作者Revd Dr Samuel Wells 聖馬田堂主任牧師 麥子和稗子的比喻告訴我們,世界上確實存在善,它之所以存在,是因為神把它放在那裏。這個比喻亦告訴我們,世界上確實存在惡。如是者,我們面對兩大問題:神學問題和倫理問題。 神學問題是:惡從何而來?故事說「這是仇敵做的。」因此,世上的惡並非從神而來。一般來説,聖經對惡的起源或確切本質不太感興趣。我們沒從這個故事或其他地方發現神仇敵的特性或目的,但我們得知神出於某種原因容許世上存在惡。倫理問題則更為深入。聖經和這個故事都非常關注的倫理問題是:我們應該把稗子拔除嗎?答案毋庸置疑且也許出人意料:不應該,原因有兩個。首先,我們沒辦法在不拔除小麥的情況下拔除稗子。其次,收割終會來臨,那是神整頓一切的時刻。 故事出人意料的地方並不在於一開始我們發現世界是善與惡的混合體,也不在於惡從何而來、為何存在的問題。故事出人意料的地方是田主說「不要現在薅稗子,要等候收割,到時再以其他方式薅稗子。」這個比喻關心的是,惡無疑存在,我們應當如何自處。所有公義的直覺都告訴我們,我們必須面對惡,與其爭戰,把其根除並燒毀。 然而,這個比喻說這種方法有兩個問題。首先,它行不通,你不能肅清世界。要是你着手根除惡,你就連同善一併根除。精準轟炸這回事並不存在。其次,自發消除世界的惡顯示,你不相信這正是神在歷史終結時會做的事情。我們不是告訴自己不相信神會做這件事,就是告訴自己我們不能等那麼久。這正是這個比喻所提出的兩種反應。這個比喻指出,神會做這件事,我們應該等待,因為只有神才能做這件事,而不致造成壞處跟好處一樣多。 這個比喻呼籲基督徒保持革命式忍耐。世界上充滿想自行伸張正義的人,這種人看到一片邪惡的土地,就樂得砍擊並焚燒全地。世界需要的是有耐性的人,這種人相信神的審判終會施行一切必要篩選,同時樂於忠心照料農田,並深知田裏並非所有作物都是小麥 耶穌講了很多比喻,但真正的比喻是耶穌自己。這是關於忍耐的故事,但神的忍耐就是耶穌自己。在耶穌身上,我們看到神的忍耐。耶穌所做的是在惡面前保持忠心,傳講真理,賦予社區權力,展示聖靈的果子,帶來和好,以自己的身體承擔作見證的代價,並在各方面等候神公義的時刻到來。祂並無撃殺仇敵、剷除邪惡、倉卒草率行事,也無天真地試圖締造沒有惡的田野。相反,祂保持革命式忍耐,完全信服神最後的審判。 耶穌這粒麥子把世上的稗子扛在自己身上,以自己的身體承受稗子的審判,讓世界終可擺脫稗子,世人皆可活在夢想的田野上。原來,展現基督所啟示對神的信心的最好方式未必是顛覆式干預,而是革命式忍耐。 The parable of the wheat and the tares tells us that there is real good in the world, and it’s there because God put it there. Then it tells us that there is real evil in the world. Then we are presented with the two great questions, the theological one and the ethical one.
The theological question is, Where did the evil come from? The story says “An enemy did this.” So the evil in the world does not come from God. The Bible in general isn’t very interested in the origins or precise nature of evil. We don’t discover in this story or elsewhere the character or purposes of God’s enemy, but we learn that God for some reason permits evil in the world. But the ethical question is more developed. The ethical question, with which the Bible and this story are very exercised, is, Should we pull the weeds out? The clear and perhaps surprising answer is no – for two reasons. First, there’s no way to pull the weeds out without pulling the wheat out too. Second, there’s going to be a harvest, and that will be the moment when God will sort everything out. The sting in the story is not at the beginning where we find that the world is a mixture of good and evil. It’s not in the question of where the evil came from and why it’s there. The sting in the story is when the farmer says “Don’t gather up the weeds now. Wait till harvest and they will be gathered up in other ways.” The parable is about how we live in the face of undoubted evil. And all our righteous instincts say we must confront evil, fight with it, root it out and burn it up. But the parable says there are two things wrong with this approach. First, it doesn’t work. You can’t clean up the world. If you set about rooting up evil, you root up the good too. There’s no such thing as a clinical bombing campaign. And second, taking it upon yourself to rid the world of evil shows a lack of faith that that’s exactly what God will do at the end of history. We either say to ourselves we don’t trust God will do it or we say to ourselves we can’t wait that long. Those are exactly the two responses this parable is about. The parable is saying God will do it and we should wait because only God can do it without doing as much harm as good. The parable is calling Christians to revolutionary patience. The world is full of people who want to take justice into their own hands and see a field with evil in it and are happy just to slash and burn the whole lot. What the world needs is patient people who believe God’s judgement will finally do all the sifting that’s necessary and in the meantime are content faithfully to tend the farm knowing that that not everything in the field is wheat. Jesus told many parables but the real parable is Jesus himself. This is a story about patience, but the patience of God is Jesus himself. In Jesus we see God’s patience. What Jesus did was to maintain a faithful presence in the face of evil, speaking the truth, empowering a community, modelling the fruits of the Spirit, bringing about reconciliation, taking in his own body the cost of witness, and in every way waiting until the time of God’s justice would come. No killing the enemy, no rooting out evil, no premature summary action, no naïve attempt to make a field without evil. Instead, revolutionary patience, resting entirely on trust in God’s final judgement. Jesus was the wheat who took the darnel of the world upon himself and suffered in his own body the judgement of darnel that the world might finally be free of darnel and we may all live in a field of dreams. It turns out the greatest way we show our faith in the God revealed in Christ may not be our transformatory intervention, but our revolutionary patience.
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