Embracing the Mystery of Paradox

Wheat and Weeds

I have many pairs of glasses; like many of you, I’m sure! I have my prescription reading glasses, but I also have numerous pairs of Dollar Store readers scattered around, and every day, I’m also required to put on my “Gospel” glasses.

I had eye surgery for a torn retina a few years ago and I have periodic appointments with the retina specialist who performed my surgery. I had one of these appointments this past Friday, and while I was relieved to hear that my eye is doing fine, I had drops put in my eyes which blurred my vision; a discomforting situation as I couldn’t drive or read or see clearly for a few hours.

These periodic appointments remind me to appreciate my vision and all that it means for reading, art, and appreciating the wonder of creation. As I waited for my blurred vision to clear, I thought about putting on Gospel glasses; to see the world and the people in it as Jesus saw them and that led me to thinking about today’s Gospel and the parable of the wheat and the weeds. The word that came to me as I thought about this, was ‘paradox’.

Christianity is full of paradoxes. All aspects of it from the teachings of Jesus, to the diverse books of Holy Scripture, and our ways of coming together as a praying community, invite us to enter into mystery, to wrestle with meaning, and to find its application for our own situations, not in the far distant past, but here and now.

Something I read this week claimed that the blessing of Christianity is its absolute clarity: right is right, wrong is wrong, sin is unmistakable, and there is one right way to celebrate the Sacred Liturgy of the Eucharist. I could not disagree more! The Word of God, the teachings of Jesus, and the stirrings of the Holy Spirit call us to engage deeply, participate fully, and walk in faith—even, and perhaps especially, when the path is unclear and the answers are not obvious. While we might prefer the message to be crystal clear, God delights in paradox:

“God is one and God is three. Jesus is Divine and Jesus is human. Creation is good and Creation is broken. To give is to receive. To die is to live. To pardon is to be pardoned. To be weak is to be strong. To serve is to reign. We’re saved by grace and faith without works is dead. We are in the world, but we are not of the world. The Kingdom of God is coming, and the Kingdom of God is within us.” (“Into the Mess” by Debie Thomas).

The challenge for us is to accept that living with paradox is integral to the journey of faith. In the midst of deep pain, we can also know joy, the happiest times in our lives have their own challenges. Each stage of life has its blessings, its gifts and its struggles. Here in Victoria we live in a little piece of paradox, but many are homeless. The challenge is to hold both together with open hands before the God who holds it all. In the words of the monk, William Brodick:

“ We have to be candles, burning between hope and despair, faith and doubt, life and death, all the opposites. This is the disquieting place where people must always find us”.

We have to love the both/and of the mystery, the incomplete, the not yet and the not quite right. We need to put on Gospel glasses and look at the world and the people in it through Jesus’ eyes. This means accepting people as gifted and flawed at the same time, seeing the world as both beautiful and broken, living with the imperfect, and the deeply wounded. Sometimes that means accepting and loving the woundedness in our own families, the woundedness in ourselves, assured that God holds it all together and all will be well in the end.

Living with paradox also calls us to see God in all things. God has redeemed the world; the whole world, not just Christians, not only those who go to church. God loves all that she has created; no exceptions! And if we think for a moment, we really know  God, or that our particular way of worshipping God is the right way or the only way, then we would do well to put on our Gospel glasses and take another look.

In today’s Gospel of Matthew, Jesus invites us to lean courageously into paradox. A farmer plants seeds in a field and while the whole household is asleep, an enemy sneaks in and sows weeds among the wheat. The servants are surprised that the master tells them to leave the weeds alone until both the wheat and weeds are fully grown, then they can be pulled out, but in the meantime, they are to be left alone.

Evil in the world is real, it is noxious and destructive, but there is nothing wise about denying its existence. We are like the field in the parable: both blessed and flawed, capable of both blessing and sin. We are all sinners and we are all saints. To admit and own this is to face reality, and to accept ourselves and others as the paradoxical beings that we are.

Finally, the parable assures us that while evil may seem to win in the present time, it will not triumph in the end. Ultimately God’s justice will triumph and will achieve healing and fullness of life for the world’s most broken and desperate people: this is the essence of God’s compassion; that evil will not have the last word. ever.

“All causes of evil: The causes we condemn in others, and the causes we complacently excuse in ourselves. The causes that are personal and the causes that are systematic. The causes that we know about and the causes that we don’t. All causes of evil; no exceptions. In short, all that chokes, starves, breaks, distorts, poisons and harms God’s beloved will be burned away, not because God hates the world but because God loves it so deeply.” (Debie Thomas).

We are all a work in progress and God has not finished with us yet! God loves us as we are and we are held deeply by the God who is not afraid of paradox. We are safe, even in our contradictions, weedy perhaps, but safe!

So, I invite you today to put on your Gospel glasses: not rose-tinted glasses that only look for what is good and beautiful, but Gospel glasses that enable us to see the world as Jesus sees it, without flinching, holding both together in prayer and care, and trusting that the God who loves it all will not allow evil to have the last word. Love will triumph, compassion will triumph, and in the beloved words of Julian of Norwich: “All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”. Amen.