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The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, who abides in which of us. Amen

On our drive home last Sunday, we stopped in Hannibal, MO. Now for those of who might not know, Hannibal is the childhood hometown of Mark Twain and the hometown of the Unsinkable Molly Brown. So, we stopped there for two reasons, one, I was hungry and wanted lunch, but the second reason is the main reason we stopped. You see, my wife, Jill, loves antiques and she was sure there would be some antique stores there. Sure enough, there were several. Now Jill especially loves antique glass and she is the type of person that doesn’t just buy it to put away, when she finds something she likes, she actually brings it home and uses it. Well, during this past Christmas season, she had an antique candy dish out, that was the same kind of dish that her grandmother always had out and one day, when I was lifting off the lid, I dropped it and it shattered. Now, this particular dish is fairly common and not very expensive, and they are easy to find, but they usually have little chips, so since Christmas, Jill ahs been on a mission to replace the dish I broke but it has to be in the same perfect shape as the one I broke. So, our mission in Hannibal, was to get into as many of the antique stores there as possible in a relatively short period of time, to see if we could find the candy dish she was looking for. After looking in several stores without finding the dish we wanted, we finally say a store called Pudd’N’Heads Antiques and Collectables. When we walked in there was a small women behind the counter who was speaking very loud to a customer who was buying many items, but as we walked in she did take the time to say welcome. As we walked through the store, we could hear their entire conversation about how one of her antique vendors had been in the store shortly before Jill and I walked in and that particular vendor was mad at her for something and how that vendor yelled at her in front of the customers and was very rude. Now, as we walked through the store, we did not find the dish we were looking for, but we did find a similar dish that Jill loved, and of course since I was the one who broke the other dish, I was eager to say, we will keep looking, but let’s go ahead and spend the $15 for this one. You love it and it will go great with your other dishes. Well, when we took it up to the register, the gal proceeded to tell us the story we had already heard as we walked around the store. But what I found most interesting about her story was that, yes she was mad at the vendor who yelled at her, and yes, the vendor hurt her for making her look bad in front of her customers, but at the end of the story she said, but she is a good person. For 15 minutes I listened to this woman who was angry, hurt, embarrassed and humiliated complain about the vendor who had just yelled at her in front of her customers, but in the end, she had to say, but she is still a good person.

In our Gospel story today, Jesus once again shares a parable about what the kingdom of heaven is like, and just like the parable for last week, again Jesus speaks about seed, but this time, the parable is about two kinds of seed, good seed and bad seed, both of which are planted in good soil. The bad seed was placed there while no one was looking and by the time everyone knew it was there, it had sprouted the weeds amongst the healthy, good plants. Now, there were those who thought they could easily distinguish between the weeds and the good plants, but as Jesus tells us in this parable, the “Master” of this field knew better. You see, this Master knew that those that wanted to go pull out the weeds would not be able to fully distinguish between the good and the bad, so he said, No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 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’” (13:29-30).

We live in a world that loves to separate the good from the bad. We live in a world that is quick to label those who are good and those who are bad, but in this parable Jesus warns his followers against our tendency to identify who is evil and who is good. We cannot be the judges we love to be.

Evil and good exist in this world and they co-exist. Evil and good co-exist in all of us. Each of us is both good and bad. Martin Luther coined the phrase simul justus et peccator (simultaneously saint and sinner); in other words, there is always good and bad in each of us. Just like that woman who walked into Pudd’N’Heads Antique Store in Hannibal this past Sunday, we are all good and bad at the same time and to attempt to separate out the bad in us, from the good, is virtually impossible. As hard as we try to be good, we still do bad. As Paul said in his letter to the Romans, “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand” (Romans 7:21). Evil lurks close at hand in all of us.

In Jesus day, and even after his day, there were those who always wanted to expel sinful people form their midst. Later in the life of the church, and even today, there are those who constantly seek to excommunicate those who are different from the church, and I am not just speaking about the Catholic Church. Even in our own faith tradition, we constantly are talking about which sinners should be welcome and which we should not welcome. But, this is not our job, and it never has been. Even before the birth of Jesus, God has always taken sole responsibility for judgment. In a couple of weeks 18 of our children will share with us the story of Daniel in the Lions Den, and in the book of Daniel, God was very clear that he would send one who would be given dominion and glory and kingship and that this one’s reign would be everlasting. This judge, this one who would be given dominion who we know as the Son of Man, Jesus, the Christ is the only judge.

As I stand here today there are Jews and Palestinians, killing each other, because neither side can see that there is good and evil in both groups. In this county, our government cannot act responsibly because we no longer can see that in each political group there is good and evil. In the church, yes, even our church, we fight and we attempt to judge others because we fail to see the good in others. We are quick to judge those who are different, those who don’t conform to our way of thinking, acting, or living. As Jesus said to his followers, “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3)

Brothers and Sister, as hard as we try to stamp out evil, Jesus is very clear, evil will exist until he comes to eliminate it. We must live amongst the good, the bad and the ugly. This does not mean we have to succumb to evil. This does not mean we have to let evil destroy us, but it does mean how we deal with evil, is not how the world wants to deal with it. The killing must stop. The hated must stop. The judging must stop. Jesus’ way, the way of love, is counter-cultural, and in our minds we cannot see how it will ever work. But, let me ask you, how is our way working? How well has war, hatred, anger, racism, or any number of other violent ways we have tried worked for us?

So, how do we change the world? We don’t, but we can change how we live our lives. We can change how we live in our communities. We can change how we speak, and how we act, and how we challenge our elected officials and leaders to act. Let our righteousness not be self-righteousness, but let us seek to be righteous in God’s ways. Will we make mistakes? Yes! Will we fail at times? Yes! But we have been given the Sprit of God. We have within us the very Spirit that can and will overcome evil and when we fail, and we will, we can be grateful for God's justice and mercy towards us, and all people. May we find ways to live peacefully amongst the good, the bad and the ugly. Amen.

Tags: Sermons