So…how are we supposed to cope with all the bad news that assaults us day after day after day? How do you handle it? Are you handling it?
How do you take in the massive death toll of bombs and floods? How do you hear stories of harassment and violence, unspeakable acts of cruelty…and still water your garden and do your job and enjoy the warm sun?
It’s not easy. I know it. You know it. But that’s what we do, isn’t it? That’s how we live day after day after day. Assaulted by all that is wrong in the world, stories of people suffering all around us…not just from the massive acts of war and governments that oppress whole nations and communities….but from the individual acts of abuse and rape, brutality and bullying — we hear it all every day….and then we have dinner and play cards and mow the lawn. We keep living somehow, putting one foot in front of the other.
I think today’s readings are about acknowledging that reality we live in. This tension of being so acutely aware of suffering and pain…of evil…and yet trusting that life is still worth living. That tomorrow is worth seeing. That beauty is possible. That God is good.
In Romans, Paul acknowledges that suffering we see all around us….but not only the suffering of people….Paul also acknowledges the suffering of the whole CREATION …the whole creation, he says, is groaning, suffering along side of us…waiting for redemption. Waiting to be set free from sin and death and evil and destruction. And creation, indeed, bears the brunt of a lot of our sin, doesn’t it? Think about the brutal ways we have assaulted the earth and its creatures.
I was reading a novel on vacation about an island near Antarctica….Wild, Dark Shore. And it reflected on the true history of Macquarie Island where, in the 1800s, seal hunters slaughtered hundreds of thousands of seals and boiled them down for oil…and when they ran out of seals, they boiled the penguins. Clubbing them, flaying them and stuffing them in barrels. Whole colonies of living species, brought to extinction in a few short years.
I read another novel, Serena, with my book club about the early timber barons…who, unlike foresters today…thought nothing of clearcutting thousands upon thousands upon thousands of acres…like what has happened in the Amazon rainforest more recently. Devastating whole ecosystems. Creation groans under the weight of our sin…our greed…for more, more, more.
But, Paul suggests…we still dare hope. Hope that God’s Spirit is at work somehow in the midst of this all. Hope that God’s love in Jesus truly can redeem us all. That God can bring something new to birth through all our pain. Today Macquarie Island is once again home to hundreds of thousands of seals and penguins….that surround the abandoned barrels. Redemption can happen.
And in our gospel, Jesus points us to that same hope.
Jesus says…the kingdom of God is like this. God, the householder, sows good seed in a field. And that’s true. God made the world good….very good. We covered that in Genesis, right? God made a universe of wonder so vast we cannot conceive it. Indeed, the best minds can only scratch the surface of understanding it….the vastness of the universe out there…but also the vastness of the universe in every living being….in every atom…in the miracle of life itself. Every person made in the image of God. It’s all so good.
So God sows this wonderful good seed….but we know all too well that in this good world, evil persists. Like we said…The bad news assaults us…day after day after day. So Jesus says…yep, it’s true…an enemy of goodness has sown weeds among the seeds and they are all there in this field now. All the evil doers, all the causes of sin. They are all over the place.
And the slaves come to the householder and say…well, don’t you want us to pull them out?
I feel that. Reading about the horrible things people do…can’t we just get rid of them?
But notice…they are slaves…we’re the slaves in this story. We don’t own this world. We didn’t make it. It doesn’t belong to us. We belong to the one who made it. We belong to God. But sometimes we’re so sure that we have the right to destroy people on this planet or parts of this planet that we have decided are “weeds”. We can bomb them or starve them or crucify them…because they are “bad”. Because we are so sure we know what is good and evil….who is good and evil. But the reality is that most of the time, our interpretation of good and evil is pretty narrow. Basically, “good” is what’s good for me….and “evil” is what is bad for me.
This story really all brings us back to Genesis doesn’t it? God making the world good….but everything goes wrong when people decide they want to know good and evil…right? That’s why they wanted to eat the fruit of the tree. We want to decide who’s good and who’s bad…who’s in and who’s out…who matters and who doesn’t….who should live and who should die.
So the slaves in Jesus’ story figure they should pull out the weeds. Rip out the evil infestation.
But…the householder is God….and God so loves the world. The universe. The cosmos. John 3:16…you know it. For God so loves the world he sent his only son …. The greek word for world here doesn’t refer to just people…it is the word cosmos…it means all creation…the universe.
God so loves the whole world God planted…and God, the householder, says…leave it be. Leave the weeds be. Because you see….the weeds and the seed have grown up entangled in this field. And there is no way for you to rip out the weeds without destroying all that is good.
There is no way to rid the world of evil…without becoming evil. Without destroying everything…without destroying our souls. Because the truth is the seeds of goodness and evil….are in all of us.
It’s one of Luther’s great truth nuggets that have held up over time. We are all saints and we are all sinners. Not saints OR sinners….not weeds or seeds. We are saints AND sinners…weeds and good seed. Each of us …every single one of us…has the capacity for love and kindness and goodness…to do beautiful things. And I’ll admit, in some people, I may only see it in how they treat their dog…but it’s there. It’s in there. But also, each of us has the capacity to cause irreperable pain and damage to others…to the earth…to ourselves. We know it’s true. It’s all intertwined in here.
It’s true about each of us. It’s true about people everywhere…in every nation, every community. It’s true in the church. Some of you might remember…but in every new members class, I always remind people that if they are looking for a church where they will never get hurt by another member…where their pastors won’t disappoint them…where people will always do and say the right things — if they’re looking for a perfect church…this isn’t it. Because it’s full of ordinary, messy people who will drop the ball and make mistakes and even completely fall apart some days.
The weeds and good seed are all here…tangled up together. We can’t create perfection…a clean field in ourselves…in the world…or in the church. When the church tries….more often than not, it ends up throwing out the wrong people. That’s what the religious authorities did to Jesus. And what the church has done to so many over the years…trying to purify itself by throwing out those who drink or swear or dance or play cards or wear the wrong clothes or love the wrong people.
So God…the householder says…leave it be. It’s not your job to purify the kingdom of God.
Now…that doesn’t mean we ignore it when people hurt others or hurt us. No, we confront that…we encourage each other to love. We try to find a way forward. It won’t always work. But we try. And we offer grace when people feel like they’ll never get it right. But we don’t throw people away. We don’t label people as “evil” and seek to get rid of them.
We let God take care of the harvest. The reaping. We trust God to weed out the ugliness of the world and the ugliness in our own hearts. The fire…man I’m kind of hoping that it means that the ugly parts of me are eventually going to be burned away. And in the meantime, that’s how we continue to put one foot in front of the other in spite of all that is wrong in the world. We trust God. Faced with all the bad news of the world we wait…and we pray….and trust God. Because after all, we’re just slaves…This is God’s world, not ours. So we can water our gardens and do our jobs and enjoy the sun and trust together the God who is revealed in Jesus…trust that God is love. And God’s love will prevail. Amen
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