Day: February 9, 2014

“Behold, the days are coming … when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.”

Epiphany season ends this year not with a bang or a whimper but on a note of reflective judgment. Epiphany season is about the making known of God and about what God wants for us. That alone is an astounding matter. It centers on the idea of revelation, that there are things God wants us to know and which are revealed to us. That says so much, on the one hand, about the truth and the dignity of our humanity, and says so much, on the other hand, about the truth and the mystery of God, the God who makes himself known to us so that his life can live and move in us. This is an astounding wonder.

The idea of God’s revelation of himself and his will for us means that something about ourselves is revealed to us. We are in these stories individually and institutionally, as it were. Something about the dynamic and nature of human institutions and human personality is revealed in the witness of the Scriptures. We are made aware of something beyond ourselves, a principle of absolute goodness and truth to which we are held accountable and without which we have no freedom and no real dignity. That we close our ears to this is our folly and our wickedness; judgment itself.

Judgment. We are uncomfortable about the idea of judgment and well we should be. In our day, judgment is about being judged by others without any recourse to the question, “upon what basis?” What are the principles that inform our moral, social and political discourse?

We live in a world of wheat and tares, wheat and weeds, as it were, and it is not always easy to know which is which or even which are we. That is why we are given sage advice by Paul in the Eucharistic epistle for today to forbear and to forgive one another and by Jesus in the Gospel parable to let both wheat and tares grow together until the harvest. “Whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus”, Paul says, and that suggests a check upon our judgments of ourselves and one another. In a world where we are constantly being told what to say and what to eat, what to do and what to think on the basis of mere assertion and arbitrary authority, it is good to be reminded of God’s judgment rather than ours. It is to be returned to the Lord who has made known himself and his will for us. There is a kind of intellectual and principled accountability.

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“Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus”

Epiphany runs out in the themes of mercy and judgment. Today’s epistle complements and illustrates the gospel. Wheat and tares grow together in the field of the world. Wheat and weeds are there together, both the good and the bad. But who can be sure which is which? What is weed and what is wheat? This is to recognize the limitations of our judgments. “Let them both grow together until harvest”, says the sower. God is the gardener and God is the judge. Not you and not me. That is itself a great mercy.

This doesn’t simply mean the suspension of our judgment in the abdication of responsibilities. We have the obligation and the ability to discern right from wrong and, and by God’s grace, to act accordingly. We are bidden to be God’s good wheat in the world of wheat and tares. But it does mean a check upon our judgmentalism. Forbearing one another and forgiving one another is the counter to our judgmentalism. Our judgmentalism is our presumption to know what we cannot and do not know about others and even about ourselves. We would put ourselves in the place of God as judge. We would presume to have a total and absolute view when, in fact, our viewpoint is altogether restricted and limited. We see, at best, “through a glass darkly”. To know this is to be aware of the limits of our knowing. It is the beginning of wisdom. It frees us from the tyranny of ourselves.

“Did you not sow good seed in the field? From whence then hath it tares?” the servants ask the householder who replies, “an enemy has done this”. There is always the possibility of discovering that we are the enemy. That we are the tares even when we think we are the wheat. Our judgments have a way of turning back upon ourselves. It is called hypocrisy. It is a very wide net that catches us all.

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