition of personifying a tempter, a devil, or a Satan, actually came from. 

 

In today’s reading in Romans, St. Paul describes the problem somewhat differently:  I don’t really know who I am or what I really want.  I decide to do some good thing, and then fail to do it.  I make a resolve to avoid some bad thing, and then find myself in the act.  The fact that I cannot really make up my mind, or that I change my mind, shows how important it is to have objective standards, a written Law: “If do the very thing I do not want to do, I by that fact agree that the Law is good!”  Paul goes on to describe his inner inconsistency and experience of obsession or compulsion almost as if he is divided or split: a Law of Sin in his members at war with a Law of God in his mind.   A little more abstract, perhaps, but basically: a little devil Paul on one shoulder and a little angel Paul on the other.   

 

This passage is often misread.  St. Augustine and then later Martin Luther took it in light of their own personal sense of guilt in struggles with sin, and thought Paul was talking about same guilt-ridden introspective conscience through which they saw the world.  Thus the great division between Law and Grace in Protestant theology arose.  But Paul elsewhere shows that he is perfectly happy in saying that he is “blameless” in keeping the Law, and “righteous” in the works it requires.  Paul is no lust-haunted Augustine or guilt-ridden Luther.  He simply is describing how hard it is to know who we are and what we want given how changeable and double-minded we are.   And he sees this as an intolerable burden, because it not only separates us from God, but alienates us from others and from our very selves.  This struggle, what he calls “this body of death,” makes it hard even to know who we really are.  Who will deliver us from it, he asks. Jesus Christ is his answer.

 

People in the thrall of addiction, whether to drugs or alcohol or bad relationships, or whatever, find themselves bound by obsession and compulsion.  Paul’s words “the evil that I do not want, that I find myself doing” rings truer to addicts than for most of us.  Most modern recovery programs aim at breaking the cycle of addiction by requiring a psychological reorientation, a spiritual change, a radical redirection of one’s attitudes, relations, and whole life.  That’s what the Twelve Steps seek to bring about in a person.  If you want what they have, they say, “You only have to not drink today, come to meetings, and change everything in your life.” 

 

An extremely influential keynote address at an AA national convention several years ago tells of us walking about in life with a burden:  one’s bad habits, attitudes, fears, hopes and desires, however messy and conflicting.  It’s like you are carrying a great rock.  But, we all say, “No.  You can’t take that away! It’s MY rock! It’s who I AM!  I gathered this together over the YEARS. Sure, it’s heavy, but it’s MINE.”  Like me at the end of that dream so many years ago, or Saint Paul with his "body of death," the addict finds herself drowning, helpless and hopeless, unable, like Paul, to follow through on the most solemn of resolves.   The people in the AA or NA or Al-anon rooms are on the shore, calling to the drowning person to try to save her.  And what is it they are calling?  “Drop the  rock!” 

 

Photograph (c) Charlotte Piho 

The Gospel today also speaks of conflicting desires.  The same critics had condemned both John the Baptist and Jesus:  John for being too conservative and austere and Jesus for being too welcoming and liberal.  Jesus rebukes these critics.   He quotes a popular proverb and compares them to naughty children in the marketplace who cannot be satisfied with anything because of their conflicting desires.  They taunt each other: little girls tease the boys who want to dance and play music which men used in wedding celebrations; little boys tease the girls because they want to practice the mourning songs and ululations women sing at funerals.  You can’t have it both ways, says Jesus. “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds,” he concludes, that is, “doing the right thing is what shows whether you are wise, that is, whether you are integrated and have truly find yourselves.”   Then Matthew adds that saying that sounds so much more like the Gospel of John than it does any synoptic: the Father has given all things to the Son.  The point is that in Jesus, there are no self-contradictions, no competing desires, no alienation from God, others, or one’s self.  So Jesus ends the passage by telling us, basically, to “drop the rock.”  He offers to take on our burdens for us if we work alongside of him and learn from him.   The Message, a modern paraphrase translation of the Bible, puts it this way: 

 

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

 

“Get away with me and you’ll recover your life, you’ll find what your true desires are.”  The blessing I give to those who come to the altar rail asking for a blessing instead of taking communion is this:  May God bless and keep you, and give you your heart’s true desire.” 

 

We are a sorry lot, whether we have active addictions recognized by others or not.  We all are subject to obsession and compulsion at times, and all carry heavy burdens created from all our conflicting desires, hopes, and fears.   And God cannot really talk to us face to face until we begin to develop faces that are truly our own, hearts that hold our real desires.  It is by taking on Jesus’ yoke, taking on his task of announcing the kingdom in word and deed and healing the broken world, walking with him and working with him, that we begin to learn from him who we each really are and what we truly desire.   It is not something forced, regimented, or produced by a technique.  It is not the result of willing it, or submitting to some standard.  We let go, and let God.  Our new self distills like the dew in the morning.  We gain a true vision of ourselves and others.  Losing our false desires is like taking off a blindfold, like finally removing the pebble from our shoe.  It is like, in the middle of the summer heat, taking off a heavy winter coat.  It is wonderful.  Come with me to Jesus, and let’s let him show us how. 

 

Thanks be to God. Amen.