Sermon.
Today’s sermon reflecting on the wise words from Proverbs and the Gospel according to Matthew, is about the distinction between the good and the bad, the righteous and the wicked, the sinful and the sinners, the weeds, and the wheat.
This black and white separation, this black and white salvation or condemnation, this concept of good and evil…. Reminds me of the old saying in Denmark.
Which is better: Sitting in the church thinking about the bar or sitting in the bar thinking about church?
Which is better: being the right place thinking about the wrong things, or being the wrong place thinking about the right things?
Which is better: pretending to be good while covering your flaws or living in sin while hoping for change?
Once upon a time there was a man who owned a part. Every day at 5 p.m. the man took the parrot out of his cage and walked down the street to the corner bar, where he had a few drinks and talked with his friends. He had taught the parrot to order for him, yelling out: “Give me a beer! Give me a beer!” every time he came into the bar. Every Sunday morning though the same man and his wife went to church, locking the bird in its cage before they left the house. One Sunday the door on the cage did not latch well and the bird got out. It flew out an open window and found its way to the church. It flew in and lit on its master’s shoulder, crying out at the top of its lungs: “Give me a beer! Give me a beer!”
The man was embarrassed and not to mention his wife. And He told the bird to hush: “Be quiet! This isn’t the bar, it is the church! The bird looked around and said: “ Awwk! Same old crowd! Same old crowd!”
Today’s Gospel deals with the difficulty in telling the difference between the good seed and the bad seed, the wheat and the weeds, the saints, and the sinners. Always and forever, near as I can tell, it looks like the same old crowd.
Numerous time in the history of the church, the good people have tried so hard to separate themselves from the bad people. And many times, the attempt to separate good and bad…. Has been lacking the very core of our faith: the amazing grace of God.
In today’s Gospel, the master tells the workers to wait and not try to “weed out” the bad. This story is not so much about farming and gardening, as it is about realizing that only God can judge and that we are called upon wit without judgment and treat one another with respect. Maybe because as our reformer Martin Luther knew and struggled with in his faith: there is really no such thing as separating the good from the bad in this life…. As Luther said: we are all saints and sinners at the same time.”
If we are honest, as Martin Luther was in his struggling with faith, grace, and God, - we too know that we are both saint and sinner at the same time. That good and evil are imbedded in us. That most of us, most of the time, a good and decent people, but we are not saintly as we cannot really live up to the standards and ideals of Sainthood. We all slip. We all fail. We all make mistakes. We all need forgiveness. The author Solzhenitsyn wrote: “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being…”
We need to realize that the fine line separating the good and evil, wheat and weeds, good seed and bad seed, saints and sinners doesn’t just go between us – it goes right through us.
Therefore, Jesus always counseled patience.
Therefore, Jesus always preached forgiveness.
Therefore, Jesus always short and blunt and absolute commended us “Not to judge!”
In three short words Jesus commended us “Do not judge”, when he gave his radical sermon on the mount. And he told us that in the same way we judge others, we will be judged too. So, it is our judgmental attitude, that is the issue as we off course judge others but often forget to look at the man in the mirror.
Common sense and everyday experience tells us that one of our favorite things to do is exactly that: to judge one another.
Common sense also suggests that if no one ever judged others, three would not be any human community or relations. In our world, in our world of saints and sinner, no community can exist for long if nobody is ever held accountable or actions a judged good or bad.
No teacher would grade a student’s performance
No citizen would sit on a jury or call a failed politician to account.
And when we come to think of it, nobody would ever forgive anyone for wrong he had done. We only forgive people for what we blame them, and we blame them only after we have judged them.
But our judgmental attitude of only seeing the speaks of sins in our neighbor’s life and not noticing the beams of sins in our own eyes, that is the kind of human judgement that Jesus was warning us about.
But the point of Jesus words today it to focus on God’s grace – and God alone can do the final judgment. Because the fine line between good and bad does not go between us, but right though each one of us.
At the center of our Christian faith is the Amazing Grace, that came into the world in the life and teachings of Jesus, who lived, taught, and spoke, suffered, and died and rose rain so that our sins could be forgiven and we could live as forgiven sinners and aspiring saints.
The greatest symbol and sign in our church of the amazing grace is the meal that we are all invited to and welcome at: Holy Communion.
It is almost like a family or class reunion. A strange collection of people who gather together to visit, to meet, to greet, to catch up, to care, to eat and connect. The good and the bad, the wheat and the weeds, the good seed, and the bad seed all together, all accepted and all welcome at the table.
The old Proverb stated:” In the way of righteousness there is life, along that path is immortality. “
Which is better: Sitting in the church thinking about the bar or sitting in the bar thinking about church?
Which is better: being the right place thinking about the wrong things, or being the wrong place thinking about the right things?
Which is better: pretending to be good while covering your flaws or living in sin while hoping for change?
The truth is that the line dividing good and evil cuts right through the heart of every human being and every human life. We are indeed both Saints and Sinners… forgiven Sinners aspiring to be Saints.
The final judgment of this human life, the final labeling of good and bad, wheat or weeds, the final harvest at the end of age, is in God’s hand and heart. And we can only pray for forgiveness and that amazing grace to embrace us and our neighbors too. As we are all the same old crowd as the parrot shouted.
And so, we pray:
Lord, let our hearts be good soil open to the seed of your word. Where my heart is hard, break the stone away, where my heart is cold, warm it with the day, where my heart is lost, lead me on your way. Lord. Let me heart be good soil. Amen.