“Ambiguity.” … That’s our word for today.
How’s this for a definition? “a lack of decisiveness or commitment resulting from a failure to make a choice between alternatives.” … That’s not bad.
I think of ambiguity as that awkward moment of standing with one foot on the ship and the other on the shore. The boat is leaving, but you realize you forgot to lock your car. … You’re pulled in both directions and feel like you’re about to wind up in the drink. …. That’s ambiguity.
The opposite, of course, would be “unambiguous” – Something that is open to only one interpretation.
Unambiguous might describe the difference between wheat and zizania – the plant today’s scripture refers to as the Tares…. It is also known as bearded darnel… and it is not just a nuisance. It harbors a form of ergot … a mold that is poisonous … sometimes deadly.
This is summertime and our lectionary has taken a definite agricultural turn. Last week we talked about the work of the Prodigal Sower … this week, we take another look at the field … a field that Jesus explains is “the world.”
Isn’t it interesting that a book like our Bible, which is said to have so much to do with ephemeral, pie-in-the-sky matters …. Actually contains so much earthy material?
Today’s gospel reading is divided once again into three parts… The first part. … the second part … and the missing part.
In the first part, Jesus offers a parable. A parable is a story that serves as a kind of skeleton for the way real life things relate to each other. It is designed as a way to provide perspective to situations that may be too close or complex. A parable is different than an allegory. In an allegory, one thing stands for another thing and that’s that. Jesus’ parables were richer than that … as the test of time has shown.
The parable is a way of coming to understand what Jesus called the kingdom of heaven. It is also called God’s reign … by those who imagine the best world is one where God is in charge. … or God’s dream for creation … by those who think God IS in charge and is working things out …. Or even the Commonwealth of Heaven by some who think we people have a role in its coming about.
In the parable, a farmer sowed a field with wheat. When the plants came up, a potentially dangerous weed was mixed in with the grain, and the owner deduced that an enemy had sabotaged the field with weed seeds. The workers want to know whether they might pull the weeds out. But he said “no” … “for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.” He says to wait until the harvest. Then they will be separated and the grain stored in the barn and the weeds burned.
In the allegorical interpretation, Jesus explains that the “field” is the world. The good seed is scattered by the Son of Man – that’s a name Matthew indicates that Jesus uses to describe himself – He describes the good seeds as the children of the kingdom. The bad seeds are children of the evil one, sowed by the devil. At harvest time, the angels will “collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers.” They will be tossed into the fire while the righteous shine in the kingdom.
In the section the lectionary leaves out, Matthew once again reminds us that parables – stories left open for interpretation – were Jesus’ usual form of public speaking.
And that’s reassuring because the question quickly comes to mind: Who among us isn’t some complex mixture of good and bad? Remember in a reading a couple of weeks ago, even the apostle Paul lamented, “Even though I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” (Romans 7:21)
The movie Schindler’s List is the story of a German industrialist during World War II. He saved more than 1000 Polish Jews from concentration camps — and likely death. … One of the people he saved said this: “He was our father, our mother, our only hope. He never let us down.”
Certainly, to use our allegory, this was a man bound for the barn, not for the fire.
But suppose I told you a story about a man who loved the good life – wine, women and song – he cheated on his wife. He was a Roman Catholic – but in name only. He was a member of the Nazi party and his sworn goal was to end the war with two trunks full of money. He exploited the Jews as a cheap source of labor.
How would he fare in the allegory? Barn or fire?
And there’s the rub. …. Same man … Oskar Schindler. … Maybe placed by circumstances in a more prominent role, but like most of us,… a complex mix of greed … lust … the vices … and compassion …. Empathy …. The virtues.
Goodness was in him, but so were flaws. … Both wheat and weeds.
People who deal with the human psyche …. Especially students of Carl Jung …. Speak of an aspect of our personalities they call “shadow.” This is part of our personality that is usually unrecognized by our conscious mind. Jung wrote that “Everyone has a shadow and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” Becoming conscious of that shadow takes work. It is a process called “individuation” that can be a goal of analysis or therapy.
One characteristic of shadow is that – while we might not be aware of it in ourselves – we can certainly spot it in our enemies. Walter Wink, a theologian, writes extensively on modern ways to understand what early Christians called “powers” and “demons”….He touches on this theme as he discusses the sense behind the idea that we should love our enemies.
He says it like this: “The enemy is not just a hurdle on the way to God. The enemy can be the way to God. We cannot come to terms with our shadow except through our enemy for we have no better access to those unacceptable parts of ourselves that need redeeming than through the mirror that our enemies hold up to us. This then is another, more intimate reason for loving our enemies: We are dependent on our enemies for our very individuation. We cannot be whole people without them.” (The Powers That Be p171)
When we come to today’s reading in Matthew, it is easy to take it as an acknowledgement that evil really does exist. But as the parable moves along, it becomes less clear what that might mean to us.
In one sense, it is a warning. If we think we have it all figured out … how to judge good and evil …. How to determine right and wrong … moral from immoral … vicious from virtuous …. Think again! … What comes immediately to mind is the good-intentioned wave of Prohibition that shut down liquor sales in the US from 1920 to 1933 … and unintentionally gave organized crime a foothold in the world of big business. We may be seeing some of the same in the continuing fallout from the War on Drugs.
But does it mean that we cease to try to recognize and struggle against things that we know are wrong? Of course not. But it does acknowledge our own shaky footing as judges and it asks us to trust God with the outcomes.
And it asks us … in the meantime … to acknowledge the weeds among us – the weeds within us …
If we are conscious and aware as followers of Jesus, this can be a burden that can take the shape of guilt or remorse … The positive side is to recognize it and want to change … to experience the new way of being and knowing that Jesus taught. … But the negative side might be a sense of futility …. That I’m not good enough or that what I do doesn’t matter.
That’s why the most important words in this worship service … in any worship service … are the Words of Assurance that follow the Unison Prayer. I heard it put this way: “In a world of ambiguity, the only absolute is absolution.”
We go about the world each week, encountering all the opportunities, pitfalls and pratfalls it contains. We try to do our best. We succeed, we fail. We do good. We mess up.
When we come here on Sunday, we are reminded that the God who knows us so well … Loves Us…. That the good news is that in Christ, …. You are forgiven.
Know that and be at peace.
Let us pray: Gracious Patient God, you have given us free range in a world so full of things and opportunities…that we often don’t know what’s best. We know that you have called us to be your people, and we ask your guidance. Help us know right from wrong … good from evil…. Especially when the choices are difficult. Forgive us when we choose wrong. Help us to know that we are forgiven, renewed, and sent forth once again to be your light in your creation. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.
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