Simul Justus et Peccator

Based upon Matthew 13.24-30,36-43

Today’s gospel in an incredibly difficult passage and not one I’ve relished having to unpick. We hear Jesus share a parable of weeds and wheat, growing together and then being sorted at the harvest, the weeds being burned up. Jesus even gives us a handy explanation which seems to tie everything together neatly.

And yet the parables are never that neat or easy to interpret, even when an explanation seems to have been offered. We have a knack of entirely removing the context and relating it to ourselves, often missing its meaning entirely. 

My difficulty with this passage is how it’s been used over the centuries- as a means to control through fear, as a way of perpetuating a view of the afterlife which I don’t believe in and doesn’t match the loving God I do believe in. it’s also been used as a means of virtue signalling; we are the wheat and you are the weeds. We are good and you are bad.

I don’t know if it’s necessarily a useful analogy for us here and now. It may have given reassurance to Matthew’s audience, and it’s interesting to note it only appears in Matthew, written for a people who were victims of oppression, violence and war, wanting the evil that caused their pain eradicated. Wanting to know there would eventually be justice. 

I have a rule when trying to decipher the bible. Does what I’m reading about who God is and how God is resonate with Jesus’ primary teachings? If not their must be something else going on.

The image of weeds and wheat is so inflexible- wheat can’t become a weed and weeds can’t become wheat. This doesn’t fit with the image of an all-loving God who loves each of us and knows we each have the ability to grow and change and become the people God knows we can be. No one is all good or all bad, we’re each a complicated, nuanced mixture. 

If there’s any absolute truth it’s that each of us is simultaneously weeds and wheat. Martin Luther had this absolutely correct when he said that we’re simul justus et peccator: we are at the same time, sinner and saint.

Our task is to recognise that within ourselves, to know what our weeds are, be realistic about them, name them and work on them. We run into trouble by imagining we’re weed free, that we’re only magnificent, flawless and faultless wheat. 

If we think about how God loves us it might be worth thinking about someone we love, how we love them; a child, spouse, parent or friend. We love them despite their imperfections, why would God be any different? 

The thing being in lockdown has forced us to confront is ourselves, and those we live with. Having no option but to be either alone with ourselves or those in our household for several months may have highlighted for each of us the things which irk us about those we love or those things within ourselves we’re not so happy about. 

I’m sure, for the most part, we still love those we live with despite the things which have annoyed us. Hopefully we can say the same thing about the person we see in the mirror. Can we accept our own weeds and love ourselves in spite of them?

There’s so much mystery in how God has created us and our world, and within that good and evil, saint and sinner, are held together in a constant tension, as the weeds and wheat grow alongside each other, the removal of one would damage the other. Our flaws contribute to the person we are.

Maybe one way we can interpret this passage is to know that eventually, when at the end we’re drawn into the eternal mystery of God’s love and become one with that love, all things are made good and pure and whole. 

The fire of God’s love transforms everything, even our deepest flaws and wildest weeds. Until then we live the paradox of being both wheat and weed, saint and sinner, and knowing that is actually how God intends it to be. Amen.