Sermon at The Cathedral of St. Philip

Epistle: Romans 8.12-25; The “Eager Longing” of the “Children of God”
Gospel: Matthew 13.24-30, 36-43; The Parable of the Wheat and Weeds

Sermon for July 17, 2005, in Mikell Chapel at the Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta, by the Rev’d Theophus “Thee” Smith

All Our “Eager Longing” Today

In the name of God, our Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, and Friend. Amen.

So this is what “the kingdom of heaven” is like: We have been laboring in the field of our lives to produce good things instead of bad:

virtues instead of vices,
right actions instead of wrongs,
truths instead of falsehoods.

But in the course of living we find ourselves having to admit that bad things have also appeared in our character and actions, alongside the good:

vicious attitudes and behaviors;
mistakes, failures, even wrongdoing;
misleading and deceiving others, and even self-deception.

So at some point we begin to worry whether we will experience some kind of severe judgment in life ; some way in which the good part of ourselves will be separated-out from the bad and discounted, so the bad will appear to be even worse:

our vicious characteristics separated-out from the noble in us;
our wrongdoing separated-out from our righteous deeds;
our lies and deceit separated-out from our truth-speaking and honesty.

We might even expect something like the kind of court-room scenes, public trials, or congressional hearings that we have witnessed in the news recently—or witnessed perennially!

But even if such extreme cases happen to us in the course of our lives, before God we hear instead a word of divine forbearance:

‘No, do not try to separate-out the wheat from the weeds.’

No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 30 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.

That is the word of divine forbearance, divine compassion, and divine wisdom that we hear in the gospel of Matthew appointed for today.

And that is what the kingdom of heaven is like, we hear Jesus declare in the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds.

The kingdom of heaven is like the divine forbearance that we experience when we discover that before God—whatever happens before other people—before God our vices and shortcomings will not be separated-out for condemnation and our virtues discounted—as happens in so many trials and hearings.

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Now notice that in today’s Letter to the Romans we hear a similar message of gospel “good news.”

“I consider,” writes St. Paul in chapter 8 of Romans,

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. (Rom. 8.18)

And then, how many times does he proceed in today’s epistle to call us who believe the “children of God?”

14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

Again and again he encourages us to see ourselves in this light.

15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption . . . [the] Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God . . .

And furthermore, the apostle goes on to state the terms and conditions of our adoption as children of God:

17 and if [we are] children, then [we are also] heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ--if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

Here we might want to pause and ask what this ‘suffering-with-Christ-in-order-to-be-glorified-with-him’ might mean for us today. But the Apostle himself does not linger to say what that means. Rather, he hastens to put that suffering in the context of something larger; that grander and more significant “glory about to be revealed to us.” And the hallmark of that glory is the revealing of ourselves as the ”children of God!”

1) In vs.19 he says we wait “with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God;” and

2) In vs.21 he says we wait “in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God;” and finally,

3) In vs.23 he says, “we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”

And now, here are two examples. The first is focused on an individual, one of our own parishioners. And the second is focused on our national and global situation today in a world of terrorism.

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First: the parishioner whom I visited in the hospital earlier this year. As his priest I have a history of pastoral counseling with him over the years. But never before had he been so focused on healing the past instead of simply reviewing it.

I watched and prayed and administered holy communion to him over the course of several weeks. And so I was privileged to observe a version of today’s parable unfold before my eyes.

In some previous seasons of his life, the divine forbearance had allowed his virtues and vices to remain mixed and mingled together.

But in this season of his life he struggled to confess his “trespasses” against others, and struggled also to find forgiveness in his own heart for ‘those who had trespassed against’ him—as our Lord commands us all to do in the prayer that he taught us (The Lord’s Prayer).

So now a harvest-time occurred during his illness when he was granted a gift of the Spirit to make a reckoning of his personal good and evil, rights and wrongs, truths and falsehoods. In fact, it was like the ‘harvest-time’ described in today’s gospel parable on the one hand; and like the ‘first fruits of the Spirit’ referred to in today’s epistle on the other hand.

For his virtues as a caring, noble human being and a loving man began to shine even more, while his sins and faults he confessed and repented of. And more and more, as one of the “children of God,” he manifested ‘the first fruits of the Spirit, groaning inwardly while waiting for adoption, the redemption of his body.’

Thus we see the possibility for a “harvest time” in the course of our lives, when our “weeds” will be purged on the one hand, but our “wheat” will be harvested on the other; so that our goodness will be all the more valued and appreciated.

Of course, we recall that in St. Matthew’s gospel Jesus interprets this harvest-time as the end of the age—the proverbial ‘judgment day.’ That’s when the angels will separate-out the righteous from the wicked, and the children of God from the children of the devil, and when the righteous will be rewarded and the unrighteous will be punished. Matthew’s language is vivid and disturbing, and even seems to contradict the theme of divine forbearance that the parable itself highlights.

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. (Mt. 13.41-13)

Now: however you understand that interpretation, that allegory of Jesus’ parable, I invite us also to consider an additional possibility: the possibility that in this life we have both seasons of divine forbearance and seasons of harvest-time; seasons when our good and our bad characteristics remain mixed and mingled together without scrutiny or judgment, and seasons when they are separated-out so that our virtues can shine and our vices can be purged or even corrected.

Surely we have all experienced this kind of sequence in our own lives; cycles when the ‘field of our lives’ is dormant or fermenting, followed by seasons when God is harvesting our virtues like ‘first fruits of the Spirit,’ and purging our sins and shortcomings as well.

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But now consider a very different example on our national scene and on a global scale. And let’s reflect on this next example in terms of St. Paul’s claim that we who believe in Jesus share an ‘eager longing’ and an ‘inward groaning’ for a glory yet to be revealed; a glory that excels in magnitude the suffering that we experience while we wait for it.

Consider the longing and groaning of all of us who have watched and waited ever since September 11^th (and of course even before September 11^th).

Our eager longing and inward groaning while terrorists and patriots are mixed and mingled together in the same countries;

Our eager longing and inward groaning while peacemakers and war-makers are mixed and mingled together in our own souls; and

Our eager longing and inward groaning while advocates and dissenters are mixed and mingled together in the same communities—in communities like our own here in this church.

Yes, as in the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds, we find mixed and mingled together in this time of eager longing and inward groaning commitment and accusations in common; integrity and outrage in common; and heroism and tragedy in common.

Consider, on one side of our political spectrum, the eager longing and inward groaning of those of us who have yearned for a policy of forbearance,

Forbearance from war until the terrorists could be ‘outed’ and isolated within their own communities—as the British prime minister is now calling for,

Forbearance from war until the terrorists and their murderous ideology could be exposed and rejected within their own religion, as we are increasingly seeing happen at last, and

Forbearance from war in order to allow allowing their vicious rage to find nothing to vent itself against except their own abject frustration; against their sad envy of others; and against their oppressive vision of a future dominated by one faith and one culture alone.

And consider, on the other side of the political spectrum, the eager longing and inward groaning of those of us who have yearned for a providential opening such as this war on terrorism is generating in this period of our global history:

An opening to make democratic freedoms available to peoples and cultures that have too long been denied them;

An opening to meet their eager longing and inward groaning with our bountiful resources; and

An opening to overturn their bondage to oppressive leaders and reverse their failing prospects for peace and security, health and prosperity.

But finally, invoking our scriptures appointed for today, let us consider that even if our national vision and global policies are successful; even if more and more nations are nurtured and flourish as democracies; and even if terrorism is contained or greatly diminished as a scourge on the earth—consider that still our scriptures will apply.

It will still be true that the glory of our democratic vision is not worth comparing to the revelation of “the children of God”—the children of God among us, and the children of God among the other religions of the world.

It will still be true that our passionate desire for freedom—freedom for ourselves and for all the world’s peoples—is not worth comparing to the hope that the entire creation “itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Mt.13.21).

And finally, it will still be true that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” This is a glory that will be revealed as we “wait for our adoption” as the children of God, and it is a glory that entails as well “the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8.18,30) in the new creation promised us as followers of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Followers of Jesus, I enjoin us all today to keep that “hope of glory”* alive in your life and faith and ministry; the hope that as ‘we suffer with him we may also be glorified with him’ (Rom. 8.17).

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Rom. 8.24-25)

In the name of God, our Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, and Friend. Amen.

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* “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1.27)

Comments? Contact The Rev. Thee Smith: tsmith@stphilipscathedral.org

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