WHEAT AND COCKLE

A SERMON FOR THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Our blessed Lord gives us a parable today that might not grab you as having much to do with your life.  Wheat and cockle left to grow together and then to be separated at the harvest…  Most of us are not farmers—we wouldn’t know the difference between wheat and cockle even if they stood up and introduced themselves.  And what’s more, we probably don’t care.  “We don’t do agriculture.”  Our Lord’s audience were farmers, but we’re not, and we need to think of this parable in more modern terms if we’re going to learn its lesson.

Let’s think of the wheat as Truth and the cockle as everything that is not the truth, or at least not the absolute truth – so lies and falsehoods of course, but also all the half-baked opinions and prejudiced views held by so many.  Our world contains both truths and these other “not-quite-truths”, all mixed in together, and spewing forth from the mouths of people who love nothing more than to shove their opinions in our face, and condemn us for having a different opinion than theirs. 

Today, it seems to be mostly our televisions that are the mouthpiece of these lies, half-truths and opinions.  I heard this week that political news shows are getting better ratings on TV than the Super Bowl.  Certainly, the election cycle of 2016 was more interesting than usual.  But the divisiveness of politics serves, regrettably, to provide the talking-heads of television with an unlimited supply of topics, on which they feel free to pontificate and try and persuade us all that their point of view is right, and everyone else’s is wrong.  What does it all amount to?  To describe all their half-truths and biased opinions we can best use the word propaganda.  The right opinions, also known as the Truth, are represented by the wheat in today’s Gospel.  The rest of the opinions, and there are many, are the cockle.  Cockle planted by the enemy.  But whether they come from the truth or just someone’s opinion, these attempts to change our opinion can all be described as propaganda.

The word propaganda has a rather unpleasant ring to it these days.  This last week there was a bit of news that largely went unnoticed.  It was the death of an old lady, 106 years old in fact, by name, Brunhilde Pomsel.  Not a name we’re familiar with, I’m sure.  Her claim to fame is that she was the personal secretary of a man whose name we do know very well, Dr. Josef Goebbels, the German Minister of Propaganda during World War II.  This man is probably the main reason why propaganda has just a bad name these days.  We think of the Nazi propaganda that somehow it was okay to exterminate part of the population as though they were sewer rats.  The word Propaganda now has the connotation of trying to persuade good people that it’s okay to do bad things.

In fact, propaganda is neither good nor bad in itself.  The word was not originally pejorative, and derives from the Latin word that means to propagate, or spread.  Its first use was Catholic.  In 1622, Pope Gregory XV established a committee of cardinals to supervise the foreign missions.  It was called the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, or in Latin, Congregatio de Propaganda Fide.  I am now standing at what some people describe as the pulpit of propaganda, and it is an apt description.  From this pulpit I try to preach to you the propaganda of the Catholic Church, I try to put the Catholic spin on the events of our lives and the words of the gospel.  This propaganda has the guarantee of truth, at least as long as I don’t let too much of my own opinions enter surreptitiously into the truths of the Gospel, like cockle among the wheat.  And if I do, I hope you’ll be gracious enough to tolerate them and allow them to grow up together, always discerning in your own mind truth from opinion.

Here’s what is true.  All the doctrines of the Catholic Church that were taught infallibly prior to the Second Vatican Council.  This is our wheat.  And the cockle is the mass of innovations, experiments, opinions, and fake dogmas that have been invented since that time.  Sometimes we aren’t sure which are true and which are false.  Should we be sedevacantist, for example, or should we recognize and resist Pope Francis?  Many people hold one or the other of these as though they were dogmas, but really, we can’t go further than believing that one of them, or another theory altogether, might be probably true.  Don’t worry about these questions—let the wheat and cockle grow together.  Trust me, at the great harvest of souls, these problematic questions will be answered with all the certainty that God’s authority possesses.  But meanwhile, let them be.  Just seek to do what’s right, and cultivate the field of your conscience, educating yourselves in the faith, growing in the knowledge and love of God.

In this week’s bulletin, you’ll find a very useful little saying that will help you in your quest for the truth.  Try and remember it when you make your examination of conscience every night, and do your best to make sure it can’t be applied to you.  The saying is that “Most people don’t really want the Truth.  They just want constant reassurance that what they believe is the Truth.”  We must ask ourselves, Does this apply to me?  Are we just looking for confirmation that we’re on the right track?  That we’re saved?  Do we seek the applause of others who agree with us?  It’s okay for us to tune in to our favorite news shows so that we can feel smug when the commentators agree with our own positions.  But are we looking for the same thing when we come here on Sunday mornings?  Are we just looking for reassurance that we’re right?  Or do we seek to be challenged in our faith, impelled to higher levels of holiness from this “Pulpit of Propaganda?”  Are we smug Christians who think we can save our souls by just going to church on Sundays?  Or do we come here in all humility, confessing our sins before God, offering him our supplications for our poor selves and those we love?  

And if one day, I remind you of a law of the Church that you don’t want to obey, but that God requires of us, what will you do then?  Will you try and find another priest who might give you a “better” answer?  And when you find that all priests follow the same law of the Church, will you then leave the Church altogether, to find some kind of complacent satisfaction amongst the other denominations?  Or will you understand that sometimes we have to do our duty, even when that duty is unpleasant.  What will you do when God calls on you to give up your life for him, if today you are not even prepared to give up a little breakfast or a cup of coffee so that you can receive Holy Communion? 

When you know something is the truth, you must defend it.  When you know something is wrong, you must reject it.  But it’s more difficult when you know something is just an opinion and you may not know whether to defend it or challenge it. There’s a good deal of this cockle among the wheat.   Let’s always remember today’s Gospel, and be aware of the infiltration of the enemy amongst us.  Think to your last end, when the cockle of your hundred thousand wrong opinions will be gathered in bundles to be burned.  Make sure that in the midst of all your cluttered cockle, you have cultivated the good wheat along with it, so that it might be gathered into our Saviour’s barn at the last judgment.  If we spend our life making sure we do our duties, keeping the faith and seeing the opinions of ourselves and others for what they’re worth, we need not be afraid of losing our way in the labyrinth of truth and falsehood, and lay down our heads on our death bed with the joy and hope of eternal life.  Because Christ IS the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Follow him!