Reflection for Trinity VI: Who's in, and who's out?

Matthew 13.24-30, 36-43

He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” But he replied, “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.”’

Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.’ He answered, ‘The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

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Tabitha and I are both fans of the TV presenter and investigative journalist Louis Theroux. He has done many programmes over the years, but the episodes people most remember are the ones featuring the Westboro’ Baptist Church (aka ‘Americas most hated family’). What makes the Westboro’ congregation so interesting is both their fire and brimstone preaching, and their exclusionary brand of teaching, where only a very few (the congregation of their church) will receive God’s favour. Most of us they believe are bound for perdition.

This desire to exclude other Christians, whether on the basis of teaching or behaviour, is a tendency in the Church almost as old as the Church herself. St Paul rails against it in his letter to the Galatians, where those who believed that gentile Christians should follow the teachings of the Jewish law regarding ritual, food and behaviour were confusing this newly formed church. In the 6^th century AD St Augustine of Hippo argued against the heretical Donatists, a group of Christian purists who argued that clergy must be sin free and faultless, and only the sacraments celebrated and prayers said by such clergy were valid.

The Donatist movement came out of the age of persecution, where some Christians submitted to the authorities, and sacrificed to idols, and/ or handed over the authorities to save their own lives. How was the church to respond when they sought readmission? With mercy, or with outright condemnation and permanent exclusion? Augustine believed in readmission albeit with appropriate repentance, and eventually the Donatists were condemned as heretics.

There remains an exclusionary spirit within some parts of the wider church today, particularly amongst those who follow the teachings of Calvin and his successors. They believe in double predestination, that is that God has already decided who will be saved and go to Heaven, and who will be damned and go to Hell.

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In the parable of the wheat and the tares in today's Gospel reading Jesus talks about this exclusionary tendency, and warns against it.  In the parable he likens the Church to a field in which wheat has been sown, but where weeds have already grown up. Do we weed the field now asks the servant? No replies the farmer (God), to do so would be to damage both the weeds and the wheat, leave it until the harvest, that is the end of all things. Then the farmer can decide on which is to be saved, and which is to be disposed of.

You will notice that in the parable it is not the wheat or the weeds who decide what happens to the other, rather it is the God and his angels. It is a reminder that whilst there remains in our faith a very human tendency to try and exclude, to decide who is In and who is Out. Jesus reminds us that it is God who makes that judgement, not us. Talking this over with Tabitha, she reminded me that when we try to make that judgement ourselves we place ourselves in danger of committing the sins of blasphemy and hubris. Blasphemy because we are trying to take the place of God, hubris because we are saying that we either know the mind of God, or that we know better than God. We should avoid this temptation wherever possible, and rather let our minds be aligned with that of St Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (12.3) where he writes: ‘[Do] not to think of yourself more highly than you ought […], but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.’ Though this might be more easily said than done!