Based on Matthew 13
I like to devote one Sunday per year to the celebration of God’s creation. There are many reasons for that. One, I love nature and I find that nature helps me spiritually – to meditate, to pause and rest, to connect with something wider and grander, to think deeply. And I am not the only one. In fact, research has caught on to proving what many people have known intuitively – that spending time in nature supports people’s physical and mental health. I read somewhere that even just having a nature scene set on your computer screen can aid your mental equilibrium during otherwise stressful days. There is a reason most people don’t go on vacation in the city, but somewhere in the mountains or near the ocean. It keeps us sane!
The overwhelming feeling that I have when I watch the rhythms of the ocean, the royalty of the high mountains, the lush vegetations of forests, or the artistry of man-made gardens, is one of joy. Besides, as the world increasingly embraces responsibility for the preservation of nature, as people become more and more aware of our role as stewards of this planet, as more Christians see this as serious a moral issue, it only makes sense to take time to give Mother Nature its due as a wonderful gift from God, to look around and say: Thanks be to God! Can we help preserve this gift?
Now, just as I am in this “feel-good” mode of celebrating and doing good, Jesus comes along and asks me a few uncomfortable questions by way of this parable. He is peppering me with questions of this sort: you nature lover, are the thistles that populate all over your front lawn during the growing season and that you spend hours of your personal free-time pulling out also part of God’s beautiful creation? How about the pesky stink bugs that always seem to find a way into your house, squeezing their ugly butts through the ventilation system… are they God’s wonderful creatures? And of course, once these questions are raised, we can go all day long… How about the ants that seem especially numerous this year, marching up and down the house in congregations bigger than a church? Or the predatory Asian carp that is threating to extinguish native fish in the Great Lakes? How about those tiny little deer ticks that spread wicked diseases, wreaking havoc in people’s immune systems? Or mosquitos, anyone? All right, creation is more complex and more nuanced than we would like it to be. It is not just good, and it is not just bad, it is battleground as much as it is peaceful, it brings blessings but also curses. Can we still celebrate that?
My answer is yes, for sure we can celebrate that, but we will come back to that…
In his parable, Jesus uses an analogy that may be more familiar to people in America’s heartland. Out in the mid-west, where there’s enough land for fields to produce, in places like Kansas, North Dakota or Montana, one can see it for miles and miles, swaying back and forth – back and forth – weeds and wheat. Darnel is the technical-contemporary term for the kind of false wheat seed Jesus is referring to in this parable. The similarity between these two plants that grow in the same areas is so great that in some regions, darnel is referred to as “false wheat”. It bears a wickedly close resemblance to the crop until the ear appears. These days, from what I learned, modern sorting machinery has enabled us to separate darnel seeds efficiently from seed wheat. So much for the patience and the wisdom Jesus advocates in this parable! No more waiting until the harvest to separate the wheat from the weeds…
But, as with all of Jesus’ parables, this story is not really meant to give us serious agricultural advice; rather it is told to help us understand ourselves. This tale is about the complex field of humanity with good and evil mixed in every community, in every person, intertwined in families, causing consternation and puzzlement. Since the beginning of time we have struggled to understand why it has to be that way. Why does evil exist in our world? And why does it sometimes grow and thrive the midst of perfectly fine people and communities?
Last week our region was shaken by the deeds of a young man named Cosmo Di Nardo, whose acts were so reprehensible, so brutal and savage that it was hard for me to even just read about it. Bringing this into the context of our parable, I’d have to say, no it would not be a good idea to wait until evil like that matures; it has to be identified as early as possible and be removed to prevent greater harm and protect people.
And perhaps it is not appropriate to compare evil to weeds growing in the fields. After all, weeds are not evil. They are annoying, they are harmful; they make life difficult for the farmer. But evil they are not. So, this parable is particularly meaningful when you apply it to those aspects of life that are not necessarily evil but just annoying and harmful. Like the farmer in the parable we can’t spend all our energy removing every habit that annoys us in the people closest to us. People who are married for any significant length of time have probably learned to deal with a few weeds in their spouse’s personality. And they have been wise to accept them that way, even if certain habits still have the power to annoy. “Do you always have to be late?” “Do you have to leave your socks on the couch?” “Why do you have to say yes to everything all the time?” In every marriage, in every close knit-relationship, people have to accept certain annoying aspects in order to make it work. If you try to root out every bad habit of someone, you may do damage to the essence of who this person is and also cause irreparable damage to your relationship. That’s why we have to be wise in our dealings with one another and with ourselves.
As complex as nature is, we are also complex. People are complex. When we celebrate nature in all its glories, through poetry, song and nature walks, we may remember that nature is not always picture perfect; it has sharp edges and dangerous territory; out in the wild, animals fight for survival. Wheat and weeds, flowers and thistles grow closely together. So, what do we learn from this parable? Maybe a little bit of wisdom. It will always take a process of discernment to decide what to accept in life and what to fight, what to put up with and what to correct. To put it in Shakespearean language: “To weed or not to weed – that is the question!” Be careful as you discern it in your daily life, and be guided by grace, especially when it comes to the people closest to you. And remember that they have much more to offer than that which happens to annoy you today!
Amen.