One of the more uncomfortable things in this day and age is the concept of judgement. I have often heard, "How can a loving God judge? How can He condemn people to Hell? How would He create people to just consign them to oblivion?"
All good and valid questions, and ones we have struggled with for as long as the concept of a merciful loving God dawned on our consciousness (I would contend more by revelation than by our innate ability to come to that conclusion ourselves). Today's Gospel shows Jesus, the "showpiece" of love and mercy, talking about this very topic using...wait for it...Yet Another Agricultural Metaphor.
Granted, it seems these days one needs a degree in agricultural science to understand the metaphors, but at that time Jesus' listeners could visualize the images. The "tare" is actually darnel or cockle, Lolium temulentum, a grain-bearing grass that is similar to wheat in its growth cycle until it bears its grain, then it is quite discernable. It is also incredibly toxic and has been a plague on wheat cultivation until modern times. Sowing darnel among wheat was beyond mean, it was a poster-child for "malice aforethought".
So back to the parable, Jesus uses the analogy of wheat among tares to describe the human condition. You can't tell the one from the other, you can't eradicate it, until it brings forth its end-stage. So it is with people. We don't know whether someone manifests the fruits of the Spirit or of corruption until the end of the age, and we cannot really rip them out without a lot of collateral damage. A good look at the legal system will tell you that much, with innocent condemned and guilty going free as law enforcement goes after the guilty (in theory). Also, what may appear as bad wheat (let the reader understand) will reform and repent and bear the fruits of the Spirit, whereas those who start out looking like good wheat (work with me here), end up being truly diabolical when all comes to light, perhaps generations down the road.
Jesus states that such tares/darnel/cockle/toxic people will be winnowed out of the Kingdom of God. Why? Why would God, a loving God do that?
I do not have all the answers, but I do offer this. God has given us reason and free will to make choices. If after a lifetime of good and bad choices some of us come face to face with God, whose very Being is the source of good, life, selflessness, and love, and one has none to give or desires none of it, then there would be a parting of the ways. A loving God, I contend, will not force us to become what we have decided not to become, will not compel us to eschew the evil and embrace the good, will not wipe out our ability to choose, making us robots or dolls. A loving God will let go those who wish no part of Him. The sad part is that apart from Him there is no life, love, light, or joy. All those we share now as part of created grace, but in the end when we each make that final choice, some, the truly toxic, who have over their lives chosen the toxic and smothered the good, will choose the outer darkness.
It seems insane, nonsensical that someone, anyone would do that. However we see all around us many making those very same sort of decisions day after day after day. It is for all who are caught in the cycle of bad choices we proclaim the Gospel, the way of Life, the release from the bondage of corruption, that God offers us. Some will heed the words and become truly wheat in the Kingdom of God. Some will not, inexplicably and sadly not. Does God love them any less? No, it is not the desire of God that any should perish, but it is also not the desire of God to force any against their will.
Hence some people become tares of their own free will. However, that need not be so.
コメント