Pentecost Seven

July 19, 2020, Pentecost 7 (Proper 11) | First Lutheran, Houston | Genesis 28:10-19a, Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24, Romans 8:12-25, Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 | Pastor Evan McClanahan |

 

Have you been canceled yet? You know, written off, memory holed, removed from existence? Treated like the invisible man or woman? If not, it’s coming. Canceling is all the rage, you see? It even has a name: it’s called, “cancel culture.” In the past, we called it “book burning” because, well, to cancel a person or idea of note you would have to burn their books. But since we have digital footprints more than literary footprints, cancel culture reflects the new way that we disparage, ignore, and delete those who may have offended our sensibilities in some way.

 

The only ways to avoid being canceled are to either completely buy in to what is all the rage at the moment or to keep quiet. But then, we are told that “silence is violence”, so that isn’t an option, either. So, your options are really to buy in to what is all the rage at the moment or be canceled.

 

What cancel culture represents is a kind of social purity test. Such tests change as the culture changes, and it can affect any group: the society at large, a church, a neighborhood watch group, etc. Every group has boundaries that you cannot offend without the risk of excommunication. Today, if you ever said anything questionable in your past or if you cite data that some do not like, you may be canceled by the forces of what we used to call “political correctness”. You can lose your job, get thrown off of social media platforms, or disgraced.

 

Jesus himself is on the verge of being canceled. This week, an airline passenger caused a plane to make an emergency landing because he insisted that everyone agree that Jesus was black. Yes, the race of Jesus is now a source of conflict and many have cancelled images of Jesus that well, are too white. (To be clear, Jesus was an ethnic Hebrew, so if you want to know what he looked like, it isn’t hard to find out.)

 

But I think about cancel culture because our Gospel lesson this morning is all about the kinds of conflict we are to expect, both within the church and the world. Actually, the extent of this parable isn’t really clear. Is the teaching about how wheat and tares in the world are to grow together and be separated out in the end, or is the teaching about how wheat and tares in the Church are to grow together and be separated out later? You can make the case for both.

 

On the one hand, the text seems universal in scope. Jesus is talking about the end times, the judgement of the world. He says, “the harvest is the end of the age”, so this seems to be about the judgement of the whole world. So, the whole world is where you will find wheat and tares growing together.

 

Well, that much should be obvious right? Christians are followers of Jesus and among us are many who do not follow Jesus. That doesn’t mean they are all as evil as they can be, but they are not on Team Jesus with us. We believe that at the end of the age when the judgement takes place, those who have trusted in Jesus, who have not competed with Jesus for our salvation or rejected the authority of God…we will be saved.

 

On the other hand, we know that church membership or participation certainly doesn’t guarantee salvation or doctrinal purity. So even within what we call the visible church, there will be division and separation. If not every so-called Christian will be saved, then this parable can surely be about life within the Church as well. And given that this is really our sphere of influence, we tend to apply it to the church. We have certainly had our own versions of purity tests through the years. Ever hear of the Inquisition?

 

But, of course, just as in our society today with cancel culture, just where and why you draw lines isn’t always clear. Draw them too tightly and you’re a Pharisee. Too loosely, and you haven’t preserved the faith “once delivered to all the saints.” Oh, and it gets more complicated. What would your source of authority be for deciding what your standard would be? This is the issue, really, of the Reformation. Luther and company ultimately disagreed – and we still disagree – with Rome’s claims of Traditional authority, so he naturally disagreed with the outcomes of those authorities. If you limit your authority to the scriptures alone, as all of the Reformers did, then you will come up with different answers on just what orthodox Christianity really is.

 

Still, Jesus seems to be suggesting that we do not go on campaigns to rid from our midst everyone who does not meet our standard of purity. Rather, the believers and the unbelievers will grow together in this world, and we will let God sort it out at the end. In the meantime, we seek and promote peace wherever and however we can. This does not mean that justice does not still require punishment and it does not mean that we never break fellowship. Jesus and Paul recommend exactly that when a clear sinner refuses to repent. In Matthew 18, Jesus says that the unrepentant sinner, after being confronted, is to be treated like a sinner and tax collector. Paul says not to even associate with someone who is sexually immoral. So even Jesus recommends breaking fellowship and civil justice.

 

The parable, then, is really descriptive of what things will be like in the Church. It may not be obvious who the wheat and the tares are in the present. We may be very surprised when we get to heaven and not all of us are there. Perhaps professing Christians have secret sins that they will not repent of or perhaps their confession of Christ is a lie. Because it is not always obvious who are the “true believers” in God’s Kingdom, we do not initiate pogroms for every doctrinal difference. Luther was certainly considered a tare by the Church of his day, but we would say he was wheat, no?

 

Jesus seems to be cautioning against cancel culture. Standards, boundaries, limits? Yes. But patience is needed for the truth is not always obvious. Trust in God is also needed. (That should always be obvious!) He, or really His angels, are the sifters of the wheat and the tares, not you and not me. So we live together, truly tolerating differences and trusting in God to be smarter than us.

 

Indeed, while the Church is often accused of being intolerant – and no doubt some Christians are – by and large, we have a history of tolerance. As bad as the inquisition was, it resulted in the deaths of several thousand people over several hundred years. Granted, that is too many, but it isn’t the mass torture and death that is often depicted or presumed. Generally, Christians live alongside other cultures, religions, and ethnicities well. Countless missionaries have settled into new cultures, learned their language, and patiently taught the Gospel over the course of decades.

 

The very notion of “tolerance” itself is the result of Christian anthropology, the belief that ALL human beings are made in God’s image and worthy of respect and dignity, no matter what they believe. Likewise, the commandment to love your neighbor – which includes those pesky Samaritans, for example, that is, those who are not your ethnicity or religion – certainly has acted as a guard against Christians wiping out the infidels among them. Our nation’s motto, E Pluribus Unum, “Out of many, one” assumes tolerance. Tolerance, indeed, is a virtue, and this is one of the key passages that would be used to defend it.

 

The problem comes when the demand for mere tolerance becomes the demand for equal acceptance. And then when disagreement becomes heresy. And then heresy, be it social or religious, leads too persecution. Make no mistake, there is no neutral ground in the spiritual world. Everyone is religious. Everyone has a worldview. It is only a question of which religion and which worldview, and which one wins out when a society is determining, what are the limits and the boundaries of what is acceptable?

 

I argue for Christianity. Not only because I love Jesus and not only because I believe Christianity is true. But because, as we see in this parable, the Christian is to be patient in the course of time. We allow God to be the judge. We trust in God’s wisdom more than our own which is not only good for our neighbor as it protects them from us, it protects us from them as well! What Christianity protects and promotes is the opposite of cancel culture. It is tolerance. So it is no surprise that as Christianity is lost, as these parables of Jesus are erased from our collective memories, so, too, is the tolerance that they champion.

 

Might we see a revival in our day, not only so that we will see more come to trust in Christ, but we will reap the benefits as well. Most of all, the benefit of being allowed to survive and thrive, and letting God be the judge. Amen.