Communion Sunday September 6, 2009 “No Separation” Reverend Michael D. Powell  Matthew 13:24-30

There are things that happen in my life, in your life, in the community, our nation and the world that I wish didn’t happen the way they do. For instance, I don’t like accidents. I don’t like sickness, disease, untimely or painful death either. Personally, I think universal health care is a civil liberty that every citizen of our nation is entitled to. I wish we didn’t have to deal with strained relationships or broken marriages. On the national and international stage, I just wish people could get along, don’t you? Well, I’ve got news for both me and you. It ain’t gonna happen.

One of the most perplexing parables Jesus ever told is this morning’s scripture about how the weeds and the wheat grow together and the teaching that it’s only at the harvest that the separation will come. In other words, be patient, some of the things we don’t like we’ll just have to endure. Well, I don’t like that either!

I confessed a couple of weeks ago that I struggled with Paul’s admonishment to “be content in all things,” and said that the only way I could stomach that teaching was to put it through the filter of Reinhold Niehbuhr’s great Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.” I don’t think we’re called to accept that accidents are inevitable. They may be inevitable, but that doesn’t mean we don’t do everything in our power to prevent them. Likewise, sickness and death certainly come to everyone, but that doesn’t mean we serenely accept them without fighting the good fight to provide prevention, care and end of life dignity to the very best of our ability. Wars and rumors of war may be part of the natural human condition, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work for changes in human nature, as well as pray for a supernatural solution to the crisis we find ourselves in.

I think the thing that’s most troubling about the parable of the weeds and the wheat is that if there’s no separation during our lifetime – if, after all is said and done – we’re going to have to accept the things we cannot change and endure the weeds that we can’t separate out, it seems to imply that there’s no separation between good and evil, or between right and wrong, that they’re just going to have to grow up together. And, if that’s the case, it feels like evil can come between us and separate us from God’s love, God’s mercy, and God’s justice. That’s the dilemma. It was Longfellow who wrote the famous lines: “Be still sad heart and cease repining, behind the clouds the sun is shining. Thy fate is the common fate of all, in every life a little rain must fall. Some days must be dark and dreary.”

We don’t like dark and dreary, but after the rain comes the rainbow, and even if the rain waters both the wheat and the weeds, it’s because, as Jesus also says, “God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matt. 5:45)

These are hard teachings, but it helps to remember that we’ve been through hard times before. The sacrament of Holy Communion that we share this morning is rooted in the Jewish remembrance of their liberation from brutal slavery in Egypt. When we shared in the Seder Meal we recounted how God’s mercy was never absent, no matter how bleak and seemingly hopeless the situation became.

When Jesus took the bread and said, “This is my body, broken for you,” he radically reinterpreted the symbols. Yes, the body can be broken. It is inevitable that bad things happen to good people. But the promise of the sacrament is that despair, alienation, brokenness, suffering and death are not the end. The teaching of the sacrament is the same teaching that Paul offers in Romans 8:18-25, there is nothing that can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

When the death and the destruction of World War 11 was at its worst, the great theologian, Paul Tillich, wrote words of hope and encouragement, but they were rooted in a very honest appraisal of evil’s reality:

“It is certainly not a vague promise that, with God’s help, everything will come to a good end; there are many things that come to a bad end. The content of faith in God is this: when death rains down from the heavens as it does now, when cruelty wields power over nations and individuals as it does now, when hunger and persecution drive millions from place to place as they do now and when prisons and slums all over the world distort the humanity of bodies and souls as they do now – we can still claim that even all of this cannot separate us from God’s love. God’s love for us means that there is a creative and saving possibility implied in every situation which cannot be destroyed by any event, and that the demonic and destructive forces can never have an unbreakable grip upon us.” (Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations)

Even as it is true in the events of world history, so it is true in your personal life and mine. We come here to worship God, to fellowship with one another and to offer service to the community, but bad things still happen. The weeds still grow up right alongside the wheat.

I read about a church in Georgia that did a pictorial directory. Everyone dressed up, put on their nice clothes and combed their hair, polished their shoes even if shoes weren’t going to be in the picture. Everyone wanted to look his or her best. But one woman arrived a total mess. She had been late for one of the very last appointments and in her haste had knocked over the coffee pot. Her blouse was soiled and wet and she hadn’t combed her hair or put on her makeup but she had a sense of humor and she wasn’t going to miss being in the directory. She accepted the teases of others in good spirit.

Later, when the directory was published, the pastor looked through it, saw this woman’s picture, and thought to himself: “I could put a caption under every one of these pictures. Under hers I would put: ‘Coffee pot overturned.’ Under this one I could put: ‘Got fired yesterday.’ Under this one: ‘Marriage in trouble.’ Over here: ‘Lost spouse and is lonely.’ This one: ‘Struggling to overcome a rotten childhood.’”

And that’s the way it is for all of us. Our caption would be very similar. There’s not a one of us who hasn’t been wounded in some way, who isn’t struggling with something. No matter how young or how old, each of us would have such a caption. That’s why we’re here. Not because we have it made, but because we’re trying to make it!

As we share in the sacrament of Holy Communion we affirm our solidarity as the Body of Christ in ministry to and with one another, and we give thanks in the immortal words of Romans 8: “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes^* with sighs too deep for words. ²⁷And God,^* who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit^* intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.^* 2We know that all things work together for good^* for those who love God, who are called according to God’s purpose. I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And for that we give thanks. Come; be nourished on the bread of life and the cup of love, given by God through Christ. Amen.