Don't Throw
the Baby Out with the Bath Water
Matthew 13:24-30
by Rev. Randy Quinn
When I was
growing up, my father was in the Navy. I remember long and
lonely times when he was out at sea. That may be why I
understand the story I heard this week about a young boy whose
father was away during most of the good weather one spring.
Greg saw his
friends going outside to play ball with their dads. They would
play catch. They would practice pitching. Or the dads
would pitch and the boys would practice batting.
Rather than
sit around and feel sorry for himself, though, the young boy decided
that he'd go out and play, too. Greg would simply pretend his
father was there playing with him.
So he grabbed his bat and his ball and went out into the yard.
He threw the ball up in the air and swung his bat. The bat
only caught the air, but a neighbor boy yelled, "Strike!"
Greg picked up
the ball and tried again. Then he heard the familiar voice,
"Strike Two!" But he wasn't a quitter, so he tried again, only
to miss a third time. After the unwanted umpire confirmed his
third strike, he added "you're a lousy hitter!"
I suspect that
most boys would have quit playing baseball after an incident like
that. I know that Elmer Repp, a farmer who lived in Saint John would
have. He had a nice singing voice, but a teacher told him he
couldn't sing when he was in the third grade and so he never raised
his voice above a whisper when we sang hymns in church.
But the young
boy looked right at his neighbor and proclaimed with confidence,
"I'm not a lousy hitter; I'm a great pitcher! I just struck
myself out!"
It's easy to
point out faults in other people. It's easy to see failure --
even our own. And too often, it's the failures that we look at
rather than the successes. Too often, we name the shortcomings
without acknowledging the accomplishments.
Maybe that's
why there is so much negative campaigning in this year's political
races. We can always find what's wrong with the other person,
though it's much more difficult to point out what is right about any
candidate.
The irony is
that most of us consider ourselves to be better than average. In
a recent scientific survey, 100% of the men interviewed thought they
were above average at getting along with people! 100%. In
the same study, 70% thought they were among the top 25% in leadership
and 60% of them thought they were in the top 25% in athletic ability!
This suggests
that maybe we see the good in ourselves but not in others!
One preacher
tells the story of his suburban lawn. It was so filled with
weeds that he finally gave up and called ChemLawn to take care of it.
But they rejected him as a client because it was so bad.
They began to
look around for someone who would totally remove their existing lawn
and start over with fresh top soil and seed. But then an old
farmer gave them some advice: Don't worry so much about getting
rid of the weeds. Just grow the grass, and the grass will take
care of the weeds.
He took the
farmer's advice. He did all he could do to grow grass. He
watered, he fertilized, he trimmed and mowed. After a couple of
years, the lawn looked just as good as those cared for by ChemLawn!
When you look at
life, do you see the weeds or the grass? Do you see a poor
batter or a good pitcher? Do you look at other people and see
them as basically good or basically sinful? When you hear the
parable of the Wheat and Tares, as our text for today is often called,
do you see the wheat or the tares?
Clearly the
servants saw the tares. They wanted to pull them up immediately
upon identifying them. The land owner, on the other hand, saw
the wheat and insisted that the weeds be left alone until the time of
harvest.
Commentators
have insisted that the reason for the land owner's decision to wait is
that a common noxious weed, darnel, looks very much like wheat in its
early stages of growth. It would be difficult for the servants
to know the difference between the good wheat and the bad darnel.
So the wise response of any farmer of that day was to wait until the
grain began to form and the distinction between the wheat and the
tares was more evident. At that point something could be done,
and often that was easier at the time of harvest.
What's important
to us, I think, is to remember that Jesus says this parable tells us
what the kingdom of heaven is like. He says, in essence, what
was done in the past is done. We cannot undo the sowing of the
weed seeds. And worse, we can't always tell the weeds from the
wheat. So we must leave the sorting to God at some point in the
future. In the meantime, we're to focus on growing wheat, not
pulling weeds.
You may have
heard the story about the new grandmother who was frustrated.
Like all new grandparents, she was concerned about her grandson's
future. She was also wanting her daughter to be a good mother.
But she understood that she wouldn't always be there and so had to let
her daughter learn how to do things rather than doing things for her.
But it was all
she could do to keep her mouth shut at times. She had seen her
daughter bathing her new grandson several times, for instance.
And each time, she noticed how dirty the water was. The
grandmother became convinced that the water was making the baby dirty.
One day, when
she couldn't stand it any longer, she pushed her daughter aside and
dumped everything out of the baby's tub: water, wash cloth, and
baby.
Some people, in
their zeal for the Gospel, do the same thing. They see only the
dirty water. Or they see only weeds in their lawn. Or they
see only a poor batting average. They see only sin in the lives
of others.
So they throw
the baby out with the bath water before they recognize the good that
exists side by side with the bad.
These are people
who assume that everyone receiving welfare is a 'deadbeat'.
These are people
who know that every politician is a crook.
These are people
who think every immigrant into this country is an illegal alien.
These are people
who complain that the church is always asking for more money.
These are people
who don't come to church because of something that one person said or
didn't say.
All they see in
the world are weeds. All they see is a boy who can't hit the
ball.
That's not to
say that we aren't careful. There are things that we must avoid.
But the more important task -- and often the more difficult task -- is
to focus on the good.
They tell me that
the FBI has an extensive training course to teach agents how to detect
counterfeit money. But the curriculum uses a full three fourths of
the class time to study authentic currency. By recognizing the
good first, the counterfeits become more obvious.
But human nature
wants an enemy to name. We want to be able to rally against
something or someone more than we want to stand in favor of anything.
We can find examples of this throughout history, but we can probably
think of our own examples -- where we've experienced it ourselves.
Osama Bin Laden
became the enemy that made it possible for the allied forces to join
fighting the Global War on Terror.
The nation of
Israel is the identified enemy that unites much of the Arab world.
Militia groups
find it easy to attract people when they name the U.S. government as an
enemy.
White supremacist
groups are more likely to speak about their hatred of other ethnic
groups than any traits they may hold in common with each other.
Even churches have
learned that if they spend a lot of time talking about the reign of
Satan in our land they tend to draw larger crowds than if their only
focus is the God who created heaven and earth.
The truth is that
we find it easier to resist an enemy than solicit good. So much
easier, in fact, that we often vilify what would otherwise be good in
order to bring cohesion.
Most of the
ancient creeds of the church, including the Apostles' Creed, were
written, not to state what we believe, but to distinguish "us" from
"them", the ones who had the wrong belief. They are more about
wrong belief than about right belief because it's easier to find faults
and failures than it is to celebrate accomplishments and successes.
We see the weeds
in the yard rather than the grass.
We see a young man
who strikes out rather than a good pitcher.
We see dirty water
rather than a clean baby.
In her book,
The Origin of Satan, Elaine Pagels explores the history of this
tendency within the church. For her, the sad truth is that we not
only tend to vilify, but also demonize, anyone that is different than
ourselves. And that demonization has led to the oppression of
other faith groups as well as historic splits within Christianity.
All this, in spite of the fact that Jesus came to bring reconciliation.
As told by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, In Search of
Excellence (New York: Random House, 1982), p 57.
