"Come On!"

Pentecost6a14, July 20, 2014 (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 with Romans 8:12-25 in b.g.)

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a judge in a court of law? Would that be easy: to hear different presentations of evidence, deeply consider different perceptions of what has happened, and then to render a verdict, realizing that said verdict will impact a number of people for the rest of their lives and perhaps even set a precedent that others may be required to follow. Will your rendered verdict give more emphasis to the letter of the "law" or to the spirit of the "law"? Blessings in all of that.

 

I reflect upon these questions in the light of the Gospel lesson. I also reflect upon these questions as judges are frequently criticized these days for being "too lenient" or out of touch with "reality". What verdict might we render in their position: for a drunk driver that has young children who has killed or maimed a person or persons? What might our verdict be for a person who has molested another person – younger, even under sing their influence. Such a verdict  may seem "cut and dry". But when you learn that the molester also had been molested as a child – and that nothing was done about that, will that revelation impact your verdict? Should it?   

 

It's quite easy to cast judgments from afar. We human beings have the propensity to do that. We can make quick judgments about so many people, so many things.  It may be another's driving habits – even though we have no idea of their age nor their circumstance. Or, such judgments may involve thoughts about politicians we don't really know. How can we understand the many factors they must take into account before deciding upon a course of action?  Or, our "judgments" may be cloaked as stereotypes: police officers, pastors, teachers, youth. Can or should all police officers or pastors or youth be expected to act exactly the same or thing exactly the same?

 

Are such "judgments" the result of the perceptions we already have of the world, limited though they may be? Or might such "judgments" somehow try to make "sense" of the way things are – so that we might at least mentally have some "absolutes" that then in our eyes make us feel or look good?  

 

There is no doubt: evil is alive and all to "well" in this world. A person who is driving while impaired kills innocent persons or people. Some persons prey on others: financially, sexually, even in terms of slandering other's reputations. In addition there are forces destructively working in our world that defy the imagination: nations are being ripped apart by the drivenness of some to undertake genocide/ a number of cultures are marked by racial and or sexual prejudice. We produce enough food to feed everyone. Nevertheless millions are starving, including many, many children. Evil is  at work in the world.  It rages against all that is good, of God.

 

But evil isn't just "out there" in others. Evil is also in here – in our hearts and minds, in the church. If you doubt me dare to take a personal inventory – at your thoughts, your actions, your words. Are we ever or often less than charitable?  Sometimes what we say and certainly what we think can be just downright nasty. Does putting others "down", somehow make us  "better"? Or, for an inventory list, ask yourself this: are you ever surprised by your own actions: a response to a joke, to being cut off in traffic, to a particular politician's words or success? Are those responses pleasing to God?

 

This doesn't mean that we are all "bad" individually or collectively.  In our inventories may we also see the beauty and wonder of so many both in the church and outside of it. There are people who do for others - often quietly, unseen. There are exceedingly busy people, who want to contribute to something and someone beyond themselves. There are people who in being graciously touched by God are gracious in return. Halle, hallejuah. Thanks be to God.

 

And yet, our lives are always a mixture of God's goodness and of that which is opposed to God Sometimes we feel that we can work this all out or that evil is out there but not in here, within us. Such thinking leads to serious problems. Yet, in our mixed state of being both saint and sinner, we must make life decisions about how to proceed, whom to trust,  in what we will invest our lives.  

 

This is at least some of what Jesus' parable is about. Both the very conclusion and the explanation are about the final judgment but the vast majority of the parable itself is about the in between times, the here and now. What is ultimately good and what is ultimately evil is not always so clear to us. There is more to the book than just its cover. Beware. God alone sees completely. God alone will make the final discerning judgement.

 

How good this is. We are not God! We are not the final nor ultimate judges. And miraculously, so contrary to many human actions, God waits. In waiting God works to change the weeds, to transform them, bit by bit or sometimes even suddenly and radically.

 

This is good news – for us individually and collectively. If the judgment were final and instantaneous – where would we be? If our eye caused us to sin, or our ear or our mind, and they were then cut off from ourselves, others and God, well what would be left?

 

Thankfully God is both gracious and holy. God continues to work even now, to embrace us, to show us ourselves, to move us towards God for forgiveness and new beginnings. In these ways we are like new shoots just beginning to push through the ground. God in Jesus through the Holy spirit is the sunlight, the water and the caregiver we so desperately need, all in One. Each day this God works to encourage us to grow and live, perhaps even silently whispering, "Come on! Come on. Together we will do this!" There will be new life.

Thanks be to God – who not only plants us but who keeps on working so that new life will be born, grow to maturity both within and without. Thanks be to God for God's holy and merciful judgment – which is both patient and ever working and some day will put an end to evil and death.

            In these in between times, by God's grace, "Come on! Come on!" Amen.