The parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13. 24-30, 36-43) divides people into weeds and wheat. So, who are the weeds and who are the wheat? Our natural tendency as human beings is to want to know and to assume that we are in the wheat camp rather than the weeds camp.
More worryingly, our natural tendency as human beings is probably to try to identify those who are different from us and attempt to weed them out of our community. That is what we call scapegoating and, interestingly, it is a human tendency that the French cultural critic, Rene Girard, suggests is gradually unmasked and exposed by the Bible. Firstly, because the people of Israel sacrifice animals as scapegoats instead of other human beings (as happened in the nations around them at that time) and then as God himself, in Jesus, becomes the ultimate scapegoat bringing an end to the need for any further scapegoating. “Jesus’ ‘strategy’ as the ambassador from a loving, non-violent Father is to expose and render ineffective the scapegoat process so that the true face of God may be known … in the scapegoat, or Lamb of God, not the face of a persecuting deity.”
We can probably all think of times and places in our society where scapegoating occurs, not least in the election campaigns of the British National Party. But there is a very real sense in which identifying those who are different from us and attempting to weed them out is going on within our community, the Anglican Communion, at present in the controversies over sexuality and women bishops.
Whichever side of those arguments we stand on, we need to beware of the arguments made by those at the extremes which would seek to rid us of those who don’t agree with their position because Jesus, in this story, says that it is not our job to pull up the weeds from the field.
It is not our job partly because, if we were to try, we would pull up the wheat with the weeds. In other words, we do not know, as we look around our church, the Anglican Communion, or our society, who are the wheat and who are the weeds.
It is God who “searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts” we are told in 1 Chronicles 28. 9 can see what goes on in our hearts, he knows “the secrets of our hearts,” says Psalm 44 and this is because it is God who created our inmost beings and formed us in our mothers’ wombs says Psalm 139.
Therefore, it is for God, not us, to make that judgement in his way and in his time. Jesus warns us that it we judge others, we ourselves will be judged by the same measure we use on others (Matthew 7. 1&2). Again, he is saying to us that it is God’s place to judge, not ours, and, even, that we are likely to be surprised by the judgements that God makes at the end of time. Sometimes, Jesus says, as in Matthew 7. 21-23, that those who appear to be the most religious are actually those who are among the weeds.
So, it is not our job to judge but God’s and he will do so in his way and his time. What we need to do is to trust that that is so and we do this by allowing the weeds to grow together with the wheat. In other words, Jesus is commending here the aspect of Anglicanism that, it seems to me, has always been its great strength and glory; its holding together from its inception of ‘catholics’ (with a small ‘c’) and protestants and in more recent centuries its holding together of the diverse streams that have developed within those traditions – anglo-catholicism, evangelicalism, liberalism, the charismatic movement and so on. To hold these things together is, it seems to me, to show absolute trust in God’s ultimate judgement because we are allowing the wheat and the weeds to grow together.
Rowan Williams, in the opening session of the Lambeth Conference, encouraged the bishops and archbishops present to “find the trust in God and one another that will give us the energy to change in the way God wants us to change.” That is, he said, “the most important thing we can pray for, the energy to change as God wants us to change individually and as a Communion.” But it is trust in God and one another, he says, that will give us this energy.
Why is that? Well, if all our energy is going into pulling up what we think are weeds then our energies are not going into what makes for fruitfulness. Our responsibility is not to be monitors and judges of others but to allow our energies to flow into developing the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This won’t happen if we are forever distracted by try to spot and root out weeds but if we trust God to sort out the weeds in his way and time then we can focus on the thinks that contribute to fruitfulness. As many have said going into the Lambeth Conference, there are actually far more pressing and significant issues in our world which we need to urgently address than the debates with which we are currently engaged over gender and sexuality.
So let us do what Archbishop Rowan has suggested and pray for the energy to change as God wants us to change individually and as a Communion. Let us pray using the Lambeth Conference prayer:
Pour down upon us, O God, the gifts of your Holy Spirit, that we and those who are part of the Lambeth Conference may be filled with wisdom and understanding. May we know at work within us that creative energy and vision which belong to our humanity, made in your image and redeemed by your love, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Al Green - Let's Stay Together.
2 comments:
Very interested in your point about trust. I recently read Jeremy Begbie's sermon preached at a consecration service and found it both encoraging and challenging. It's called A Humble Moment and his central question to the bishops is are they going to trust or try to control?http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=321
Thanks for the link, Philip. It's a good sermon and well worth a read. I particularly liked what Begbie said at the end and think there are synergies between what he says and what I was trying to say in today's sermon. Sometimes our trying to resolve problematic situations indicates a lack of trust in God's ability to sort it out in his way and time.
I was interested too that he linked our tendencies towards control or trust to personality. This is, I think, a neglected aspect of the controversies in the Communion. Those with personalities that are strong on judging and thinking in Myers Briggs terms are more likely to gravitate towards models of Biblical interpretation that deliver logical and consistent frameworks or rules while those whose personalities are strong on intuition or perceiving are more likely to gravitate towards models of Biblical interpretation that accept ambiguity and paradox.
If we acknowledged the part that personality can play in the theologies we gravitate towards, I think we would have more honest debates than we often manage to have.
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