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Many of you, just like me, have seen or heard someone make the comment “if you believe [X], then I don’t want to have anything to do with you”, or words to that affect.
You may have seen someone making comments like this online, specifically on social media. Maybe someone threatened to block, unlike, or unfriendly someone who expressed views abhorrent to their beliefs.
Maybe you’ve heard someone say this in a conversation with you. Maybe it was about one of your friends or family members.
Maybe you’ve had these thoughts yourself- that the world would just be better off without certain people expressing their views. Maybe you’ve said these words out loud.
In some way shape or form, this rejection of another because of that person’s viewpoint is something that we can all say we have dealt with in some way, shape, or form. Now picture the scenario like this. The person being rejected is like a weed, a plant no one wants and which destroys and uproots anything it grows near. Picture the others in this scenario as grain, a life-giving food of substance. Thus we have the Parable that Jesus gives us today.
But in this parable, Jesus doesn’t do what we would expect. Jesus doesn’t get rid of the weeds that have been mysteriously sowed by an outside and evil force. Jesus, or rather the master of the field, allows these weeds to grow with the grain until harvest time. Jesus elects to have mercy.
Thank goodness Jesus does so! If Jesus didn’t, who could be saved? We see this in the world around us. We would all like to think that we are the good ones, that we are the grain. But in the parable, the roots of both plants get wrapped up in one another. We see this in the world around us. As good as we might actually appear to be, evil and sin find ways to wrap themselves around us.
To give you a personal example, I personally find racism and prejudice abhorrent. I don’t understand why some people refuse to wear a mask at this time, even though doing so can help protect others in this time of Global Pandemic.
Over the years, however, I have examined myself, and as I have worked to help fight racal injustice, I have found that prejudice and racism, the things I abhor in others, present, at times in myself. I am of two minds, as Paul said of himself two weeks ago. I have had to work constantly to remove those things in myself, and I ask that you take the time to examine and remove these things in yourself too. This is all any of us, as sinful human beings living in this world, can ask of ourselves or others. It is all we can do.
When we look at the views of others, we might want to never talk to them again. We might want to block them on social media, or “cancel” them as we see in our culture right now. But if we really look at ourselves, we will find that we have done things that deserve to be blocked too.
What we need to do, what our faith demands that we do, is be ambassadors and representatives for Jesus to others. Jesus shows mercy on all of us, even if we don’t deserve it. We need to show that same mercy to others too.
We live in a very divisive time, and it can be painful to watch. When we finally reach the end of this era, or at the very least the end of this Pandemic, there are going to be a lot of people we are angry at and don’t want to forgive, but if we are to continue to be followers of Jesus, we will have to.
That doesn’t mean excusing the actions of others. Forgiveness isn’t about saying everything is alright. It is, in fact, stating the opposite. Forgiveness is recognizing a wrong has been committed but moving forward anyways. It’s about having mercy.
Jesus has mercy on us, even though we are tangled up in the roots with evil in this world. We should show a little mercy on others too. Maybe in that way can ensure that we all can change for the better. Maybe in that way, we can ensure that the roots of the grain do get untangled from the roots of the life-sucking weeds. Maybe in that way we can live into the compassion of Jesus that ensures that evil will never have the last laugh or win in the end.