"Revolutionary Trust" San Williams, UPC
Matthew 13:24-30
The theme of our sermon series this summer is “Rediscovering the Message of Jesus for a World in Crisis.” We’re interested how the message of Jesus makes a difference in our lives and world today. This morning let’s fasten our attention on the spiritual core of Jesus’ life—his abiding trust in God, whom Jesus called “Abba” (Father). Jesus lived and died trusting that, in spite of evidence to the contrary, God would right the wrongs of the world in God’s way and in God’s time. The parable of the weeds and the wheat is among the clearest illustrations we have of how Jesus understood and dealt with evil in the world.
Read Matthew 13:24-30
Earlier in our worship we listened to the words: “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.” This lovely song speaks of a God who knows us, cares for us and loves us. “His Eye is On the Sparrow” is a lovely song, but it’s one that not everyone can sing. For some people, trust in the beneficence of God has become impossible in the face of so much innocent suffering, so much sadness, so much sorrow, and so many tears. Thus many people today have concluded that the sparrows are on their own and there’s no one watching over us or over our evil prone world. Well, Jesus had a different take on evil and what we should do about it.
Notice first that Jesus acknowledges the presence of evil in God’s good world. In the parable we just read, Jesus declares, “The Kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well.”
In the imagery of the parable, the world has a weed problem. In Jesus’ day, the weeds would be quickly associated with the Roman occupation of Israel. The Jews of the first century found it humiliating that the land promised to them by God had been overrun by an empire of pagans who worshiped false gods. Weeds in the form of foreign invaders had sprung up in their land, and the burning question in the mind of every faithful Jew was what to do about this intolerable situation.
Of course, we’ve got our own weed problem today. Recently, Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg brought together a panel of the world’s leading economists, along with other experts in various fields, to identify the problems that cause the most suffering and danger in the world today. They came up with a list of ten top global problems: Hunger and malnutrition, climate change, the conflict of war, financial instability, lack of water and sanitation, unfair subsidies and trade barriers, population/migration, communicable diseases, poor education opportunities , and corruption in governance.
So while weeds come in many varieties, the basic reality of our world hasn’t changed since Jesus’ day. Namely, we still live in a world where goodness, beauty and truth are infested with evil, ugliness, falsehood. As the late Walter Cronkite said at the end of each of his broadcasts, “And that’s the way it is.”
But is the presence of evil God’s doing? Is evil somehow intended by God, sent by God, tolerated by God? Many people have wondered if God sends a disaster our way, from time to time, perhaps to teach us a lesson, to straighten us out, to punish us for wrongdoing, or for some reason that is beyond our ability to fathom. Try telling a mother whose infant has drowned in the backyard swimming pool that somehow this tragedy is God’s will. Does God cause the death of a child? Does God send the Tsunamis? Listen to what the parable says. No! God has no part in the sowing of evil in the world. Rather, Jesus declares, “An enemy has done this.” The parable doesn’t go any further. It simply declares: Yes, there is evil in the world, but God is not the author of it. An enemy has done it. The late William Sloan Coffin’s son was killed in a car accident. “Please don’t tell me this was God’s will,” Coffin said. “When my son’s car ran off the bridge, God’s heart was the first to break.” Yes, there is evil in the world, but God did not send it.
So what we are to do? “Master, shall we go to the fields and pull up the weeds?” the people in the parable asked. And the same question confronts us today: Shall we take history into our own hands and attempt to rid the world of evil?
Remember that this is what people expected of Jesus. It was widely hoped that when the Messiah came he would rid the world of evil. One of the reasons various ones of his followers began to fall away was that Jesus didn’t act according to these expectations. Some say that Judas’ motive in betraying Jesus may have been his disillusionment with Jesus’ lack of forceful action against the Roman occupiers.
And the temptation to take history into our own hands and rid the world of evil is ongoing. World War I, you’ll recall, was to be the war to end all wars. World War II is sometimes called “the good war.” But for all the good it accomplished, it left an estimated seventy million people dead. Cities all across the globe wound up in ruin, setting the stage for future conflicts. Following the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, President George Bush declared, “Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.” The death toll of civilians and soldiers, including U.S. solders, in Iraq and Afghanistan now stands at over 750,000 people. Since the beginning of time people, tribes and nations have attempted to rid the world of evil through force, but violent efforts have never achieved anything remotely close to that goal.
"Do you want us to go and pull up the weeds?” the servants asked. “No,” says the Master, “for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest.” Jesus’ life is itself an illustration of those words. He allowed himself to be arrested without putting up any resistance. He instructed his disciples to put away their swords. He made no defense before Pilate. He did not retaliate when beaten. He pronounced forgiveness even as he was being crucified. As we read in I Peter: “When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.”
And not only did Jesus suffer rather than retaliate, but he taught his disciples to do the same saying: “Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also…You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” Such nonviolence in the face of evil only makes sense if God is just and, come harvest time, God will right every wrong and make all things new. Jesus is not asking us to do nothing in the face of evil. He is telling us to respond, but not in kind.
At Austin Seminary’s Midwinter Lectures, Tom Long preached on this parable of the wheat and the weeds. In his sermon he cited the theologian, Miroslav Volf, a Croatian, who wrote: “Don’t tell Croatians in the middle of that conflict to turn the other cheek unless you can also say that evil will be destroyed, because if God is not going to do anything about evil then that Croatian must take things into his own hands. His wife has been raped. His children have been killed. Don’t ask him to turn the other cheek unless there is justice at the end."
Friends, the closer we are to rediscovering the message of Jesus the more challenging it becomes. I wouldn’t blame you if, during this sermon, you’ve been putting forth counter arguments of “yes, but…” Nevertheless, Jesus lived and taught nonviolence based on his radical trust in God. Things are a mess in our world. Weeds are thriving. But here the good news: The weeds won’t last forever. God, who Judges justly, will see to it that things come out right. Until then, may God give us the grace and the courage to respond to evil, as Jesus did, with nonviolent love and with a revolutionary trust in God.