July 20,
2008/Year A, Ordinary 16
Matthew
13: 24-30, 36-43
It’s taken me ten and a half years, but I’m finally
getting around to preaching a sermon on hell.
And just in the nick of time!
I’ve only got this Sunday and next Sunday in this pulpit.
It’s easy to say why I’ve put it off for so long. I am one of those people who think it’s
easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar. I’ve never had much use for those tracts you
find in restrooms with vivid descriptions of the lake of fire, or these Hell
Houses that some congregations have taken to putting on every Halloween. Better to preach the love of God that draws
God’s wayward children up into the lap of our Heavenly Father than the wrath of
God that scares the you-know-what out of them.
But there it is in this morning’s gospel lesson: Satan,
the final judgment, heaven and hell.
This is why preaching from the lectionary is a good discipline. It forces you to tackle subjects you might
otherwise shy away from.
And to be honest, you deserve a sermon on hell. But wait, let me explain before you take
offense. The scripture uses vivid
metaphors to describe this domain of eternal punishment: fire, weeping and gnashing of teeth. Those three images certainly call to mind our
own experiences of hell on earth: the
smoldering fires in lower Manhattan that fed on pulverized concrete and silicon
and, yes, human remains in the fall of 2001.
The bitter tears and wringing of hands that sometimes overcome us at the
grave of a loved one, or in a lonely nursing home room where no one but the
paid staff comes calling, the gnashing of teeth at a past that can’t be undone,
and a future that seems padlocked to any good possibilities. Pain, suffering, hopelessness, despair. We’ve tasted these in small amounts. Has our experience of these dreaded events
and emotions inoculated us against a full blown case in the next life, or is it
only an appetizer of what is to come? We
want to know.
That said, a word of caution is in order. We ought not come to this parable out of idle
curiosity about the afterlife, or with excessive fear about whether or not
we’re going to wind up down there, but with the humble confidence of children
of God. If you are following Jesus, then
you will pass through the valley of the shadow of death, no doubt. But if you are following Jesus, putting your
trust in him, clinging to the hem of his garment, seeking healing, wholeness
and new life, then you can be assured that your final destination on this
journey is the house of the Lord. Jesus
Christ will shepherd you safely to heaven, and not allow you to fall into hell.
If so, then why bother thinking about hell at all? Because, as we’ve already observed, some of
us have experienced hell on earth, right here in the midst of God’s good
creation. And that contrast between the
world as God intended it to be, and the world as it is cries out for
answers. Why and how could 19 guys with
box cutters turn those tall buildings standing in a lovely fall day in a
wonderful city into a crematorium? Why
do some lives end tragically soon, and others drag on to such undignified
ends? If God created the world and
pronounced it good, then where does this suffering and hopelessness come from?
“An enemy has done this,” says the master to the
servants, looking out over a field of green winter wheat now marred with yellow
dandelion blooms and prickly cockleburs.
Where this enemy came from, and why he set himself up against the Master
the parable does not say. And much of
what we think we know in answer to these questions comes from literature, and
not the scriptures.
What the parable does say is that God did not ordain that
the field of God’s creation be overrun with weeds. And neither does God ordain your experiences
of hell on earth. Everything good in
your life comes from the hand of your generous, loving creator. And while God will eventually pluck up and
cast into the fire every evil that is in your life, the evil does not come from
God. It comes from elsewhere.
In the Bible the source of evil is personified as a being
called Satan. Now I was watching the
Tour de France the other night. The
bicyclists were rolling through the foothills of the Pyrenees, and one camera
shot was memorable. A guy dressed in
red, carrying a pitchfork, was running alongside the riders as they slowed down
while ascending a steep climb. The guy’s
name is Didi Senft, and ever since 1993 he has shown up at the Tour every year
in his costume, calling himself El Diablo.
He got his inspiration from a German sports journalist who nicknamed the
last lap in a local bike racing event “The Red Devil’s lap.”
That’s our image of the devil, but again, the Bible is as
silent about his appearance as it is about just what motivated him to set
himself up as an enemy of God. What we
do learn from this parable is how hard working he is, how active the forces of
evil are in the world. Last week Jesus
compared Satan to a flock of black crows circling over the field, ready to
scoop up any stray seed that the sower might cast on the path. This week we see him as some kind of demented
nocturnal farmer, coming behind the master and his field hands, sowing tares in
the midst of the wheat while everyone lies asleep at night.
He never rests. He
never sleeps. But again, we observe this
about the enemy from the vantage point of those who are guarded by the rod and
staff of our Lord Jesus. So we are put
on notice, but not worried to death about the state of our souls or the state of
the world.
And his work, while ceaseless, is not all that
creative. The devil is a saboteur, a
vandal. He can besmirch what God has
wrought, but he can’t create anything on his own. This universe is God’s masterwork, God’s Mona
Lisa, and all that Satan can do is sneak into the museum at night and paint a
moustache on her face with a sharpie.
That said, the moustache is an affront to the creativity
of the Creator. The field, all mixed up
with wheat and with tares, is an insult to the Master. What shall we do? Apply White-Out to the moustache? Grab a hoe and head for the field? We’ve got to fix this world!
Not so fast. Hear
the words of the Master: “No; for in
gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the
harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Collect the weeds first
and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”
In our haste to erase the effects of evil, we may wind up
damaging what is good in the world. By
now we’re all too familiar with the euphemism “collateral damage.” God dreads collateral damage. So much so that God would have us nurture what
is good in this sabotaged world rather than rid the world of evildoers. For only God can rid the world of evildoers
in such a time and in such way as to not lose any tender stalks of wheat and
the precious fruit it bears.
The outrage at what we read in the newspaper and what
we’ve experienced at the hands of others is natural and justifiable. But before we grab a hoe or authorize others
to do so in our name, Jesus counsels us to take a deep breath and count to ten,
and hand that righteous indignation over to God, who will execute judgment at a
time and place of God’s choosing.
To live this way requires patience. Patience, the scriptures say, is a fruit of
the Holy Spirit, and the sacrament of baptism is a sign that God has anointed
us with God’s Spirit. So, to wait
patiently in a vandalized world demands that we remember who we are and whose
we are. Through faith, we belong to
Christ and through the waters of baptism, we are made members of his body. And just as Christ entrusted himself to God
and was rewarded, so shall our patience be rewarded.
From the epistle lesson we learn that at times this
patient waiting may take on the character of waiting for a baby to be
born. It may involve intense pain and
suffering and labor on our part, or standing by those who are suffering in
order to bring new life into the world. The
patience that Jesus calls us to embody is not, in the words of Harry Emerson
Fosdick, “weak resignation to the evils we deplore.” It is the hard work of watering and fertilizing
the shoots of goodness that are springing up in our lives and churches and
neighborhoods, and the self-control to leave the hoe hanging up in the shed, trusting
that, in due season the Master will send the reapers into the field to gather
the harvest.
Now I've thought about this passage this week in light of who we are as a congregation. We are officers of the court and social workers. Law enforcement officers and veterans of the armed forces. We are commissioned to weed the field, and even take a hoe to
those copperheads that slither through the underbrush. I have no idea how to square Jesus’ call to
patience with the mission so many of us are entrusted with. But I would say one thing. We have all been frustrated at times by our inability to achieve perfect order
and security, and those episodes in which perfect justice eludes us. That’s the absurdity of this
world. And it drives us crazy.
What Jesus teaches us in this parable about heaven and
hell, the Master and the enemy, the wheat and the tares is that in the end, we
will find what seems to slip through our grasp in this life. There will be a settling of accounts and a
balancing of the scales. Justice will
prevail.
That’s why Jesus teaches us about hell in this parable. It’s not the stick in our evangelistic bag of
tricks. It ought not keep us awake at
night in fear and dread. But for those
who are on the road to heaven, hell inspires us to the patient resolve of
nurturing righteousness, and the quiet confidence that, when all is said and
done, this crazy, absurd world will make sense.
Everything good will shine like the sun.
And everything evil will be no more.
I'm not sure what to comment because I dont believe in hell or satan. Yeah I am one of those who experienced hell on earth and I think it must be harder to convince us types about that. But I am guessing I am not the audience you speak to, its people who already believe in heaven and hell? So...why speak it then, just to converse with like minded people? I mean is that what a sermon is? Just curious. Honestly I'm not trying to rock the boat, though I do that often. (It must be my talent.) I read your blogs often but I usually dont comment because I feel they are not aimed at people like me, they are aimed at your congregation. I wish some were though, aimed at people like me.
:-)
Posted by: Nancy | 23 July 2008 at 03:21 AM
Marvin,
This is marvelous. Your congregation doesn't know how good they've got it (or had it).
Good luck with packing.
Posted by: Dave Bruner | 05 August 2008 at 02:11 AM