Parables 2: The Wheat and the Tares page 1
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Parables 2: The Wheat and the Tares page 1 |
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I'm not convinced this is the great national cause that will bring down an unpopular Prime Minister in the way the poll tax riots of 1990 fatally wounded Margaret Thatcher's political career. That was a nationwide issue. This issue is more like one that affects specific regions and areas, rather like the 1984 miners' strike, which did not ultimately damage the PM: that inflamed a community never likely to vote for her, and it is the same in reverse here. Nor am I convinced by most of the arguments of the fox-hunting lobby, even if the Bill is misconceived and more about political opportunism than animal welfare. For one thing whatever the need to control foxes I find it bizarre that it should be done as a sport. What next: Rentokil going rat-hunting in the sewers wearing red tunics? Then what about the dogs that will be put down? Well, what used to happen to them before? The hunts were about as kind to dogs that were no longer needed as the greyhound racing industry. And as for all the jobs that will be lost - that was an argument deployed against William Wilberforce when he wanted to abolish the slave trade. The real argument is whether they are jobs in a just profession or not. And that is what it boils down to on both sides of the debate: it is an argument about justice. The Countryside Alliance are campaigning against what they see as a terrible injustice against thousands of people. On the other hand, those who have wanted to see fox-hunting outlawed have also done so on the grounds of justice. They see terrible cruelty being inflicted, and want to stop it. Today's parable is also about justice. It's about having to live with evil and injustice, but not wanting to. It's about asking the God of justice why he hasn't eradicated evil yet. It's about all those kinds of unanswered questions. Perhaps Jesus' disciples were already frustrated with opposition to their Master's cause. Remember the time when James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven on opponents? Perhaps by the time Matthew wrote his Gospel it was a live issue in other ways for his readers. It might have been about persecution, or it might have been about the rise of false teachers in the church. Whatever the original context of the parable and its place in Matthew's Gospel, the issues it addresses are ones that echo down the centuries to our day. Lord, we'd just like to rip this evil out of the world and live in peace and harmony. And if we want that, Lord, why haven't you done it? Surely you want that even more than we do? Why don't you? Aren't you able to? These are big, big questions. I don't pretend that what I say about this parable is a complete and final answer to them. But I hope that what I share in my understanding of Jesus' teaching here will be a partial pointer as we long in our prayers and action for a harvest of righteousness and justice. To do this, I'm going to employ a similar method to the one I used when I preached about the Parable of the Sower: I want to look at the main elements of the parable and look for what is shocking in the story. I believe this means thinking about the farmer, the weeds (or 'tares' in older translations) and the wheat.
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Copyright © David D Faulkner, 2006 except where other sources are attributed or noted as inspiration. |
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