What Endures

Back from vacation, there will be no more summer re-runs until September when I celebrate my nephew's wedding.

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on July 20, 2008, the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Genesis 28:10-19a
Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24
Romans 8:12-25
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

I read this in a paper from the Reformed Church in America Commission on Theology:

“The relationship between divine freedom and God’s use of human agency is a mystery. It is wise for us to confess with conviction what God has revealed—that the only assurance of salvation revealed to us is found through explicit faith in Jesus Christ. At the same time it is also wise for us to avoid saying what we do not know—exactly how God will deal with all those who have not heard or responded to the gospel. We do know that God is both completely gracious and completely just. That is enough for us. With Abraham we confess in hope, ‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?’ (Gen. 18:25)”[1]

God is free to do as God will do for God’s own glory and the benefit of all creation. God’s authentic divine freedom does not point toward doing just any old thing. God is good, not malicious, and God’s use of human agency is always directed toward glory, not shame. Within the witness of scripture, the works of God are toward righteousness, not spite or malevolence. Perhaps this was the Lord’s first freedom, choosing glory above shame. But, that’s for another day.

The parable of “The Wheat and the Tares” tells the story of a man, a farmer and presumably the land owner; his seed; his servants; the fruit of his crop; his harvesters; and his enemy with seed of his own. While there are several methods of interpreting scripture’s parables, one of the most ordinary is to analyze the parable like a code. In the code, each parable element directly represents something specific.

In this case, this parable has been dissected as a code within scripture itself. Verses 36-43 tell us that the one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, the fruit of the harvest is righteous, and the reapers are angels.

The passage even goes as far to tell us that the angel/reapers will collect the causes of sin and all evil doers and they will be thrown to the fire where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Returning to the Reformed Church paper for just a moment, while this describes the consequences of God’s complete justice, it does not exclude God’s complete grace. In the meantime, the harvest, the righteous, the fruit of the children of the kingdom will shine like sun in the kingdom of their Holy Father.

In my reading, one of the things that caught my attention about this section of the reading is that above all other things; each of the elements in the code has a very specific purpose. And this specificity, this particularity, this peculiarity must be remembered and followed as we interpret the code.

For instance, it is the responsibility of the reapers, the angels, to separate the good wheat from the bad weeds. It isn’t the responsibility of the servants to separate the wheat from the tares. It isn’t even the farmer’s chore since he has delegated that to the reapers. And above all, it isn’t the responsibility of the seed to separate its fruit from the weeds.

In fact, Jesus is very specific about this point, at no time before the end of the age is anyone to attempt to separate the wheat from the weeds. If anybody tries, the wheat will be uprooted along with the weeds. Trying to make the crop pure before the harvest time will cause more harm than good.

The Essenes were an important Jewish community flourishing in Palestine along side the Pharisees and Sadducees during the lifetime of Jesus. Their teachings and practice were well known for centuries through the writings of Philo and Josephus.[2] Most of us know the Essenes through the work they left behind. In 1947, a series of wonderful discoveries were made in the Palestinian wilderness. Clay pots containing manuscripts were found in dozens of caves. This collection is what we call the Dead Sea Scrolls. These scrolls have fueled important Old Testament scholarship for over sixty years.

Nobody knows for sure the origin of the name Essene. Certainly nowhere in the scrolls does this community use this title to describe itself. The name could have been derived from numerous Greek and Hebrew words including the nouns for “seer,” “observers of the law,” “watchers,” or “silent ones;” or the adjectives for “holy,” “powerful;” or “modest;” or even the verbs for “to bathe” or “to do.” Even the East Aramaic word for “pious” has been suggested as a source of the name Essene.

These and other derivations represent attempts with varying success to find linguistically plausible reasons for the name Essene in view of their known traits. There is no scholarly consensus on this, which seems to have been a mystery since the days of Philo. But something that seems consistent is that these traits which could have been the inspiration for their name could have led to their extinction.

You see, these observers, these silent ones, these holy and pious people separated themselves from the general community of Palestine and set up shop in a little corner where they wouldn’t be infected by others’ impurities. In the words of the parable, they plucked themselves up and gathered themselves away from the tares to a place where they would not be tainted by the seed of the farmer’s enemy.

There is one problem with this; after the community uprooted itself it died off. Information is scarce. Honestly all we know of them is the fruit of their labor, the library of scrolls they left behind. Don’t get me wrong, what they left is valuable, but it is all that exists of what was once a wonderfully fruitful crop. There are no Essenes, as there are no Pharisees or Sadducees. These groups which tried to separate themselves from the world have succeeded more completely than they had hoped.

When the seed tries to do the job of the reaper, it can’t survive.

Another problem we run into as the seed is that it is not our job to even identify the weeds. If there is one thing human beings can do all too often it is judge someone else to be a weed. This is not only true between Christians and other world religions; it is true between different Christian denominations. It is even true between different denominations of Presbyterians.

And when the seed tries to do the job of the reaper, it can’t survive.

We though are called to live a life of righteousness, which can only happen when the seed remains firmly rooted in the soil of the one who planted us. We can never bear good fruit if we try to be a weed. Scripture reminds us we are called to be in the world, but not of the world. When our actions become those of God’s enemy, we do not live into the goodness of creation. The wheat will forever be with the tares, but it must not become the tares. According to this passage, what is left in the fields after the weeds are gone is called the righteous. When the wheat becomes the weed, it will be taken away.

Again, when the seed tries to do the job of the reaper, it can’t survive.

But, we run into a problem. It’s the same problem we run into whenever we try to interpret a parable as a code. The problem with this model or any model is that in God’s good creation things can change. In a world where the Lord is sovereign, it is quite possible for those who were sown by his enemy to become his disciples. In God, by God, and through God; the weeds can become wheat. In agriculture this doesn’t happen, but in God, all things are possible.

The Reverend Doctor Cindy Rigby was one of the preachers at the PC (USA) General Assembly in San Jose a couple of weeks ago.[3] She said, “The point is changing the world, but we’re called to change it not by focusing on change, but by abiding in Christ.” Our role is not to sow the seed, weed the garden, or bring in the crop; our role is to be the seed and abide in Christ.

To fruitfully reach the harvest, we must remain in the soil; even if, no, especially since there are weeds in there with us. This is our call and our vocation; because when a kernel of grain falls from the head, it has the potential to abide in the soil. And when a single seed abides in the ground, its fruit can multiply beyond imagination, continuing the process of life in the arms of the everlasting Lord.

The Reverend Doctor Rigby used a quote from the late theologian Letty Russell which has stayed with her since Russell first uttered it: “The problem with the PC(USA) is that we are of the world, but not in it.” Explaining this she said that it is not enough to give the poor fish, or even to teach them to fish so the poor can eat for a lifetime.

“The rich need to sit down with the poor and join in the fishing, emptying themselves.” Rigby continued “We have the opportunity here and now to repent in our complicity in the destructive systems of the world — not because we hate the world, but want to be more fully in it.”

The renowned Christian mission scholar Lesslie Newbigin wrote this about the church being called to be witnesses to the presence of the Holy Spirit as a foretaste of the kingdom to come:

“It is immediately necessary to say that this fundamental truth can become a source of disastrous error if it is used to withdraw those who believe the gospel from responsible engagements in the immediacies, the relativities of political and cultural life of their times. The vision of the ultimate goal of the human story must not be used to withdraw attention from the immediate possibilities which the Lord of history offers.”[4]

It is necessary for us to be the good seed, to grow into the harvest in the soil prepared by the Lord our God. We are to be the seed among the weeds sharing the bread of salvation, not the bitter fruit of human judgment. It is up to us not to produce stuff that will survive after we are gone, but to develop relationships, develop communities which God will continue to bless.

This was the vocation of the saints that have come before us. This is the work we have been called to continue today. This is call of those who will follow us in the future. Yes we are called to do good works, but without building communities, we will not be a part of what endures. We don’t know what ever became of the Essenes; and they are gone. We do know what became of the body of Christ, because after 2,000 years we are a part of that community.

We are part of the body which was seeded on Good Friday and planted at Pentecost. We are a part of the body which eats a meal instituted on Maundy Thursday, called to do this remembering Jesus the Christ who rose on Easter. We are planted as the body that will grow until the angels come to gather the harvest in the end of the age.

[1] Commission on Theology of the Reformed Church in America, “The Crucified One Is Lord. Confessing the Uniqueness of Christ in a Pluralist Society.” Louisville: Congregational Ministries Publishing, 2000, page 26.
[2] Essene, The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Supplemental Edition, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1976.
[3] Walking Humbly, We Aren’t Good at That, Preacher Says, http://www.pcusa.org/ga218/news/ga08114.htm, retrieved August 16, 2008
[4] Newbigin, Lesslie, “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society.” Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989, page 139.