July 23, 2017 – Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Love Will Save the World
Lectionary 16 – July 23, 2017
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
I went to the movies last week and saw Wonder Woman, which is great.
Wonder Woman, whose given name is Diana, is the daughter of the Greek God Zeus, and
was brought up by Amazons on a remote island paradise in order to protect humanity.
Specifically, they were to protect humanity from Zeus’s rival, the god of war, Ares,
who seeks to destroy it by turning human beings against one another and
returning the world to a paradise of the gods.
Diana’s life on the island is disrupted when the outside world makes itself known
near the end of the First World War in 1918.
Diana learns that humanity is indeed about to destroy itself in the “war to end all wars,”
which saw destruction and death on a scale that had never been seen before.
Upon learning this, she embarks upon her mission to find Ares, the god of war, who
she believes is responsible for stirring up war among human beings,
and ending the death and destruction of war – and so saving the world.
When she finally confronts Ares – in the form of a British politician! – near the end of the film,
they have a debate about the merits of saving humanity.
Having herself witnessed the horrors of war and the things human beings are capable of
doing to one another, Ares tries to bring her round to his position that
human beings are inherently evil and that they should all be allowed to
destroy themselves.
Diana knows this to be true – and yet she knows this is not the whole truth about human beings.
She has also witnessed the human capacity for sacrificial acts of love.
She has seen both the lowest and the highest human beings are capable of.
Maybe, says one reviewer of the film, human beings do not deserve redemption,
but Diana has seen that they are redeemable.
And for her, that is enough – enough for her to rebuff Ares and destroy him.
In present day Paris at the end of the film, Diana reflects on that time in her life, and she says:
I used to want to save the world. To end war and bring peace to mankind. But then, I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light. I learned that inside every one of them there will always be both. The choice each must make for themselves – something no hero will ever defeat. I’ve touched the darkness that lives in between the light. Seen the worst of this world, and the best. Seen the terrible things men do to each other in the name of hatred, and the lengths they’ll go to for love. Now I know: only love can save this world. So I stay. I fight, and I give… for the world I know can be. This is my mission, now. For ever.
I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light. I learned that inside everyone one of them,
there will always be both.
That is a pretty neat and accurate summary of Jesus’ parable of the weeds and the wheat.
Jesus says, “Where God is reigning there is both weeds and wheat, both light and darkness.
In the world at large, there is both.
In our communities and families and churches, there is both.
Inside each one of us, there is both.”
Or, as Luther would famously say 1500 years later, we are both saint and sinner at the same time.
Jesus never explains why this is so, as much as we would all like to know why there is evil.
“An enemy” has put the weeds among the wheat, says Jesus, the darkness amidst the light.
That’s about as much as we get.
In the film, it is the war god Ares who is responsible for whispering suggestions of
hatred and intolerance and greed into human ears – and then human beings choose
whether to act on those suggestions – or not.
Whisperings, an enemy silently sowing weeds among the wheat –
that’s all the explanation of evil in the world we get.
What we can take away from what Jesus says is that evil is never God’s doing or
God’s intention in this world.
God does not create evil and God does not will evil.
Evil is not part of God’s plan – human pain and suffering are not, and never will be,
caused by God.
But what then do we do?
Jesus’ solution is at first glance a strange one.
The servants suggest that they uproot and kill the weeds – which sounds right to us!
But, Jesus says, because the weeds’ roots are so intertwined with the wheat’s roots,
they would end up killing the good wheat as well.
It’s best to let them both grow together, Jesus says.
And, in the end, God will be the one to eradicate the weeds.
Jesus knows that the parable is as much about each one of us as it is about the world.
Jesus knows this is not about the good guys versus the bad guys.
Jesus knows that within each good guy is also a bad guy, and within each bad guy is a good guy.
It is why Jesus advises elsewhere, “Let one who is without sin cast the first stone,”
knowing that there is no one without sin.
It is also why Jesus forcefully commands yet elsewhere, “Do not judge.”
Leave it to God, says Jesus, who is infinitely wiser and more patient than any of us.
In fact, Jesus in this parable invites us into God’s patience and advises that we let time
be our great ally in the struggle against the weeds.
“Let them both grow together,” he advises. Let them both grow together.
These parables of Jesus that caution us against judgmentalism and advocate patience with
ourselves and with one another could hardly be more timely in our world.
Our world is beginning to divide itself more and more into us and them.
We are good. They are evil.
We are hardworking. They are lazy.
We are normal. They are not.
We are better. They are worse.
We are right. They are wrong.
We are Christians. They are Muslims.
We all know how dangerous this can be, and how easy it can be to understand some to be
more human than others, more deserving than others, of more value than others.
And then along comes Jesus and says, “This whole world is mixture of wheat and weeds,
and you yourself cannot escape being part of that mixed up world.”
Yet: there is very good news, says Jesus: you don’t have to be the judge.
That is not your responsibility.
God alone is the judge, and God will ultimately not let the weeds take over the wheat.
And here is yet more good news: God is patient – God knows much, perhaps, that we do not.
Time is a gift – it offers the opportunity for change.
We would be hasty in our judgment and condemnation of others.
But God’s great love is expressed for the world and for each one of us
in the gift of time extended to us – that is great news.
And there is more good news: God’s strategy since the time of the flood has been
a decided strategy against destruction.
Instead, beginning with Abraham, God has decided upon the strategy of
developing long term relationships based in love as the strategy for saving this world
and every person, animal, plant, rock, and tree within it.
Since that time, God has sought to nurture the good and feed the light within us.
This morning, at the table of Holy Communion, God will seek to feed the wheat within us,
so that the wheat might grow in us, in order that we might become loving food for others.
God seeks to nurture the good in us, week in and week out.
And in so doing, God invites us to relate to others in the same way.
Rather than dealing out judgment, God invites us to extend patience and understanding.
Rather than destruction, God invites us into God’s strategy of nurturing and celebrating
what is good in one another.
Rather than abandoning hope for ourselves, God invites into God’s hope,
and invites us to extend the divine patience and love to ourselves,
which we often find hard to do.
You are not defined by the bad things you have done – there is more to you than that.
And you were made for more.
It’s likely that way back in the day, Matthew’s community was trying to think about
how to deal with sinful members of their community.
Should they be expelled? Or should they be extended love expressed in the gift of time?
Jesus, Matthew reminds them, extends the gift of love expressed in time to each of us.
Because God extends the gift of love expressed in time to the whole world.
Like Diana, God is hopeful about our world and about every person in it.
Like Diana, God knows that love alone will save the world.
Only love can save the world – and the choice is before us.
So let us choose love, let us be patient with one another, let us advocate for forbearance,
let us forgive, and let us extend one another the gift of time given in love.
And together, let us say, “Amen.” Pastor Michael Kurtz
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