Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen
God is gracious and merciful.
And too often, we
humans are not.
Today’s Gospel
lesson offers a glimpse into a common response of humans to the presence of
evil in the world. Just eliminate those
people who you consider to be evil.
Often this has
resulted in ethnic ‘cleansing’, otherwise known as Holocausts, the systematic
destruction of entire peoples.
The most famous
instance of this, of course was THE Holocaust.
An estimated 6 million Jews were killed in places like Auschwitz.
Unfortunately,
this is but one example of the horrors of genocide in our world.
Stalin purged the
Russian population of those perceived to be dissenters, and though exact numbers are not available, estimates are that
as many as 20 million died, largely in the gulags, or concentration camps.
This one strikes
close to home for us because one of the groups that was targeted by Stalin were
the German Lutherans that lived in Russia.
Pol Pot in
Cambodia killed nearly 2 million.
The list could go
on and on.
One of the parts
of our own history that we don’t like to admit relates to Native Americans.
That one is more
complex.
It was not just a
program of genocide carried out by a few rulers, but a massive death toll that
was the result of a variety of causes, from disease to war.
Whatever the
intent, a huge percentage of the native population died as the European
settlers carved out a place for themselves in North and South America.
And the slaves of the
householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your
field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done
this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’
That there is
evil in the world is a fact no one can dispute.
What to do about
it is where we and God are different.
To our minds,
eliminating evil seems like the logical solution.
And so we have
these instances of genocide that occur throughout our histories.
And remember, in
each case of genocide, it was viewed as a “solution”, a fix to societies
problems.
The Nazi’s called
the elimination of the Jews in Europe “The Final Solution”. They thought they were doing the world a
great service by eliminating the Jews, whom they blamed for many of the
problems they were facing.
And though we don’t
like to admit it, the death of so many Native Americans was a ‘solution’ for us
as well, as it made room for the settlement of North and South America by
Europeans.
One of my
memories from childhood was during the American Indian Movements demonstrations
at Wounded Knee in South Dakota.
My boss, at the
grocery store where I worked as a box boy, was complaining about the Indian
protests.
I replied “Well,
we did take their land.”
Her response was
that “It would have been a great shame to leave this wonderful farm land to the
Indians.
The solution was
to gather them up, and send them away.
We have not
entirely overcome this sentiment in our country, either.
We solve our
society’s woes by gathering people up and locking them away.
The United States
incarcerates people, that is sends to prison, a higher percentage of our
population that any other nation in the world.
Race plays a role in that. And
treating drug addiction as a crime as opposed to a disease also plays a
role. Remember, we are still engaged in
a “war against drugs”.
The human
solution to all evil, continues to be the elimination of the evil doers.
Which is why this
Gospel lesson should be so striking to us.
God’s response is
grace.
Should we gather
up the weeds and destroy them?
And Jesus
response was:
“No; for in gathering the weeds you would
uproot the wheat along with them.”
When I remember
my Grandma Michealson two things come to mind.
First of all, I
remember her sitting at the sink pealing apples for apple pie, a particular
treat when we came home to visit.
And second I
remember asking her about a little saying that she hung on her kitchen wall.
“There’s so much
bad in the best of us, and good in the worst of us, that it hardly behooves any
of us to talk about the rest of us.”
This is the thing.
The reason you
cannot eliminate evil by eliminating “evil” people is that there is both good
and evil in all of us.
Luther called
this “simul justis et pecattor”.
We are, at one
and the same time, both saint and sinner.
And you cannot
eliminate the one without the other.
And so rather
than risking destroying the good along with the bad, God’s response is to allow
both to exist side by side.
Grace.
Lest the good be
eliminated with the bad, God offers forgiveness and pardon.
Grace.
Of all the images
of the judgment, the one I prefer is that of separating the wheat from the
chaff.
Chaff is the
husks that surround the seeds that must be separated during harvest by winnowing
or threshing.
That’s why
farmers use combines.
The grain of
wheat is gathered, and the chaff is separated from the grain and blown out the
back of the combine.
But what is so
appropriate about the image of the chaff and the grain, is that ever plant has
both. Every seed is surrounded by the
chaff.
You don’t have
some plants that produce seeds, and other plants that produce chaff.
And so I believe
it will be with each of us at the time of judgment.
There will be a
purification.
The chaff will be
blown away.
And the seed
gathered in.
Still, we
struggle.
We struggle in
the Church.
Shouldn’t this,
of all places, be a gathering of ‘good’ people?
Too often it
seems as though it is not.
We have all sorts
of disagreements, and the temptation to consider some of our brothers and
sisters to be ‘the evil ones’ is great.
We cannot avoid
wanting to gather together with those we agree with.
I mean afterall,
that’s why there are so many different
Churches. Purity. Homogeneity.
And attempts to
live together in spite of our diversity often fail.
I got a phone call this last week.
The woman on the other end of the line introduced herself and then inquired: “Are you Missouri Synod or ELCA?”
“We’re and ELCA congregation.” I responded.
“Uggh!” was her reply. “Uggh.”But then she went on to tell her story of financial hardship and ask if we had any funds to help her.
I have to confess.
I wanted to respond with my own “Uggh.”
Instead, I politely told her that we were a small congregation that did not have an assistance fund and left it at that.
Lutherans have become very divided over the years.
And today one of the things that divides us is whether or not we will associate with non-Lutherans.
I got a phone call this last week.
The woman on the other end of the line introduced herself and then inquired: “Are you Missouri Synod or ELCA?”
“We’re and ELCA congregation.” I responded.
“Uggh!” was her reply. “Uggh.”But then she went on to tell her story of financial hardship and ask if we had any funds to help her.
I have to confess.
I wanted to respond with my own “Uggh.”
Instead, I politely told her that we were a small congregation that did not have an assistance fund and left it at that.
Lutherans have become very divided over the years.
And today one of the things that divides us is whether or not we will associate with non-Lutherans.
Politics divide
us.
Social issues
such as homosexuality or abortion divide us.
Race divides us.
Economic status
divides us.
Our understanding
of theology and church practice divides us.
How do we deal
with disagreements.
By each going our
own way.
Separation is the
solution.
“No”, Jesus says.
“let them both grow together”.
There’s good and
bad in all of us, and one day that will all be sorted out like the weeds from
the wheat, or the chaff from the wheat.
But for now, we
stand together, in spite of everything.
Can Democrats and
Republicans worship together?
Or those who disagree
on homosexuality or abortion?
What about
different races, or the rich and the poor?
What about the
differing theological positions or different practices within the Church?
Must we round up
those who differ from us and send them away?
Or is there room
for all of us at the foot of the Cross?
Grace.
Standing together
lest we eliminate the good with the bad.
Our human
tendency is to seek out those with whom we agree, and to separate ourselves
from those we deem to be “evil”.
God’s response
is, and always will be grace.
There’s so much
bad in the best of us, and good in the worst of us, that God has chosen to love
all of us.
Amen.
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