Author: John Drymon

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I’ve discovered over the years that it is to my benefit (and I hope to some extent the benefit of those subjected to my sermons) to read theologians and biblical scholars for who I have a great deal of respect and with whom I find some common ground but who at the same time challenge my own ideas. This is like threading a needle. I mustn’t stick exclusively to those with whom I am in nearly perfect agreement (probably the closest would be the so-called “radical orthodoxy” of theologians like John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock), as they’ll serve largely to reïnforce what I already take to be the case. On the other hand, it does me little good intellectually–and perhaps it is positively harmful spiritually–to spend too much time poring over texts whose basic assumptions are so beyond the pale that it becomes questionable whether the authors are even making good faith arguments. Here I class things like the Jesus Seminar and Process Theology.

So the “sweet spot” as it were is where intellectual honesty and rigor meet the challenging of my own assumptions, and there are plenty of good examples of this. I love much of what Karl Rahner wrote, particularly regarding “unthematic revelation” as the precursor to Christian inquiry, but I can’t fully embrace his definition of the Trinity. I think N.T. Wright is a tremendously careful, faithful reader of the bible, but (as I mentioned during our Christian education series on Romans) I’m not sure I can fully embrace his reading of Paul’s use of the word faith (πιστις) in that letter, and I think in some ways he’s over-corrected when it comes to his view of the afterlife. There is a great deal I find compelling in the work of Karl Barth, but sometimes I can identify with one critic who wrote “the first time I read a volume of [Church Dogmatics]… I felt like a ferret swimming in a bucket of Thorazine.”

Probably the best example of this “Goldilocks zone” of theology for me, though, is the work of Orthodox Theologian David Bentley Hart. His first monograph on aesthetics and theological truth was a game-changer and his work metaphysics (insofar as I understand it, anyway) seems similarly on point. But his 2019 book That All Shall Be Saved strayed too far, I believe, from the biblical witness and teaching of the church in its argument for universalism (that is, to put it simply, the idea that it is impossible for anybody to choose perdition rather than salvation). I could maybe go so far as the Orthodox Church in America’s Archbishop, in echoing the great Kallistos Ware (himself, like Hart, an Anglican convert to Orthodoxy) “we can’t teach universal salvation as doctrine, but we can hope for it.”

That said, what we mustn’t ever do, is presume to claim who makes the cut and who doesn’t, whose faith is genuine and whose isn’t, who’s elect and who’s reprobate. Some sadly do so presume. The Westboro Baptist Church, that cult from Kansas, that homophobic Kansas cult that protests soldiers’ funerals, famously have done. I’ve done a fair amount of driving the last couple of weeks, and I’m always struck by the billboard on I-75 that just says “Heaven or Hell” and gives a toll-free phone number. I’ve not tried calling, but I wonder what verdict they’d give me.

This morning’s gospel should serve as a warning to avoid this kind of speculation. The slaves approach their master and ask if they should pull the weeds out of the garden, a rather obvious thing to do, one should think. The master, however, is afraid that some of the wheat would be thrown out with the weeds, and instructs the slave to let them grow, leaving the separation for the reaper.

I had always thought it rather strange, not having a background in agriculture, that the weeds could not be distinguished from the wheat. I had always assumed a farmer could tell the difference. Having done a bit of research, though, I discovered that the weeds in question were likely lolium temulentum, or darnel, which indeed cannot be easily distinguished from wheat until very late in both plants’ maturation. So Jesus’ audience would have known the dangers of trying to pull up these weeds from a wheat field prematurely. Some of the crop would invariably be lost.

And notice whom Jesus identifies as the reapers: they are the angels. They’re not us. They are not the clergy or the matriarchs and patriarchs of a parish church or the vestry or the General Convention of the Episcopal Church or any other human agent. The angels make the separation, not us.

It goes without saying that this should lead us to a degree of tolerance. I think it’s easy enough for most of us to avoid speculating out loud about a person’s ultimate destination, but I think our hearts have more trouble in this regard than we might expect. I have thought to say and very occasionally actually said to somebody those three horrible words that lie in wait, ready to pop out of our mouths when we’re angry: go to hell. Rarely do I really mean it literally, but sometimes, maybe deep down, I do. That’s my problem; that’s sin.

In a sermon on this very text, St. Augustine had this to say:

O you Christians, whose lives are good, you sigh and groan as being few among many, few among very many. The winter will pass away, the summer will come; lo! The harvest will soon be here. The angels will come who can make the separation, and who cannot make mistakes. … I tell you of a truth, my Beloved, even in these high seats there is both wheat, and tares, and among the laity there is wheat, and tares. Let the good tolerate the bad; let the bad change themselves, and imitate the good. Let us all, if it may be so, attain to God; let us all through His mercy escape the evil of this world. Let us seek after good days, for we are now in evil days; but in the evil days let us not blaspheme, that so we may be able to arrive at the good days.

Here that great father of the church not only tells us to withhold judgment—not knowing as well as the angels who might be a weed and who might be wheat—but he also warns us not to blaspheme. Blasphemy is irreverence, and it may take the form of us presuming to carry out the divine task of judgment ourselves. To presume to say somebody is going or has gone to hell, to take upon ourselves the authority to proclaim damnation, is perhaps the greatest blasphemy of all.

Let’s make a go, then, of withholding judgment, knowing that judgment is not our prerogative when it comes to eternal matters. In fact, let’s go one step further, by really trusting that God knows what he’s doing. We might be surprised on our own heavenly birthday, when we go to join the saints in light, when we see who’s there. They will have been changed, perfected, made into what God meant them to be, as will we. If we hadn’t got it be then, we will finally realize how wrong we were to condemn so quickly, but, thanks be to God, that that realization will not inhibit us, but will free us to live in that land where our sinful arrogance has been purged and we can live in perfect peace and unity.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“[Some] seeds fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them… As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the delight in riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.” Today’s gospel lesson is the first of seven parables in St. Matthew’s gospel, and it serves as the paradigm for parables in the gospel. It’s been said that parables serve the paradoxical purpose of both revealing the truth of the matter and concealing it. Indeed, in the passage cut out from the middle of today’s reading (you’ll notice we skipped from verse 9 to verse 18 of the thirteenth chapter of Matthew), Jesus admits this to be the case.

Parables, the parable of the sower included, are often mysterious, difficult to pull apart. And let’s face it: the subject matter with which the parables are meant to deal is itself rather difficult. Any of you who have taught a class will know how important it is to use examples and analogies while attempting to explain a particularly difficult, abstract concept. You will also realize how profound the limitations of such analogies are. The issues with which Jesus is dealing are rather abstract, and so the metaphors presented in parables, though helpful for our understanding, can only approximate the truth of the matter. The fourth verse of the popular Holy Week hymn “O Sacred Head Sore Wounded” begins by asking Jesus “what language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend?” Our language and our all-too-human minds are incapable of fully communicating or comprehending the mysteries of God and his Kingdom. Thus, parables provide a helpful if somewhat limited entry point for contemplating these mysteries.

We have the apparent advantage in this parable of having Jesus’ explanation follow the parable itself. However, if we take a closer look, the explanation doesn’t necessarily simplify the parable. Rather, we are presented a few new questions in the explanation itself, questions which the parable doesn’t answer: who is the sower, what is the word symbolized by the seeds, and what are the “fruits” this word yields?

Let us take the first two of these questions, the identity of the sower and the nature of the word, as one question because, in fact, I believe (along with the Church Fathers) that we are to understand both the sower and the sown to refer to the same thing, namely to Christ himself. “The word scattered the seed,” St. Athanasius writes, and the seed is itself symbolic of the word. This is all to say that our Lord came to disseminate nothing less than his whole self to all who would accept him.

And this word, like a seed teeming with potential but in itself very small, may come to a glorious fruition. But then, perhaps it won’t. The Greek Fathers called this seed logos spermatikos, the generative word, because it holds so much potential for developing a complex, beautiful new spiritual creation, and yet it also requires the right conditions, or else it might come to nought.

As the section of the parable I read a few moments ago mentioned, among the obstacles standing in the way of the word reaching its end in us are the thorny cares of the world and the lure of wealth. It seems entirely appropriate, especially in this day and age, that the two should be uttered in the same breath. For many of us the cares of the world revolve around the lack of money. For others it may be aging and illness, for others it could be the disintegration of a family, and still for others it could be the ravages of addiction.

We need to have some sympathy for those whose faith is tried and even lost to the cares of the world. We cannot, for instance, entirely blame Eli Weisel, the Twentieth Century’s most notable activist for Holocaust remembrance, for losing his faith in the concentration camp at Buchenwald. Sometimes it is a lack of faith which allows the cares of the world to do their damage, but sometimes the cares of the world are simply too intense to suffer, and I believe it is in God’s power (that power being infinite) to give grace even to those who reject him in their distress.

Conversely, it is to those in times of great distress that God is most apparent. We must pray continually for those in great sorrow, need, and distress, praying not only that their troubles may be alleviated, but also that they may find comfort and reassurance and may come to know God more fully in the midst of that distress.

There is plenty to cause us distress in this day and age. War and poverty are an everyday reality for much of the world’s population. This might be an unfair assumption, but I would be willing to bet that most (though probably not all) of us have been spared the pain of being directly effected by something so horrific. The thorny cares that most of us deal with most of the time are of the more garden variety of troubles, which though not driving us to reject the faith or to put ourselves at avowed enmity with God, often make us close ourselves off to the full realization of his grace in our lives. I think we have to start to fight against this by allowing God to cultivate in the soil of our lives a certain mindset of love and openness. We must try to see that the thorns are not only aberrant, external objects; they can also be attitudes that we cultivate in ourselves. Difficulties cannot be avoided, but our approach to them and our willingness to let God’s grace abide in us during times of difficulty are within our power, even in the most difficult of times.

It should be enough that God loves us. God gives grace freely through the living Christ. That should be enough, but it doesn’t seem like it sometimes. That’s normal, and God understands that, too. Yet this does not exempt us from attempting to accept God’s grace and mercy. We must try, as impossibly difficult as it seems during the thorny times of life, to be still and know that God is with us, suffering with us, and sowing in our hearts that with which we are to bear fruits.

And what are these fruits? It seems to me that the yield of the vineyard of the Lord is as diverse as Christ’s Church. There are many of you who give of your time, talents, and treasure to various ministries in this church. That is a fruit. There are many of you who are loving parents and devoted spouses, and bring into those relationships God’s love, and that is yet another fruit. Through the waters of baptism and by the continual outpouring of the Holy Spirit we have been made a new people in Jesus Christ, to show forth God’s glory in all the world. As the prophet Isaiah said:

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it… Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Back in the 70’s, comedian Flip Wilson popularized the now ubiquitous excuse “the devil made me do it.” The joke, of course, is that it’s a lame excuse. “The devil made me do it” will not hold up in court or in a meeting with your supervisor at work, and I discovered that by the time I was in high school it did not amuse my parents.

A certain way of reading Paul in today’s epistle might, however, strike us as analogous to Wilson’s excuse. “It is no longer I that do it,” Paul says of his own disobedience, “but sin that dwells within me.” Far from being an excuse, however, St. Paul is presenting a rather subtle account of moral and immoral action. The passage is a bit confusing, because of the terms Paul uses: sin, law, flesh, mind. These are all terms with complex, nuanced definitions for Paul, and it will benefits us to spend a bit of time unpacking them.

First, the concept of law is important for Paul, and we can understand why. He was a Pharisee, and it was the job of Pharisees to be well-versed in the Torah, the law of God as presented in the first five books of the bible. That is to say, Paul’s whole business before he became a Christian was to know every obscure regulation from those bits of the Old Testament we hardly ever read in church. There are, in fact, 613 laws in those bits of the bible, and they cover everything from obvious moral imperatives (e.g. not to commit murder) to tax codes and regulations on how to worship in the temple. We know a few of them by common knowledge—like the prohibition against pork and shellfish—but the particulars really get very complex, and Pharisees were concerned with regulating behavior so that all were above reproach. This often meant making rules which might strike us as overly-conscientious to avoid even the possibility of offense.

So this is Paul’s relationship to law. He is not what in fancy theological terms we call an antinomian. That is, he is not content to say that God’s Grace is such that it entirely exempts us from following certain laws. The law, including those 613 obscure regulations, was given by God and is, thus, good. This means we cannot simply reject the law, even the apparently weird laws we don’t follow like not eating shellfish. We cannot say they were simply created by man in a benighted time. The law is from God, but our relationship to it is essentially different under the New Covenant of Jesus Christ. We have, in other words, a transformed relationship to the law.

Because we are human, because we are fallen, this new relationship to the law is in some sense affected by sin. Sin is another of those technical terms Paul uses, and it relates to the other two technical terms: flesh and mind. Sin, here, is actually the Greek word ͑αμαρτια, which literally means “missing the mark”. It is the word that the ancient Greeks would have used of an archer who couldn’t shoot the bullseye. But in today’s reading, Paul personifies sin. It is more than an occurrence of missing the mark; it is something which dwells within us, endowing us with an almost unavoidable tendency to err. It is not that “the devil makes us do it”, it is that our very nature is such that it leads us to sin. It is this nature which Paul calls flesh.

We must be very careful with this term, though. It is flesh not body. For those interested in the Greek, it is σαρκς not σωμα. Our bodies are gifts from God, who made them perfect at Creation and who gave His son a real body not only when he was born but when he was raised from the dead. This is why John makes such a big deal of the resurrected Christ eating and drinking and being physically touched by Thomas. Such will be our state after the resurrection. As we say in the Apostles Creed “we believe in the resurrection of the body” not “in the resurrection of disembodied ghosts”.

Anyway, the biblical view is that bodies are good things. It is flesh, or the tendency to sin which is a bad thing. It is the flesh which Paul explains later in his letter to the Romans that demands the gratification of desires which have no bearing on our livelihood, inordinate desires which go well beyond the normal needs and creature-comforts (which are themselves fine) to demand that which benefits us to the detriment of others: greed and lust and gluttony and pride. The law was given as a means to avoid these fleshly desires. The New Covenant is in a sense more difficult because in place of all these laws, a mere two are given to dissuade us from falling victim to the flesh: love God and love your neighbors. It is more difficult because instead of following a bunch of clear rules, we have to reckon how all the choices in our life meet or fail to meet these two commandments.

And that is where the mind comes in. Again, this is a technical term, and it does not mean reason. I have found in my own life that often reason leads to sin as much as being irrational. This might sound counterintuitive, so let me explain. Reason is a gift from God, just like our bodies, but like our bodies it can be taken over by the flesh. While the legitimate needs of the body can be perverted by the flesh into inordinate desires, so too can human reason be perverted by the flesh to justify just about anything. This is what we call rationalization. Herman Melville, in his novella Billy Budd, wrote of “conscience being but the lawyer to [our] will.” How often do we knowingly do what we ought not to do after convincing ourselves that we are justified in the offense. In Paradise Lost, Milton goes so far as to suggest that Adam and Eve’s transgression may have come after such a rationalization, and takes us through several lines in which Eve convinces herself that God really meant for her to eat the fruit.

So, reason has the potential to lead us astray just as it has the potential to lead us down the right path. So what is the “law of the mind” which Paul says does battle with the “law of the flesh”. We find the answer when we look elsewhere in Paul’s writings. In First Corinthians, Paul explains that discerning God’s will in our lives is possible because “we have the mind of Christ.” In Philippians he urges his followers to “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” Later in Romans, Paul says, “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Doing what God demands of us is dependent on us conforming our minds to that of Our Lord. How in heaven’s name are we to do that; this is a tall order. If I knew the answer entirely, I’d be a much less selfish, struggling person than I am. I believe, however, that I know how to start. It seems to me that we begin the process of “conforming our minds” and growing “to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ,” as Paul put it to the Ephesians, through the hard work of authentic prayer. Prayer is nothing less than participating in the work of Christ which began on His sojourn in the wilderness and found its consummation in the prayer He offered on the cross for humanity’s salvation. It matters less how one prays (though the prayer book offers an excellent model). A daily practice of thanksgiving, praise, intercession, and bible study should be central; and our weekly observance of the Holy Communion serves to bind our lives even more closely to that of our Savior. Whatever the method, though, the practice of prayer has an evident impact on how we live and militates against the assault of “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” We will never reach perfection, which Paul knew painfully well. “[We] do not do what [we] want, but [we] do the very thing we hate”, and this will remain a constant struggle. But “thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” that in spite of the fact that sometimes we err, God’s Grace is infinite and His forgiveness waits only upon our reception of the same.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen