Matthew 13 | Wheat and Tares 1997

Most of you remember that for a few brief months a couple of years ago I served as the associate pastor of an American Baptist church in San Leandro. While I was there, the church got kicked out of the Western Association of American Baptist Churches. You always knew I was a troublemaker, didn't you? In fact, what I witnessed there was the fruition of something that had been brewing for quite some time.

When I came to the church, they had decided as a congregation to allow gay and lesbian Christians to enjoy full participation in the church's life and ministry. In doing this, they joined a loose association of three other American Baptist churches in the area that had made the same decision. They called their new confederation the "Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists." I attended the denominational meetings on the issue with great interest.

And, I might add, with great, great disappointment. In a large, plush sanctuary, I listened to hours of testimony from churches who have opened their doors to homosexual brothers and sisters, and of the valuable ministry their churches have found. I also listened with appreciation to a handful of thoughtful conservatives who listened with compassion and yet had genuine concerns about compromising their tradition. But what I remember most was listening to hours of angry badgering from fundamentalists who proclaimed judgment and hellfire upon gay and lesbian people, and upon the churches that opened their doors to them. They felt they had the sole handle on God's truth and that it was their responsibility to pronounce God's judgment upon anyone who did not agree with them.

One of these meetings was particularly ugly, and ended with some people in tears, and the whole Association great distress. It was a very unsettling for me to watch these people; these people who are trying to the very best of their ability to live lives of Christian integrity literally at each others' throats.

Now, this is not a sermon about gays in the church. It is a sermon about how Christians determine truth. For the sad fact is that this experience with the Baptists is not an isolated incident. Christian history is filled with sad, angry meetings. Even worse are the scores of bloody battles that have been fought about such "all important" issues as whether or not to change a word in the Nicene Creed, or exactly how Christ is present in the Eucharist, or which bishop should get the money from certain lands worked by serfs.

It is a tragedy that we who profess to follow the "Prince of Peace," think almost nothing of slaughtering each other on the battlefield over a trifling bit of theology, or in more modern times, slandering each other in public over which people Jesus does or does not want us to love.

Religion can be a sick, sick business, and we are the inheritors of a dangerous, legacy, a shameful history, all rolled together with a inspiring promise of redemption and peace. How are we to sort it out? How are we to make our amends? How are we to go forward with this mixed blessing we call Christianity?

Obviously, the approach so often taken by our ancestors is not appropriate. Killing Christians in the name of Christ no longer seems like such a keen idea to us today. It is most assuredly not a desirable method for explicating and establishing doctrine. Nor is censure or shunning an appropriate option for Christians. It is not the way of the Gospel.

So, you may be asking, what is the way of the Gospel? Jesus tells a tale about a man who has a field sown with good seed. By night, the man's enemy comes and sows weeds in the field, and before long, the wheat and the weeds are growing up side by side. When the servant asks whether they should go and pluck out the weeds, the master says, "No. If you pull out the weeds you will uproot the wheat as well. Let both grow together until the harvest."

The master of the field in this story doesn't trust the servants to be able to tell the wheat from the weeds, and he is afraid that if they go out there and start pulling up plants, they'll pull up most of the good ones while they're at it.

This is a tale we should consider carefully, because the seed being planted is, of course, us. The field is the church, and from the beginning, the field has had its share of weeds--heretics, swindlers and ne'erdowells. Now Christians in the past were not listening very carefully, because they felt somehow qualified to distinguish wheat from weeds. Woe to the pious Christian who feels qualified to make such decisions!

The idea that ultimate truth is knowable is a very alluring idea. It is also a very dangerous one. The church likes to think that they've got God all figured out. That the universe fits neatly into a little package defined in someone's systematic theology, and anyone who doesn't fit the cookie-cutter mold of what defines a Christian should be killed or shunned or asked to go elsewhere. I would like to think that God laughs at our hubris, but I don't think God does. I think our past is too littered with burning stakes, excommunication's and broken hearts for it to be funny.

It is not for us to define who is or who is not a Christian. It is not for us to label someone a heretic or a sinner. We are all sinners. But we are also inheritors of the same glorious promise that our mistakes will not be held against us. Why can we not extend to others the grace that we have received? If I have learned anything in my journey it is that God is far beyond our ability to describe or even conceive. God is mystery, and like the air, anytime you think you have a grip on God, God slips through your fingers! God is not a gerbil we can keep in a cage or a dog we can teach tricks to. God will not be held, pinned down or defined by us.

God's truth is likewise mysterious. It is assuredly our responsibility to try to the best of our ability to determine God's truth in our lives. But it is not our responsibility to define God's truth for others. Nor is it our responsibility to try to define God's truth for those in the future who will arrive in this world with a whole new set of problems, circumstances and cultural peculiarities. We cannot conceive of the challenges they will face, and we cannot imagine that we have the authority to speak for God to them.

They will have the wise counsel of the Holy Spirit, even as we do, and we must trust that they will listen. The great Congregationalist founder, Pastor Robinson once said that God "has more truth and light yet to break forth out of the Holy Word."

It is not our business to tell our grandchildren how to live our their faith. We cannot imagine what they will need. It is not our business to tell other Christians how to order their faith and worship. We have enough trouble with our own. It is not our responsibility to label the heretics and to turn out the cheats and swindlers. After all, it is they that most need the grace of the Gospel. If there is one place where they belong, folks, it is the church. It is not for us to weed God's field. It is not for us to label, to accuse, to shun, to excommunicate, to slander or to burn at the stake. Truth is for God to judge, not us.

Does that mean that it doesn't matter what you believe? No. But I am saying that it matters much more how you act. I have known many Buddhists who believe very different things, and yet live more Christ-like lives than many Christians I know. You can have the most theologically correct positions on everything under the sun, but as the Apostle Paul says, if you don't have love, you have nothing.

I did not see a lot of love at the meetings I attended while working at the Baptist church. What I did see was a lot of people rushing out into the Lord's field to pull up the weeds, destroying much good wheat in the process. So I'm looking you square in the eyes this morning with a warning I wish I could preach in every pulpit in America:

Episcopalians, don't think that God is any more pleased with your form of worship than he is with the Missionary Baptist Church making a joyful noise in the heart of Oakland, because God isn't. Congregationalists, don't think that you can smugly hold your polity as God's own, because you can't. Liberals, don't you consider for a minute that your theology is more correct or divinely guided than the theology held by conservatives. Conservatives, likewise don't you get on your high-horse about the so-called heresies being spouted by liberals. Conservatives and liberals, Catholics and Protestants, men and women, gays and straights, we are all after the same thing: we are all trying live out our faith in a way that has integrity. We are not on different sides, folks. We are on the same side. It is not for us to go weeding God's garden. It is for us plant new ones, to water, to nurture and to bring the Good News to all those who would hear it. Paul tells us what we should do: put on compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness and patience, forbearing one another and forgiving one another. And above all these, put on love, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, for indeed you were called to be one body. Let us pray.

Holy and loving God,
We bow before you as your imperfect but willing servants. Our intentions have always been good. We have always wanted to please you and to weed out the error and the charlatans amongst us. But we have not always pleased you, for it was often the very ones whom we thought needed to be weeded out that were your most inspired mouthpieces. If we had succeeded in silencing all the heretics that came our way, we would never have heard Martin Luther, or the Buddha, or Martin Luther King, Jr., or Elizabeth Katie Stanton, or even Jesus. For your revelation is often unpleasant, and goes directly against what we think is best. Help us to let go of our need to be in control, to control you, to control the church, to control each other. Help us to trust in the frightening and wise power of your Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ. Amen.