Sunday 23 July: Isaiah 44:6-8, Romans 8:12-25 and Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
G. K. Chesterton might be best known for his fictional creation the priest-detective, Father Brown. He was also philosopher, literary critic and apologist for the Christian faith - and it was perhaps his commitment to giving an account of the hope that is in us which led to him being known as the ‘prince of paradox’.
Like St Paul, he recognised that human beings were made with the stature of being in the image of God, made to love and seek the good. We know that in moments of joy, generosity and kindness. And yet, the paradox of our human condition is that from Eden, we used our freedom to rebel rather than to worship, choosing self over others.
We know the tensions in our hearts and lives - whenever we’ve experienced hurt or disappointment, when we take the easier path to protect ourselves. Every Sunday, we gather to acknowledge or confess our individual and collective acts of sin - by negligence, weakness of fault. But we also confess that there is hope - of brokenness being restored.
We are forgiven penitents. As Paul writes: we have received a spirit of adoption as children of God. This hope flows from another paradox, that of grace: the good news of the gospel announces both judgement and mercy. In Jesus, we embrace the hope of God with us, fully human and fully divine; the fullness of love we see on the cross is a paradox: power in weakness, wisdom in foolishness, life in death.
For Chesterton as for Paul, paradox is a way of affirming that the truth of God is both knowable and mysterious: a love so deep and beyond our grasp, and yet something we can touch and taste in a wafer of bread placed in our hands.
Yet there is so much we don’t know - that we can’t make sense of. We live courageously somehow trusting that in the tensions of the both-and God. Trusting that when we don’t know, God does; hoping that there will be a more beautiful way forward as we wait for more wisdom and insight.
In today’s gospel we hear Jesus telling a story which invites us to practise this paradox of hopeful waiting. It is a parable of potential goodness and abundance - the sowing of good seeds. It is also a parable of deceitful and destructive behaviour - the deliberate sowing of poisonous weeds. It shows us the reality of human impatience - the servants want to tear the weeds out immediately. It shows us the nature of divine patience - of waiting until harvest to separate weeds and wheat, avoiding the loss of both.
The parable reminds us of what we already know. The first is the tension that even amidst what is good, purposeful and full of potential, there can be things which are unjust, painful and harmful. Alongside that is the tension between patience and impatience when confronted with those things which are cruel or evil: how do we act well and wisely in showing restraint, whilst also acknowledging the reality of the situation.
In relation to the ‘weeds’ sown amongst us, Jesus doesn’t shy away from naming those things which cause intentional harm ‘evil’. The motivations of the one who sows such seeds are loveless and harmful - the look of the young plants mimic that of good, healthy and nourishing grain. But they’re darnel, a toxic false wheat.
There is nothing to be gained by denying the reality of the weeds amongst the wheat. We know that our life is as mixed as the field in the parable. Our lives, communities and world contain the good and fruitful blessing of the wheat; but they also contain the bad and destructive harm of the weeds. We live in this reality - and we also believe and trust in Jesus.
He does not leave us without hope or consolation because as he shares and unpacks the parable, he makes it clear that evil is brought to an end: all causes of sin and harmful intent are bundled up and burnt away.
It is a vivid image - it is a way of amplifying God’s promise to us that there will be freedom for those who are downtrodden, oppressed, wounded, marginalised For the love we preach is a love which comes to refine and purify. It is a love which brings justice as well as compassion; a love that restores all things to wholeness; a love which shows mercy and has the final word.
This is the hope: injustice will end; oppression will cease. As our anthem puts it, it is and will be well with our soul because despite the sorrows and trials of this life, there is the blest assurance that Christ hath shed his own blood for us.
This is our hope: the causes of hurt - to us and to creation - will be exposed and burnt away. Because God loves the world, those things which exploit, break, harm or diminish will fade away.. All those causes in others, and in ourselves; those causes which are systemic or personal; those causes we campaign against, and those we don’t see.
Meanwhile, we are perhaps like the servants in the parable: we are eager to see a quick harvest; we are impatient about the weeds and want them gone. The servants are self-confident in thinking that they know what is good and bad, wheat and weeds. However, when it is the owner who has the wisdom and humility to see that it is more complicated than that - roots are entangles, the plants are young, it’s hard to tell the difference.
The same is perhaps true in what we might call ‘ethical gardening’: we can never fully know the secrets and motivations of our own hearts, let alone that of others. There is a time to wait with patience and to show restraint; to know the wisdom of humility. Otherwise we risk harming not only the weeds but the wheat - and showing in ourselves an arrogant judgmentalism rather than loving mercy.
However long we’ve walked this path of faith, whenever the seed of the gospel of hope was planted in our hearts, the truth is we are still growing. Our roots are delicate, our stems are tender, the graining beginning to ripen. Fruitful maturity takes every breath of our lifetime.
So how do we live well in this in-between time? How do we navigate the paradox of good and bad, patience and impatience? It begins by praying to see that change in ourselves and by being the change we want to see.
As the prophet Isaiah reminds us God says to us: Do not fear, or be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? We are witnesses to God’s faithful and redeeming love.
In part it is by choosing what to bless and nurture, choosing what to challenge and resist - in ourselves, in our communities and in our world.
In part it is about trusting that God holds us safe in good soil and will bring all things to harvest. By drawing deeply on the core of abundant life, love and mercy we see flowing from the Eucharist.
It is by, in the words of Pope Francis [in Laudato Si’], considering how we strengthen the conviction that ‘we are one single human family’ with the earth as ‘our collective good’. When we see the use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed the earth, he invites us to be responsible protectors of creation - seeing the interconnection between human goods and the goods for the earth.
For, as Paul wrote, we caught up in the labour pains of waiting with the whole of creation: hoping with patience for what we do not yet see. It is well. It is well with my soul.
Julie Gittoes 2023 ©
