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.
What is Jesus’ response to this “act of terrorism?”
“An enemy has done this,” he says. Make no mistake about it, the Romans are the one’s responsible. Don’t get caught up in suspicion about your neighbours. Don’t be blaming any of the locals. See this for what it is: a Roman act of terrorism designed to serve Roman purposes.
“Only an enemy would do this,” Jesus says. This action is immoral and evil: it is a tactic unworthy of respectable God fearing people. It is wrong. Jesus has no hesitation condemning terrorism.
“And, don’t you get into the game…” Jesus urges the people not to fight fire with fire- so to speak. Don’t demean yourselves and get caught stooping to such evil ways in response: or, you’ll end up just as despicable as the Romans themselves. Only a “child of the devil” would perpetrate such horror.
OK, but there were still fields permeated with dangerous darnel. What were the people supposed to do about that? “Wait,” Jesus says. Now, obviously Jesus has consulted the experts on this one- we might think of them as his own private, counter-terrorism squad… Someone has told Jesus that when darnel is fully-grown and when the wheat is fully grown and very mature, it’s easy for an expert to tell the one from the other. The fact is that the wheat heads on their plants grow heavy and tend to bow the plant over when they’re fully ripe. Darnel seed heads, on the other hand, are much lighter and those plants stand tall right through their life span. So, wait, Jesus says. And, when the time for harvest comes, hire an expert to attend to the harvesting. Get a good reaper: someone you can have confidence in, someone with experience and they will have no problem sorting and bringing in for you the abundance of your crops.
Now, all this very good, practical advice and I’m glad Jesus shared it: but, we must realize that there is more on Jesus’ mind here than simply how to manage the weed and wheat problem. There is a spiritual issue at stake as well: otherwise, why would Jesus take up sermon time for all this advice?
I think Jesus was concerned here to break the yoke of oppression, the fear of terror and move it off centre-stage. Jesus wanted the people to get free of obsession with terror and get them on to a more positive agenda that would bring them back to thinking about God and their spiritual lives. A terrible as the terrorism of the day was, Jesus did not want it to become the sole pre-occupation of the people to the exclusion of all other everyday and cosmic concerns…. “Keep some perspective people!” That was the message. “Keep the wider, broader view somewhere in mind.”
Jesus tries to move his audience along to the broader perspective at the end of today’s reading. “Remember,” he says, “God is in control of the world, of life and possibility. Remember that God sees and cares about his people and his peoples. Remember that many times in history we have faced persecution, occupation, forced migration, enslavement, starvation, terror and war, and, every time, in God’s good time, we have been rescued from it all.
“Always,” Jesus says, “trust God. He will see to sorting the big mess out in his own good time and, meantime, as long as, in the previous parable, the Parable of the Sower, we keep on sowing seeds of love and kindness, seeds of hope and possibility, seeds of good, ultimately they will grow and flourish laying claim to the good soil and to our lives, producing a harvest of righteousness. These things survive: faith, hope, charity and love. Terror may dominate the day, but righteousness will conquer every evil in the end.
One of the favourite, if I’m to pick a favourite, of all the terrorism stories that we’re seeing in the news these days, was broadcast last week on T.V. It showed a Palestinian village under the control of today’s Israeli army. That army enforces curfews- not just at night, but during the day: sometimes for days at a time, keeping all the citizens off the streets, virtually imprisoned in their houses. The camera panned upward, above the people under siege and showed us some kites flying gaily in the sky. The camera followed the strings that was attached to the kites: down, down to the tiny hands holding on to them. And, suddenly we saw children. Palestinian children from their courtyards, sneaking defiantly out to back alleys, there to play and to fly kites high in the sky where they’d be seen by other children and adults to: symbols of hope, life and freedom; symbols of the power of the human spirit enduring, reaching out to others, finding life and laughter and hope that can endure in the midst and well beyond adversity.
There, beside each young child, I have no trouble seeing Jesus: living with them under siege, in squalor, short on food, kept from employment and forced into poverty and privation but nonetheless finding, sharing and celebrating life… life that is now and will be forever.
Wherever we are in the crazy, mixed up world today, we are invited to join Jesus and these kids in spirit: laughing, living and full of life.
Praise be to God, with whom we live for ever and ever.
Amen