When We Divide People into Good and Evil
My father and grandfather lived through the Korean War. South Korea’s decision to send troops to Vietnam also left a deep mark on our society. These wars took many lives and left lasting wounds in the way people see one another. As people were divided by ideology, they began to see one another as belonging to opposing sides. It was easy to regard one’s own side as good and just, and the other side as evil and wrong. The wars ended, but the reluctance to listen to people who think differently or to understand their circumstances remains with us. At times, we see those who disagree with us not as neighbors with different views, but as people with whom we cannot live.
Throughout history, people have often divided one another into “us” and “them.” The reasons for these divisions vary, but they can lead us to dismiss those whose lives are different from our own. We often assume that our own standards for distinguishing justice from injustice are fair. Yet our judgments can change depending on how close someone is to us. We may take the circumstances of those close to us into account when they do wrong, while treating the wrongdoing of those who oppose us as proof of who they are. It is necessary to name wrongdoing and hold people accountable. But judging an action is different from declaring a person evil. When we fail to make that distinction, even the language of justice can become a reason to shut someone out.
In today’s Gospel, a king invites people to the wedding banquet he has prepared for his son. Those invited first do not come. One goes to his farm, another to his business. Some seize the slaves the king sends again, beat them, and kill them. The king sends his slaves into the streets to gather people for the banquet. They bring in everyone they meet, and the Gospel tells us that there are both good and bad among them. It does not explain the standard behind those words. If we hear them and begin sorting people into good and bad ourselves, we add a standard the text does not give us.
When we see someone only as evil, we no longer feel the need to listen or to understand that person’s circumstances. Insults and exclusion can begin to seem justified, and that person’s suffering can disappear from view. When we cast someone out as though they were wholly unlike us, we lose sight of them as a neighbor with whom we share our lives.
The story also tells of a guest who is not wearing a wedding robe. The king asks him why he is not wearing one, but the man does not answer. The Gospel does not tell us why he had no robe, or whether someone brought in so suddenly would have had time to prepare one. The king orders him out of the banquet. We may think the king’s judgment was right, or that the guest was treated unfairly. But the Gospel tells us little about the man’s circumstances or what the king’s judgment means. We can acknowledge what we do not know instead of filling in the gaps with our own assumptions. That restraint can express humility before another person’s story. This does not mean ignoring clear wrongdoing or refusing to hold someone responsible.
The parable also includes a scene in which the king sends his troops to kill people and burn their city. If we simply equate the king’s actions with God’s will, we may hear this as saying that God punishes people through violence. We must not use God’s name to justify violence. This troubling scene resists an easy explanation, and we should not rush to resolve its tension. The Gospel does not tell us to stop discerning right from wrong. It cautions us against treating our judgments as God’s final judgment, or reducing a person’s whole life to a single wrong.
Political conflict between people and the way human beings treat animals are different matters. Still, both can lead us to overlook suffering when the one who suffers is unlike us.
Today, we have seen the animals who joined us for the blessing. Their ways of looking and responding are different from ours. But that does not make them less worthy of care or make their suffering something we can ignore. When we treat their pain as unimportant, it becomes easier to mistreat them and to treat life and death lightly.
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul names Euodia and Syntyche and urges them to be of one mind in the Lord. There seems to have been some difficulty between them, but Paul does not rebuke one and take the other’s side. He reminds them that both had labored alongside him for the sake of the gospel. He sees them as more than their conflict. In the light of this Gospel, we can ask ourselves: Whose faults do I excuse, and whose circumstances do I refuse to hear? When wrongdoing is clear, can I hold someone accountable without deciding that the wrong tells the whole story of that person’s life?
The door to the wedding banquet was opened to people from the streets. They are gathered together in a way our usual standards might not have allowed. Their presence challenges our assumption that we can decide who belongs at the banquet. Even when we must name wrongdoing plainly, we cannot confine a person to the word “evil” and erase the rest of their life. The banquet of God’s kingdom is not a feast that begins only after we have divided people completely into good and evil. It is where we see whom the boundaries we have drawn have pushed aside, and whose suffering they have hidden. When we look again at those boundaries and make room for neighbors whose stories we do not yet know, the joy of the banquet begins, little by little, to appear among us.
Amen.