Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

July 20, 2008

by The Rev. Constance Jones

Matthew 13:24-30,36-45

We're in a thicket of another of Jesus' agricultural metaphors
in this morning's Gospel.
We have good seed in good soil,
but while the farmer was asleep, somebody came and sowed weeds as well.
And the workers in the field ask a question
that just shrinks the distance between that time and ours down to nothing.
They say, "Where did these weeds come from?"

But of course the story isn't about gardening.
It's about us, living in God's world, so it gets more interesting.
Because it's a tiny glimpse into a much more absorbing question
that has occupied humanity forever,
which is, "Where does this evil come from?"

We get only the elusive answer, "from the Enemy."
Then the advice. Let everything grow together.
Don't go trying to pull up the weeds, because you'll also pull up the wheat too.
Let it be.
The Master will separate them at the harvest – gather the grain, burn the weeds.
Don't forget to be a good plant yourself, but
let it all grow together.

And so it seems to be in this world,
that the good and the evil are all tangled up.
The judgment of God is not yet.
And the people who want to pull up weeds and burn them right now
continue to restlessly look for the Master's warrant to do so.

In the news, the Church of England, our sister Church,
just approved the ordination of women as bishops.
Many think it's about time, others, including the Pope, don't.
Bishops from the Anglican Communion meet in England beginning this Wednesday,
and division is in the air.
Some call the American church, that's us, apostate –
saying that we have abandoned the faith of Christianity,
but most American bishops feel far differently.

Me, I have spent a little time in hospital-visiting,
wondering for the millionth time why good people suffer so much,
and a little time in a courtroom,
wondering I liked every defendant I saw paraded through in shackles
more than the sarcastic and mean-spirited judge.
Here at Grace Church, we try to move forward in faith,
supporting one another and hoping to please God.
Raising money in the little ark for bee hives and goats in the third world.
Visiting the sick.
Listening respectfully to reactions to the building plan.
Keeping things in the middle of the road while the Rector is on vacation.

In both the church and the world,
the Master does seem to just let the garden grow.
There do seem to be weeds and good plants growing side by side.

Of course there is no shortage of advice in the New Testament
about how to behave as a good plant.
Be kind, peaceable, loving and forgiving,
do not hurt and exploit other people,
give away a good deal of your money.
You know all this.
You are trying to live a life that expresses the Christ that is in you.

But it is perplexing, how the Master lets weeds grow so near the good plants.
We can see it.
We aren't told to refrain from seeing what's weed and what's fruitful plant.
We're just told that separating them out for judgment and burning
is God's job, not ours.

As some of you know I was in England in May
on what might be called a church nerd's tour.
My friend Susan and I visited a couple dozen cathedrals and churches.
We saw beauty of course, but again and again we saw destruction.
Not from war, but from religious zealotry.
You see, during the time of Henry VIII, in the 1530s and ‘40s,
when the English church broke away from the control of Rome,
a violent wave of Puritan Protestantism was unleashed.
It served the King's purposes to loot the monasteries of their valuables,
and it served the Puritans' purposes to smash stained-glass windows.
Now, this wreckage eventually led to finding a middle way Church of England,
a middle-way Episcopal Church, which we love and cherish.

But oh, the destruction.
Go into any English church,
even one a thousand years old,
and if you see stained glass, it isn't older than the Victorian era.
You'll see empty niches where saints once watched over the congregation,
and vast wall space where the paintings were scraped off,
because Puritans saw religious art an affront to God.
Imagine the enormous effort it took to climb that high,
just to find something to ruin.
Was it the fire of conviction and the desire to please God?
Or was it a mob-frenzy, a manic enjoyment of smashing something priceless?
More than once there in England
I recalled the Taliban in 2001,
taking rocket-launchers and tank-shells to giant 2000-year-old Buddhist statues,
idols, they called them in their religious frenzy,
just six months before 9/11.

Now there are some folks, the Taliban,
not willing to concede to God
the judgment of separating the weeds from the good plants.
It makes us shudder.

But as usual the Jesus parable does not offer us the comfort
of pointing fingers at other people as weeds.
It points back at us.
How often to we have to keep reminding ourselves of that?
To become a disciple,
to cultivate practices that bring us closer to having the character of Christ –
these tasks are enough for a lifetime.
Forgiving is harder than smashing something.
Repentance is harder than casting blame.

We are called to exercise judgment, but not to judge.
A fine distinction, maybe, but I believe it's at the heart of Jesus' words.
Be discerning. Hold fast yourself to that which seems pleasing to God.
Be quick to acknowledge your own imperfections.
And be very, very slow to use flame-throwers.

Of all the places we visited in England,
nothing moved me more than the Lady Chapel at Ely Cathedral.
It's the largest medieval chapel in England dedicated to Jesus' mother.
But veneration of the Virgin Mary incurred special Puritan wrath,
and this huge, empty space –
well-lighted because the broken stained glass was replaced with clear glass --
is a scene of arid, sad devastation.
The desecration of its former lush beauty is an ugly scar,
a physical testament to arrogant rage.
It occurred to me not to get too self-righteous about this.
Colonial churches in Virginia like ours
banned stained glass because of this same Puritan influence.

But there's a sign in that chapel that isn't self-righteous at all.
It's beside a place you can kneel and pray. It says:

The Lady Chapel is the place where we see most clearly the damage done during the Reformation period. Statues of saints were removed, paint stripped off walls, windows broken, and as you can still see, even the heads of small figures in the alcoves were smashed off. If it is a place of brokenness, reminding us of the brokenness of our world and the brokenness of our own lives, it also reminds us of Christ's body, broken for us on the cross.

The brokenness of the world and our lives.
The persistence of evil,
all tangled up like good plants and weeds
whose branches and roots are delicately are commingled.
The call to exercise good judgment, but not to judge.
The call to humility, but not inaction.
To faith, not certitude;
To kindness, not arrogant contempt.
God asks us to take on the character of Christ,
remembering always our dependence on the mercy of God for our own sins.

I will close with the prayer that visitors to Ely Cathedral
are invited to use in that Lady Chapel:

Lord God, through Jesus you are no stranger to betrayal, rejection, pain, suffering, and a cruel death on the cross. We lift before you those who suffer and whose lives are broken, and we lift before you the brokenness of our own lives. Lift us from despair to hope, from death to life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.