July 20, 2008
Edwards (Knox) United Church
Tenth Sunday After Pentecost
Genesis 28:10-19
Read the passage: The Message or The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
Matthew 13:24-43
Read the passage: The Message or The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
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The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson
One of the most difficult experiences to make sense of is moral outrage. At one level it tells how things have gone wrong, how people have been misused. We see evil and want to do something about it. After all, one of the strengths of the history of the United Church is it is known as a justice seeking church. So we naturally seek to live out of this vision. However, in the process of acting we can discover a part of ourselves that we don’t like. Our moral outrage can become oppressive and draconian. We beat people up and think that we have a corner on the justice market.
How to have a sense of right and wrong has become more difficult in an age of relativism. It is hard to criticize the ideas and actions of others. For one of the mantras of our time is, what ever works for you is fine, whatever is your truth is the truth. I cannot judge your beliefs. In such an atmosphere of extreme tolerance it becomes hard to take a stance. However, there is a time, an action, that goes beyond the well being of our society - hurt has happened, and there is a need to respond.
When there is no center to our moral universe all is at risk. Yeats, the poet, put it this way:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
W. B. Yeats, "The Second Coming"
We rush to judgment and in the process begin to use the same methods that we find offensive in others. We have within our response the very evil we hate.
Our moral outrage can be misused, can be misdirected and can be destructive. One of the results of 9/11 is a fear based on our horror. In the process we assign more danger than is true. We have allowed the rule of law to be suspended because of what we think is a dangerous time. The U.S.A. has allowed torture because of the fear, betraying its best insights. We think we live in a world that is more risky than it is. There are many illustrations of this, for example crime rates have not kept up with population growth, yet we are susceptible to law and order rhetoric. In our desire to get rid of those things that are toxic we sometimes use methods that reflect what we hate. We internalize the toxic reality and in the name of protecting us from chaos we become infected by the evil we resist. In seeking to create safety we become oppressive.
As Christians we are asked to think hard, and critically, about what we believe and to see how our beliefs achieve our goals and when they stand in the way.
This is the beauty of our texts, for they ask us to take as second look before we rush to judgement. Jacob and the owner of the wheat field are about how God views the movement to the common good. These stories are about complex moral stances, not simple moral outrage. They are corrective lenses to counteract our self justification for the world we have created.
When we read of the rush to judgement of the servants we can identify with them. When we read of Jacob’s fear of his brother we identify with him. For we know there are consequences to actions and want there to be some justice to compensate for the injustice done.
We know some weeds will destroy the crop. Or the neighbour’s. Knowing this we can, without thinking, rush to judgement. Jacob deserves some punishment. Something needs to be done. How and with what attitude? How we understand the world influences the actions we take. This is the issue of core values and what we bring to the table. The death of God in our hearts does create a vacuum where everything is permissible. Without transcendent values we easily turn into what we hate. We cannot unhook the method we use to solve the problems from the results. If we feel life is barbaric and cruel, those are the methods we use. If we think it is a dog eat dog world, than we will use methods that eat people up. If we think we live in a world of scarcity, the one with all the toys wins, and we will use methods that destroy our relational world.
Jacob has a dream. The dream offers him a glimpse into the love of God, a way out of censorship and an affirmation God is with him forever. He is given a new way of organizing his life from scarcity to abundance.
Then the wheat field. Over against the servants who want to rush to judgement, we have a farmer who says wait, we cannot know yet. The parable suggest that the realization of human potential is more important that the eradication of human faults. God loves good more than God hates evil. In the Greek myth Medea kills both her sons in revenge against her faithless husband. When asked why she did such an evil, she says, “Because I hated you more than I loved them.” For God love is always stronger than hate.
So our corrective lens cautions us against rushing to judgment and zero tolerance. The rush to judgment can unleash the shadow side of our outrage.
Creation groans for wholeness. We are the people who hope for that wholeness because we have tasted it now in the love of God. We have confidence in God’s paradise, the rule of order, peace, security, justice and abundance. Without denying any present disorder or confusion or distortion, people who hope and watch and wait and pray know that God’s shalom is as good as done. People who hope are people who act with love. We can respond with our best because we know that our best is a way station to the better. We can nurture the attitude of waiting and discerning, for that generates confidence and conviction: confidence in the ultimacy of God’s persuasive power is at work in us and the world, that power is winding its way through the neighbourhood we call world.
George Hermanson
www.georgehermanson.com
