Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 16 A
texts: Matthew 13:24-30, 34-43; Romans 8:12-25
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death.
So writes Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He would know, having lived through the darkness and evil of apartheid and seen transformation. But is this truth he speaks still truth? A passenger plane carrying 300 people is shot down over the Ukraine, and no one knows who did it, and does it matter who? Nearly 300 schoolgirls in Nigeria who were stolen from their families are still missing; some have escaped, others are rumored to have been sold in marriage, some have been found brutally killed, some may have been moved out of the country. Children are sent away all by themselves across our southern border by desperate parents, hoping to remove them from violence and death, and are met by adults who wish to drive them back to violence and death and call it defense of our country. Rockets continue to fly from Gaza into Israel, and Israel retaliates by attacking back. And children on both sides suffer and die. On Tuesday a suicide bomber blew up a car in Afghanistan, killing nearly 90, the worst bombing there since 2001. A new militant religious state is rising in the midst of Iraq and Syria. And our city’s mayor and police chief continue to urge and plead with us to put away our guns and stop shooting each other.
Perhaps our prayer would better be “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.”
Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death.
Jesus told a story of good and evil growing in the same field. “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” Humans have asked this for millennia. “Did you not make a good world, God? Where, then, did this evil come from?”
The story looks less than satisfying as an answer. The Master of the farm urges patience on the workers. Yes, it was and is a good field, sown with good seed. Yes, an enemy is sowing weeds in it. But we’re not going to tear out those weeds just yet. You can’t easily tell the difference, for one thing; only I, the Master, can really tell. So I’ll take care of it in the end. For now, be patient, as I am patient.
The apostle Paul says much the same today. Yes, there is suffering and decay in this present time. Even the whole creation groans and longs for fulfillment and healing. Be patient, it will come.
So we pray: “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.”
Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death.
Does “patience” mean “do nothing”? Archbishop Tutu has also said: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Is that a faithful way to live as disciples of Christ Jesus?
It’s easy to respond to evil, saying, “what can we do?” That absolves us from responsibility. “There are just bad seeds out there, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” we say, using this story as support.
But if we do nothing, say nothing, we are complicit, we are culpable. We may not know what we can do, and in weeks like this it can seem impossible to think of anything. But if we don’t engage in our city, our state, our country, and our world; if we aren’t a voice for peace and justice; if we don’t seek by our lives and words and work to make this world a safe and just place for all children and adults alike; then we are part of the evil, and hate, and darkness, and death.
Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us.
Goodness is stronger than evil, love is stronger than hate, light is stronger than darkness, life is stronger than death.
Is Jesus’ interpretation of this parable helpful? It seems to undergird and support our human desire for vengeance, part of the evil of this world. Read one way, we could think we are urged to be patient because, in the end, the bad guys will get what’s coming to them. There will be fire, and the bad plants will be gathered and burned.
It’s true that this story urges us not to judge, to leave it to our Master. But we do, anyway. Is the patience we seek as followers of this Christ no different than the bloodthirsty vengeance actively sought by millions around the world every day? We let God do the dirty work, but our hope is that the dirty work, the judgment and burning and destruction, be done.
So what ever are we to make of this wonder, that in the end, Jesus, who tells this story and this interpretation, doesn’t collect the evil for burning? He goes into the heart of the fire himself, where the evil is supposed to be sent, and is burned up himself.
Lord, have mercy, indeed.
Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death.
The word “patient” comes to us via the Latin, and is related to the word for “suffering”. So, people in hospitals are called “patients.” We’ve lost this sense when we speak of patience as a characteristic of our lives, maybe because English has lots of words that sound and look alike but come from different meanings. Not here.
To be patient is to suffer. So the Triune God’s word in this story doesn’t mean what we thought. The Incarnate Son of God, who told this story, was literally patient with evil, with us, with the world. He suffered in, with, and among us.
He brought the goodness and love and light and life of the almighty and Triune God into the heart of a world sown with the seeds of evil and hate and darkness and death. And he suffered. Was patient. Same thing.
And that is the mercy of our Lord and Christ for which we pray.
Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death.
This is what it is for us to be patient as our Patient God is patient. To see ourselves, followers of this crucified and risen Christ Jesus, as people placed in the middle of the field as the goodness and love and light and life of the Triune God. Not to judge it; we cannot. Not to secretly hope that God will judge and burn; that is not the way of Christ we have seen. But simply to stand in the field of the world as good in the midst of evil. Love in the midst of hate. Light in the midst of darkness. Life in the midst of death.
Because God chose to give us, the children of God, free will to choose to love or not, to choose to follow God or not, the good field with good seed is sown with evil seeds. We have sown them, and we, as much as any, are “the enemy” Jesus speaks of in this story. Each of us has good and bad seeds striving within us, each of us is a field.
But beyond this story, what our Lord has shown us is that when the children of God stand as the good, the field can be redeemed. Healing can happen, in us, and in the world. We know this to be true, because we have seen the cross and we have seen the empty tomb.
And Christ our Lord, who has more mercy than we can ever imagine, is risen. And the field is being made new.
Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death.
The truth about the patient Savior, the suffering God, is that the harvest will not be gathered until the end, and that this true patience has the possibility of changing the harvest, of transforming all evil and making it good. The wisdom of the Son of God is that when goodness, love, light, and life all face their opposites, and are seemingly taken over, each time they thrive in that loss, and grow, and eventually overcome and transform. They are stronger, yes, but not to defeat; rather to transform and make new. We have seen this in Christ Jesus in his death and resurrection. We have seen it again and again throughout history, if we look. This is how God is working, suffering, being patient in the field. And one day there will be no need for fire, because the field will be filled with good seed and the world will be whole again.
But it costs, this way, this wisdom. Look at Jesus. Look at everyone who’s ever followed him into the fire, including those many who didn’t even know him but did the same. If we follow Christ Jesus, we follow him to the cross, into the fire of destruction. We also are burned when we stand as goodness, love, light, and life in a world filled with the opposites.
Because following will mean patience on our part that is like the patience of the Triune God. Patience in both senses of the word, which are the same. Patient trust in God. Patience that is suffering.
But in the crucified and risen Savior we know this as absolute truth about us and about the world:
Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death. Victory is ours through God who loves us.
Victory is the world’s through God who loves all.
In the name of Jesus. Amen
[1] Copyright © 1995 Desmond Tutu, admin. Random House, Inc. and Lynn C. Franklin Associates, Ltd. Used in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, no. 721.
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