The lectionary these weeks is bringing us through a portion of Matthew’s Gospel that contains many of Jesus’ parables, and so each week we are presented with a new teaching of Jesus from those stories. Last week, we heard the parable of the sower and learned the reason why the sower flings seed everywhere, seeking out the hidden good soil in the midst of the troubles of the world. Today, we have another agricultural parable, known most famously as the parable of the wheat and the tares.

Like last week’s parable, we once again have the uncommon trait of Jesus explaining the meaning of the parable. I think these two are the only parables he does that, although I could be mistaken. But even with the explanation, I think we badly miss the message Jesus is trying to convey here.

In the Luther movie from a few years ago, there is a scene about mid-way through the story where Luther is on trial for heresy. He’s at the Diet of Worms and he’s making ready to give his testimony. His old mentor from the monastery, Staupitz, is giving him a shave and they’re having a conversation. Staupitz laments about the way that things have turned out, and he comments at one point that all his life, he’s seen a world that hates evil more than it loves good.

Looking over the width and breadth of history, I see a lot of truth in that statement. Humanity always seems to on a crusade to destroy evil, no matter the cost. We are far more eager to destroy, than to create. Far more eager to harm than to nurture. We are much like the angels in this parable, ever so eager to go out and rid the field of all the weeds, heedless of the destruction it will cause to the wheat.

War is probably the most potent example of this. War may sometimes be necessary to stop tyranny and evil, but we must never forget that it also inflicts its own evils upon the world. We defeated the Nazis and the fascist Japanese 60 years ago in the Second World War, but how many civilians died when firebombed Tokyo or Dresden? How many died when we nuked Nagasaki and Hiroshima? My parent’s generation still mourns the death of 58,209 of their own in the Vietnam War. Not to minimize that loss, but over 1.5 million Vietnamese lost their lives also in that conflict. Surely not all of them were the VC out for American blood; many, I suspect, were just ordinary folks just trying to live their lives.

The necessity of these and all other wars I leave to your own judgment, but there can be no question that in our efforts to eradicate a few weeds, we have wrought much damage upon the wheat of the world. But war isn’t the only way we do this. There are a lot of different ways human societies show that what Luther’s mentor said bears the truth. Another example. It is a common pattern in societies, organizations, and institutions under duress to label the problem as originating in an individual or a group or a family. It’s called scapegoating.

Andy’s been passing around photos of some event that took place here at St. John’s many decades ago. A picture of the sanctuary covered in American flags. No one knows precisely what the event is, but I have a possibility. Is the church decorated as it is due to the event pictured or is it because German Lutheran churches had prove to the rest of this country that we were not siding with our enemies during the First World War?

We were often the scapegoat for the nation and more than one Lutheran church was burned to the ground during those years. What was our crime? Nothing more than having a common origin with the Kaiser.

We interned the Japanese during the Second World War and of course the most vile example of scapegoating in history was its contemporary, where Nazi Germany blamed the Jews for all their economic troubles and then set about exterminating them. But this happens even on a smaller scale. Families blame the black sheep. Churches kick out a family or a pastor because it’s all their fault. We seek to destroy the evil, but so often we destroy good along with it.

We hate evil more than we love good. More eager to destroy than to create. More eager to harm than to nurture.

What we so often fail to see is the reality that Christ does and then conveys to us in this parable. We often think of evil as over there, that other, that person, that country, that race or ethnicity. Jesus reminds that evil is intertwined with good, just as the roots of the wheat and the weeds are intertwined in the field. In each of us is the potential for both. Evil’s not over there; it’s right here. Within us. And good is not solely here, there’s good over there too. Our lives, our natures, are not black and white. There is much grey within us.

Thomas Jefferson wrote those immortal words about freedom and liberty in the Declaration of Independence and yet was a slaveowner. MLK Jr fought for the freedom of his people, brough down Jim Crow, and made equal rights for people of all colors a goal and ideal of this nation, but if rumors are to be believed, he was not the most loyal of husbands. And in each of us, there are strengths, there are triumphs, there is much good that we have done, and yet at the same time, there are mistakes, there are flaws, there are regrets for things we should have done differently.

Is it worth destroying the good to rid us of the evil? Too often, I think we have answered yes to that question.

Jesus, on the other hand, has a different answer. Here is one that truly loves the good more than he hates the evil. And he counsels patience. In all of us, he seeks to nurture that which is best in us, in all people, with the hope that the wheat will grow up stronger than the weeds. He grants graces untold, skills, talents, the people around us who love and care for us, ideas and inspirations, all working upon us to make the good stronger, healthier, more fruitful.

And that effort often bears fruit. We have seen time and time again of stories of great deeds performed by the most unlikely of people. Of incredible good accomplished by those we once believed evil. I’ve used St. Paul a lot as an example of late, but he is a great example of precisely why Christ does what he does and believes in our potential for good like he does. Here is a man once dedicated to destroying the church brought around to be one of its greatest advocates and apostles. Never underestimate what God can do with a little time and effort.

It can sometimes be hard to wait for God to bring his plans to fruition; hard to wait for the harvest when we will be rid of evil within and without. But the promise of the harvest is sure and in the time between now and then, God may have a lot of surprises in store for us. The greatest of all may be the good that we do ourselves, the lives we touch and change by our compassion and love. We may find the weeds are not so strong after all, and our wheat bears much fruit. But this can only happen if we let God work upon us. Don’t underestimate what he can do. He can change your life and he can change the world through you. He just needs to let your wheat grow. Amen.