5th Sunday in Epiphany

We often conclude that it is church that we must return to. Church can do nothing for you if you do not cast yourself without reserve upon Christ, if you do not abandon yourself at the cross, if you do not fall at His feet for salvation. Only then will your eyes be opened, and will you perceive the Kingdom of God. Sell all you have and acquire the Holy Spirit.

5th Sunday in Epiphany

02/10/2019

See with new eyes

24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. ().

Let us talk about parables. The parables are short stories meant to both conceal and convey a spiritual truth, an aspect of the Kingdom of heaven that is not readily accessible to the human mind. In the first three gospels, we find many of the same parables told.

In the gospel today we find the parable of the Wheat and Tares. This is one parable in a string of parables that Jesus speaks to the crowds and then explains to the disciples. It is important for us to place this parable in the context of the other parables in order for us to understand what the parable is saying, but more so, what Jesus is trying to accomplish in his disciples. It is not merely that Jesus is telling them stories with spiritual truths, he is teaching them how to see the world with spiritual eyes. He is teaching them to interpret the world through another lens. We might also say that he is trying to teach them to look for the gorilla.

Jesus begins with the parable of the sower and the seed. After speaking this parable, the disciples ask, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” he goes on to explain that there is a sort of spiritual blindness that prevents them from seeing or understanding. They hear the words, but don’t comprehend their significance. Not only are they unable to comprehend them, they are unwilling lest they are healed and have to be moved out of their hiding places. Yes, some people do not want to change, do not want to hear and to not want to see, lest they feel compelled to “sell all for the Kingdom”.

We are not so different. We would like to think that we are all the same. Yet Jesus makes a distinction between those who are fit to hear and those who are not. He say’s to the disciples, “But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear;” ().

The Parable

“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.” ().

Jesus speaks this parable, but only later, with the disciples does he explain it, after he sends the crowds away;

“He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Therefore, as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! ().

Pretty clear. While we might focus on the doctrine of evil, the work of the devil, on eschatology, or hell, those are not my main interest today. The season of Epiphany is about Christ being manifest to us. It is about seeing and hearing what is not obvious. It is about perceiving the kingdom of God with spiritual eyes.

Note how Jesus ends the explanation - He who has ears to hear, let him hear! This may be Matthew echoing Jesus words to his readers. Let those who can perceive the things of God perceive them and those who cannot shall not.

Primed

We are all primed to see the world in certain ways. Whether through temperament or experience, and certainly it is both, we behold the world around us with a preset perspective. Some of us were born with a temperament that sees the world without fear, without malice, without wicked intent. Some of us are born with a greater sense of fear, reserve, and

sense of trust. Some of us have experiences that warp our way of viewing the world or heal it. Some parents deepen our fears and sense of reserve and others notice it and guide it so that we open up. Some experiences betray our trust and openness and cause us to become negative and turn inward. Others enable us to break free from our own shy or withdrawn temperament and explore. Some of us more easily see the Kingdom of God and others not.

Selective attention can be exacerbated by negative emotions or experiences. Consequently, If you tend to view the world negatively - if you are unhappy, depressed, anxious, or angry, it has been proven that you will miss positive experiences and focus on the negative ones. On top of that we all have biases that color our perception. There are ideas that we are not prepared to accept, ideas that challenge our comfortable world-view - there are political perspectives that we are closed to, there are moral considerations we patently reject.

Similarly, self-righteousness and pride may keep us from seeing and hearing. One wonders about the people in the parable who are the sons of the evil one sown among the good. How is it that the devil was able to sow tares? They were asleep.

No one is as blind as the one who sleeps. We are sometimes in a spiritual slumber. Like the crowds that came to Jesus, they knew something interesting or important was being said, and they were mesmerized by the miracles and teachings of the new Rabbi, but they were unable to comprehend what was being said.

What separates the wheat from the tares? Is there a characteristic we can derive from the parables? What separates those who will be gathered by the angels for fire and those who will inherit the Kingdom? Eyes to see. Ears to hear.

The religious leaders were quite certain that they were enlightened, and Jesus declared them to be blind. The prostitutes and drunkards and fishermen followed Jesus and to them he disclosed his secrets, he declared them to see.

To see you must first acknowledge your spiritual poverty and blindness. Do not assume spiritual sight, plead for it. To see you must be awake, spiritually alert and aware. But the cares of this world, worries, corrupt desires, as well as wounds of the soul, deaden the mind and render it blind to the things of God. We end up with a spiritual attention deficit disorder. We are so focused on the problems and pains of this world, or our desires and intractable will, that we are rendered incapable of seeing. Shake off the spiritual malaise (often called acedia) and return to God with all your heart.

We often conclude that it is church that we must return to. Church can do nothing for you if you do not cast yourself without reserve upon Christ, if you do not abandon yourself at the cross, if you do not fall at His feet for salvation. Only then will your eyes be opened, and will you perceive the Kingdom of God. Sell all you have and acquire the Holy Spirit.