Church of the Redeemer | Iglesia del Redentor

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Sunday closest to July 20. Proper 11. Year A. RCL
Genesis 28:10-19a
Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23
Romans 8:12-25
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 CLICK HERE FOR THE TEXTS

A man took his wife to the doctor to deal with a minor ailment, in the process of dealing with her illness some malformations were found in her breasts, after many and painful tests it was discover than in the otherwise healthy left breast, these malformations were malignant. The doctor tried to remove the malignant formations and along with it a small margin of the healthy breast surroding the malignant formation. The man felt a sense of respite of an imminent danger and waited for future test to tell him that all the malignant cells were removed.

Unfortunately, the test results came back that most of the malignant cells were removed a few seem to have escaped into the otherwise healthy breast. The inability to treat and isolate, to separate the good cells from the bad ones led to the removal of the left breast, good cells and bad ones alike.

Evil has been with us since we are able to form words out of guttural sounds. The intent of language was to communicate what needed to be communicated, however soon we realized that language could be a powerful tool to take advantage of the other. Martin Buber said that we are the first and only liars of the created order, because we can conceive truth and therefore its opposite. Language, in its birth, intended to facilitate the coordination of common tasks became at the same time a barrier to that communication and a tool to deceive and cheat.

So since the beginning of time, good and evil are hand in hand. Like in the medical profession or the courts, we have been not very efficient in isolating and destroying evil.

Alexnadr Solzhenitsyn said:

Good and evil, are not out there, some where away from us, but both good and evil are also part and parcel of each of us.

In the medical profession, we city people, see with more clarity that we can not separate good from evil, not without damaging the good. We mostly survive medical care alongside the survival of the illness itself. In the courts we have found that that many a times we have incarcerated or even worse executed an innocent man or woman. Can we really afford that? Can we in the name of the good of society punish the innocent? Is the good of the many justifies the evil of one?. I hear in psychology, that all our motivations are mixed, that we sometimes mask with greater motives a more pedestrian self-interest.

Not just the question of evil is a problem to Christianity, but the subsidiary question of separating good from evil is as well.

Jesus expressely tells his disciple to whom he explains the parable that is not for them to be separated from the evil that abounds in the world. It is curious that what looked like an ascetic teacher, did not created a sect of the pure and otherworldly, a sort of Christian hasidism. Furthermore, he tells them that the sorting of evil and good and the ulterior destruction of evil is not their job to do.

Jesus commands us to live side by side without, in the world, and within, in the heart, we already know that evil and goodness co-exist.

What the translators took for tares, is the darnel an identical plant to wheat that has black seed and is very toxic.

Jesus is telling his church not to be afraid of evil, to grow side by side with it. Our job is to compete for nutrients, to spread and develop, to laugh in its face in a Dr.Patch Adams kind of way.

You see not only cancer cells had the ability to spread, but goodness too. Love for life, kindness, friendship can also spread as fast as evil.

The man who took his wife to the doctor for a minor ailment and ended up losing an otherwise healthy organ, had a large community of friends, followers of the master of All Truth, at time themselves lost their way, but in this occasion rally to her cause with prayers, good wishes and emails. For weeks and weeks the man did not have to cook and his microwave, at times seemed to give the spirit for the extra work and then the man remembered that: the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!"

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