God's Word To A People Facing Terrorism

GOD’S WORD TO A PEOPLE FACING TERRORISM

As we gather for worship this afternoon, people are gathering in Toronto for the Pope’s youth rally service: hundreds of thousands of worshippers AND, you can be sure, thousands of police and secret service security agents. We can be sure that, since Sept 11 of last year, with a much-heightened awareness of security issues and the possibility of terrorism, our host government for this event will be zealous about security.

Security issues have rocketed to centre stage in our society in response not only to Sept 11, but also in response to what seems -if you read the paper- to be a plague of terror breaking forth all around the world.

 Suicide bombers in the Middle East: almost every day we hear another story of that

 An attempt on the French president’s life: a Canadian foiled that attempt

 The threat that Saddam Hussein has, and will use, biological and chemical weapons

We all know about these things and the stories pile up and up against a backdrop of on-going struggles around the world: the situation in Ireland, terror used as a weapon in Sierra Leone where children were frequent victims of machete attacks, heightened border security everywhere: and, all this not to mention the so-called War on Terrorism that so preoccupies our daily news.

We are being inundated with stories of terrorism. So much so that Katerina Whitley, an Anglican writer in the States says, “It would be better not to listen to the news these days.” 1 No newscast is complete, it seems, without finding a terrorism story from somewhere in the world by which our mass hysteria can be fed. The more frightened we are, the more money we’ll spend and the more we’ll idolize those who would look to be our heroes and saviours- President Bush has never been as high in the polls as he is right now, masquerading as the champion of freedom and saviour of the free world… There is profit both fiscally and in terms of popularity to be harvested from a prolonged paranoia about terrorism. Whitley continues: “The word terrorism has become a refrain that obsesses those who deliver and those who consume the news. And anything that obsesses becomes an idol.” 2We need to deflate terrorism’s obsessive grip on our psyche and move more constructive works back into priority focus.

Our scripture reading for today, though we often miss the reality, is actually a teaching, by Jesus, that addresses issues of terrorism and war and occupation/persecution, etc.… How we must respond? What should be our priorities at a time like this? Jesus has something to say about all that…

As we approach the reading, we need to remember that the Jews of Jesus’ day were living in an occupied land. The Romans had invaded and were continuing to hold ruthless control over the people. They had control of the church and related institutions. They kept people in poverty: one of the results of the excessive taxation that they imposed. They passed restrictive laws -excluding whole classes of people from the protections of the justice system (unless they happened to be Romans -as Paul at one point managed to argue effectively); they used crucifixion as a weapon of terror –and, the streets of Jerusalem regularly dripped of blood. And, let us not forget, from the Christmas story, the chapter on the Massacre of the Innocents whereby the Romans sent out a powerful message that put the fear of death into anyone who might hope that even some baby might grow up to be a man who might lead the people to freedom.

It is in the midst of this context that Jesus speaks the words of today’s parable and central to the parable is the issue of weeds being planted in the midst of wheat fields. What you may not have realized before about this intentional act of sabotage is that it was a very real tactic of terror used in Jesus’ day: an ancient, Biblical day equivalent to the planting of landmines, or the use of airplanes to deliver bombs, or the possibility of biological or chemical weapons… The weeds referred to in this parable are actually one very particular kind of weed- a thing called darnel.

Darnel was a plant that looked exactly like wheat in its early stages of growth. As the plant matured however, it became the natural breeding ground for a particular fungus that flourished in its seed head- a fungus that was deadly to both man and beast.

An enemy has sneaked in and planted darnel in the wheat fields- that’s the very real issue that Jesus is addressing. Someone has tried to poison the food supply. Why would Roman operatives do that? We can speculate… It may have been that they wanted to sell protection to worried farmers (for a price). It may have been that they wanted people to die- so that they could put some kind of spin on the story that would blame local rebels among the Jews (making them very unpopular) while justifying even more restrictive measures in society. It may simply have been that fear was a commodity that fed the occupying armies purposes- keep people on edge and pre-occupied with terror while they advanced their own agenda. It may have been all these things: but, at any rate, the situation was real- there was darnel being planted in the wheat fields and that posed a significant danger to people.