A Refiner's Fire

ONLINE REFLECTION, ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY – PROPER 11, YEAR A

JULY 19, 2020

TEXT:   Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Collect for Proper 11

The Gospel reading today follows on last week’s lesson.  And, its theme is very similar. 

Jesus is teaching his listeners beside the Sea of Galilee.  He is speaking in terms they are familiar with – agricultural images.  This parable is of the Weeds and Wheat. You can find a link to this passage on the newsletter. It is Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.

Jesus tells the story of an enemy who sows the seeds of weeds among the good seeds of wheat.  While the seeds are growing, it is hard to distinguish one from another.  So, the sower tells the workers to wait.  When the harvest comes, the weeds will be separated from the wheat, and burned.

Reading this passage, I am reminded of a series of novels I read by an English author named Susan Howatch.  There were six of them, I believe, and they focused on key theological themes in the Church of England from the 1930s to the 1960s. The protagonist in the first three books was an Anglican priest, Jon Darrow, who was also a mystic.

In one of the novels, a female character was wrestling with the issue of good and evil.  Her concern could be described in Martin Luther’s theology: Simul Justus et peccator – We are simultaneously sinners and justified.  Not either/or.  Both/and.

In such a state, she wonders, how do we attain the Kingdom of God when we depart this earthly plain?

Jon Darrow responds – and his response is resonant with the gospel passage today.  When we die, he observes, our spirits are refined like the proving of gold.  Impurities are removed – only the pure essence remains.  As Jesus says, “Then the righteous will shine like the Sun in the Kingdom of the Father.”

I have known people who are likely to pass through the trial virtually intact.  I have known others of whom there will be little left.

We each await our refining.