The 6th Sunday after Pentecost - Tolerating Weeds??

The farming parable in the gospel reading from Matthew this week has a connection with actual concerns about the harvesting of wheat fields. Unlike the sower last week who cast seed without regard to the sort of soil where it would land, there is evidence that people may have been taking revenge on others or simply trying to spoil the harvest of a competitor by planting darnel seeds, a type of rye grass that looks like wheat in its early stages, in amongst the wheat seeds.  A Roman law prohibited the practice, which was most likely a response to planting darnel seeds.

Jesus opens this parable with the phrase:  "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to . . ."  A kingdom parable tells about how things will change from the way they are now to the way they will be when God reigns at "the end of the age."  As with the parable last week, Jesus explains what the parts of the parable mean--this time to his disciples who appear to want to be sure they understand--perhaps so they will be prepared to end up as one of the "shining" righteous.

Our interpretation of this parable and our concern about how we will end up can be found in the second verse of Hymn 290 - often sung at Thanksgiving:

All the world is God’s own field,

Fruit unto His praise to yield;

Wheat and tares together sown,

Unto joy or sorrow grown:

First the blade, and then the ear,

Then the full corn shall appear:

Lord of Harvest, grant that we

Wholesome grain and pure may be.

But what if our concern is not how we will end up, but how we are to manage until the harvest?  We are faced with the same dilemma the slaves of the householder encountered.  We find ourselves in situations where we believe something is wrong, where injustice appears to have the upper hand, where innocent people are being hurt.  Is Jesus suggesting that we should wait patiently, knowing that all turn out well in the end since God will judge "all causes of sin and all evildoers" and punish them?

The prophet Habakkuk (in the first chapter) could not abide waiting for God to act when his world is falling apart. He complains to God: "O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous—therefore judgment comes forth perverted."

I think the world of the parable tells us simply one thing about taking action to remedy what we see as wrong:  Be cautious!  Don't act in a way that assumes you can tell who needs to be cast out. For your deciding what is good and what it bad and taking action may result in harm rather than benefit.  This parable teaches tolerance and bids us heed what may be the unintended consequences of our actions.

That being said, most situations that we face as people or as a nation don't fit easily into the mold of a kingdom parable—in large part because, unlike Jesus' disciples and Christians in the first half of the first century, we live in a way that shows we don’t believe the end of time—the “end of the age” in Matthew's words—will be here anytime soon.  Think of the insurance we buy and the savings we sock away for our later years.

Yet in the news we hear about situations that pull us into some sort of decision-making about who is good and who is bad.  To whom should we show compassion? Whom should we hold accountable with sanctions or with legal consequences?

Israel and Hamas are firing rockets at one another again.  Rebel separatists in eastern Ukraine, who have been given military equipment and training from Russia, may have shot down an airliner, killing almost 300 people who had nothing to do with their fight.  Immigrants under 18 who have no documentation are crossing into the United States as they seek to escape from the poverty and violence of their home countries.  We could come up with many more examples, I am sure.

As we express our opinions about what should be done and evaluate the effectiveness of our government's response, we'd do well to remember that actions can have good intentions (as in getting rid of the weeds) and still have disastrous outcomes (the uprooting of the wheat).  So let us be restrained in our judging and cautious in the actions we say should be taken in situations where good and bad appear to co-exist.  (There are situations where this is not true, but most situations we encounter will contain both good and bad.) For Jesus, righteousness does not require our always stamping what we see as evil. In a most outrageous way, he did tell us to love our enemies.