THE RIGHTEOUS WILL SHINE LIKE THE SUN

Text: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Jesus has just told the parable of the sower – that was the Gospel for last Sunday. We know what that’s about: that it’s important to cultivate good soil for the seed of the Word of God, so it germinates and grows well. The good soil is an image for receptive hearts which receive the Gospel message and allow it to flourish in their lives. And now Jesus tells another parable: the story of the wheat and the weeds. It seems pretty straightforward: the weeds are sown by the devil, and at the end of the age angels will come from heaven, collect the weeds and throw them into a fiery furnace. Weeds are an image for those who follow the devil – those who refuse to hear the Gospel and allow it to enter their hearts. They will end up weeping and gnashing their teeth, while the wheat plants will have big smiles on their faces.

Well, that seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? The good get rewarded and the bad get punished. End of story. But not so fast….Why does God wait until the end of the age to see that the weeds are destroyed? Could it be that it’s not so clear which plants are wheat and which are weeds? That’s possible. Could it be that God shows a lot of patience toward those who act like weeds but have the potential to become wheat? Maybe so. If so, why does Jesus tell such threatening stories – where we wonder whether we’re good plants or bad weeds? I think it could be that Jesus told these stories but not in such “either-or” terms, but human beings report the stories in ways that suit themselves. That’s like the “fire and brimstone” kind of preaching that threatens everybody who doesn’t line up with conventional religious behaviour. Isn’t that the way it is: the good get rewarded and the bad get punished? Well, if we have any experience at all in life, we know that none of us is completely good or completely bad, so how do we make the distinction between wheat and weeds? The truth is that when all is said and done, we don’t make that distinction - God does. Our responsibility is to make the distinction between good behaviour and bad behaviour for ourselves. We don’t get to judge whether others, or even ourselves, are good or bad people. Our concern is our own behaviour, not judgment.

Our other readings this morning provide examples of people who might have been considered weeds, but by the grace of God became useful plants in the kingdom of God. The Old Testament lesson tells a story of Jacob, and a dream of a ladder to heaven. Is Jacob on that ladder? It seems that he is: God makes a promise to Jacob….”all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and your offspring….I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” But we know that Jacob was a cheat and a liar and a scoundrel, definitely a weed at many points in his life. And yet God saw fit to call Jacob as one of the patriarchs of the Jewish nation, a man who inspired others to daring acts of faithfulness to God. How did he get from weed to wheat in one lifetime? The same way that all of us do: through God’s forgiving grace. And that comes through God’s vision of our future: that we can be wheat even though we feel and look like weeds. In that case, it would be too bad if we wrote ourselves and others off before we arrive at the point in God’s future where we are productive and useful members of the kingdom.

Another example is in the reading from Romans. It’s Paul the Apostle writing these words. And what does he say? “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” Paul is writing with confidence, believing that he and others are not only children of God, but heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, standing to inherit all the riches of God in heaven, even though - and this is a big exception – even though Paul had been a persecutor of Christians, one who brought about the death of Stephen and probably other martyrs as well. So Paul too got from weed to wheat in one lifetime. At least that’s how it looks to us. To God I think it looked different; God could see the vision of Paul the Apostle even while Paul was still the persecutor of Christians, violently opposed to God’s kingdom.

My Bible commentary suggests that the main point of the parable is this: “the kingdom is a mixed body of saints and sinners on earth, until the final sifting by God’s agents [probably the angels]. Therefore patience, tolerance and forbearance are necessary. No one should usurp divine judgment.” It is also pointed out that the word “gather” or “collect” is used four times in the first paragraph [and twice in the second paragraph] of the reading, which suggests that the parable is concerned with the Christian community. The commentary goes on to say “Puritanical groups who try to exclude all sinners end up with small or short-lived communities.” Jesus is telling us in this parable that we are not to be judging each other, for at least two good reasons: first, we don’t know God’s future for each person, and second, we must not destroy the Christian community by excluding those we perceive to be sinners. On both counts, we might be very wrong.

I’ve told the story before of my friend Colleen. I should update you on her story. She was a drug addict and dealer and armed robber in Edmonton and Vancouver. On her 40th birthday she was in the Prison for Women in Kingston, Ontario, and decided she wanted to go straight and become a “citizen” as she called it. To her that meant she would do something legal and productive and get her three children back, even if it meant she spent the rest of her life in poverty. That was in 1994. I met her in 1995. She was working, she had an apartment, she was off drugs and reasonably sober. She had health problems as a result of her lifestyle, and very little support from her family of several sisters and brothers. Her husband, who had been violently abusive, managed to avoid paying her any maintenance. But Colleen had plenty of guts. She knew she had been a criminal in the eyes of the justice system and a sinner in the eyes of her church – a fundamentalist group that made sure she knew how bad she was. But somehow she believed in a merciful God. Her father was Norwegian and had been a Lutheran, and he was the only person who was kind to her when she was a child. So she latched onto the idea that maybe a Lutheran pastor could put her on a good footing with God.

It wasn’t my doing; it was the mercy of God that moved her onto the path into God’s future. She confessed her sins, accepted forgiveness and started living like a “citizen”. She began working at one of the inner-city agencies and was able to relate well to people struggling with addictions and poverty and the stigma of having done time in prison. She badgered Child Welfare constantly and eventually got her oldest son, then her middle son, then her youngest son, back in her home. She struggled to support them – and if you know anything about living in poverty in Canada or anywhere else, you know that it often requires rather marginal activities – it’s hard to hold up your head in polite society when you have to cut corners and beg and cajole and juggle and borrow to make ends meet – and then something unexpected happens and the ends don’t meet after all. Colleen was clever and sharp and imaginative; somehow she made it work. But meanwhile her health was deteriorating. From childhood asthma to full-blown Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder, she gradually was unable to breathe. She had to have oxygen full-time. She still went to work, even though she could hardly make it up the stairs to the office, and at home she had to move her bedroom to the living room. Then, by some miracle, in Colleen’s mind, she got put on the list for a lung transplant. She didn’t think someone like her – who had to some extent brought her disease upon herself with her street lifestyle and addictions – would have the right to a new set of lungs. I was there the day she asked the transplant surgeon if she would have the same chance as anybody else at getting a set of lungs. Yes, he said – and he added that most of their transplant patients had lifestyle issues one way or another, from smoking or some other habit that destroyed their health. And sure enough, within a year she had a set of new lungs. That was in November of 2001 – almost seven years ago.

The last time I saw Colleen was in June of 2005 when I went to Edmonton to baptize her three sons and her granddaughter. It was a joyful occasion. We went to her house afterwards and had a party to celebrate the occasion. I stayed at her house that night and she gave me her bedroom. She was going to sleep on the couch in the living room. Her youngest son was the only one who still lived at home and she didn’t want to take his room because he was writing a Grade 12 diploma exam the next day. Sometime during the night a woman and her son arrived on Colleen’s doorstep needing a place to stay. She gave the woman the couch and she slept on the floor. That was what Colleen did – in fact she had been that generous all of her life, and it was often what got her into trouble.

She was already struggling a lot with her health – even though she said she was relieved she could take a full breath, she had other issues with her heart and with diabetes brought on by the anti-rejection medications she had to take. But she kept going – it was what she did. She had tremendous courage and determination.

I got a message one day this spring telling me Colleen had passed away. She was 54 years old. I wished very much that I’d known how sick she was – the last time I tried to call her the telephone was disconnected. I wasn’t able to go to the funeral because of the short notice but I did send a message to be read at the service. People who were there told me it was read. So I was able to tell everyone that I believe Colleen went straight to heaven, and that her life was no doubt very pleasing to God. By believing in the mercy of God, she lived straight into God’s future. I am sure she is one of the “righteous [who] will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father….Let anyone with ears listen!”