The Long Walk

July 20, 2008

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 28:10-19a; Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
The Reverend Cathy S. Gilliard

Listen to this sermon

In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela wrote "I never lost hope that this great transformation would occur. Not only because of the great heroes I have already cited, but because of the courage of the ordinary men and women of my country. I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my comrades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps but for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.” [1]

These words of Mandela seem to be at the heart of the parable Jesus taught his disciples in our gospel lesson this morning. The hope of transformation and goodness in every heart. I have always found his generosity compelling, his ability to forgive, love, and be reconciled amazing. Time magazine calls him “a modern hero, the closest thing the world has to a secular saint.” “He went into prison emotional and headstrong and emerged balanced and disciplined.” [2]

We call this the parable about the wheat and the weeds. As a child I remember it as the story of the wheat and the tares. And what I remember most was that the tares were direct opposite of the wheat and one day they would be gathered and thrown into the fire and burned completely up. Either way you put it – weeds or tares – it was a description we would not use for ourselves. It was always clear to me that the wheat was us – the good people – the church people. And the tares were “them” , the bad people. The irony of that even in my child-like mind was that sometimes the good people were bad and the "bad" people were good.

Matthew seems to like these sorts of contrasts. “Of all the Gospel writers, he is the only one who waxes eloquent about the end of the world, the only one who mentions a furnace of fire where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. His is the only Gospel that contains the wise and foolish virgins, or the division of the sheep from the goats, or today’s parable about the wheat and the weeds. Of all the Gospel writers, it is Matthew who most wants a clear-cut creation, in which things are black or white, good or bad, in which people are faithful or wicked, blessed or cursed.” [3]

Like many Christians then and now, Matthew wants things wrapped up in a neat little package. For him, there are only two kinds of people, and he makes the distinction throughout his writings between those who are in and those who are out; those who have ears to hear and will "listen" and those who will not; those who are part of the family of God and those on the outside looking in, and if you are an outsider, let us be clear – according to Matthew you will most assuredly be doomed and bound for eternal damnation.

I think we have to fight hard against this impulse. Mandela is also quoted as saying, "Life is never either/or. Decisions are complex, and there are always competing factors. To look for simple explanations is the bias of the human brain, but it doesn’t correspond to reality. Nothing is ever as straightforward as it appears.” [4]

Hear again the parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. when the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ An enemy did this, he replied. The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ No, he answered, because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. let both grow together until the harvest.” [5]

This type of story is called an allegory which means that everything stands for something else. In this case, Jesus is the sower; the field is the world; the enemy is the devil who sows his seeds – the weeds – among the wheat and the wheat is the kingdom of God. You might have guessed that the weeds and the wheat like so much alike. They are barely distinguishable by the human eye and yet their value, purpose, and future are totally different. The weeds are sown by the enemy. The wheat is sown by God.

“His enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat.” This is no random enemy. It’s personal. Earlier in Matthew’s gospel Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and to the unrighteous.’” [6]

Love your neighbor is our command and that seems impossible enough, but loving enemies... well that’s a whole other matter. We assume neighbors are people more like us than not. They live on our street – physically or spiritually. We can identify with them one way or another. For the most part, we share things in common. But enemies – loving enemies is a long hard road. Enemies are those persons who put us at risk. There is some record or perceived threat that makes them suspect. They would choke the very life out of us. Their actions, deeds, behaviors dictate that they are not our friend. But Jesus said “do not disturb them; let them grow side by side.”

Love the weeds. Let them all grow together. And every fiber of our being wants to scream “NO! Not them too!”

It is as if God has some sort of x-ray vision that allows Him to see beyond what we see.. The ones we would discard, cast off forever, God says, "leave them alone." Don’t throw them away. The problem with discarding people too soon is that we don’t always have all the pieces. Though our truth is our truth, there may be another truth. The person who appears to be an enemy now might very well turn out to be a friend. Perhaps there is a value we cannot appreciate. Potential we do not know. We hear the ultimate message of the gospel – love, heal, forgive. I know it’s a stretch but somehow the road to our own growth and maturity is tied to the weeds in ways we cannot comprehend.

My guess is that many of us can recall persons who at one time or another appeared so much like weeds. Their lives hardly resembled what you know of them today. They could have easily been written off but somehow they have emerged into persons of promise. Perhaps you know someone like that. The person “before”. The person “after”.

Some of you know that I was married at age 21 to my college sweetheart. After 17 years of marriage we hint an impasse and chose to move ahead with our lives in separate ways. Needless to say, I was devastated. It was not the picture I had imagined. I was angry. Hurt. And as crazy as it seems, I wore these words as a badge of my own wounded self. I was entitled to them.

I never thought of my ex-husband as the enemy, but learning to love him in a new way was harder than I had imagined. And one day – just out of the blue – it occurred to me that the same grace that was being extended to me was also the grace that was available to him. The same love and healing that I had been crying for was also his. He is God’s child. The father of my children.

The grandfather of my grandchildren. I began to see things as they really were – not the fantasy I had created. Both of us had made mistakes. Both of us had been young and foolish. Both of us had said things and did things we shouldn’t have. At the young age 21 and 23, the truth is that neither of us knew very much about what we were doing. Like it or not, our lives were linked. We would sit at the same weddings and graduations. When our youngest grandson was born prematurely at one pound 4 ounces, we would sit in the same neonatal intensive care unit praying the same prayers that God would let this baby live. When his father died and my father died we sat in the same churches; grieving the same losses. There was no getting around it.

I don’t know when it was that the light bulb finally went off. I was too consumed to see the light. But one day it did. And that was the day I began my own long walk to freedom. Ah freedom! Thanks be to God!

_______________________
[1] Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Little, Brown and Company, pg. 622.
[2] Time Magazine, July 21, 2008, pg. 48.
[3] Barbara Brown Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven.
[4] Ibid, pg. 48.
[5] Matthew 13:24-29a NIV
[6] Matthew 5:43-44

Previous sermon: Listen! • Next sermon: Advance Notice

All past sermons