Month: July 2020

Last week we heard the parable of the weeds and I talked quite a bit about the need for us to recognize that sometimes the things that we think are weeds are in fact not. The parable led us to believe that the weeds are the undesirable things that have popped up in the Kingdom of God and that in the end God will decide who belongs and who doesn’t. This of course does not give us license to make that decision, it is God’s decision alone. I also talked about how the weeds we need to pay attention to are the weeds that are within us, the things that separate us from God, which are, by definition, sins. The parable of the mustard seed, which we heard just a little while ago, follows right behind the parable of the weeds and they are very much related. You see, in the ancient world mustard trees were not cultivated they, grew wild, so in effect they were weeds. The seeds were annoying because they were so small they would go unnoticed in the bags of wheat seeds and before the farmer new it they had a field full of wheat, mixed with little mustard trees; the mustard trees would take nutrients away from the beautiful and orderly rows of crops so lovingly planted by the farmer. So, if mustard seeds are so troubling to the ancient farmer, why then does Jesus tell us that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed?

            I think this is an interesting question to ponder and it gets at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and I think we should begin by remembering that Kingdom living is the exception not the rule. The teachings of Jesus are contrary to human nature, which is what makes his message so radical. The purpose of kingdom of living is to remove the barriers between ourselves and God, which is really hard work because just when we make a breakthrough, something else takes its place. Let me give you an analogy. Some people, not me,  like to have a beautiful lawn, with lush green grass and to achieve this they fertilize it, water it, treat the soil and cut it regularly to ensure that the grass looks perfect. Well, sometimes strange plants will appear in the middle of the grass and the owner will pull them out; but then a few days later another plant will appear, and they will once again remove it. This process repeats itself time and time again frustrating the owner because they are working so hard to achieve the perfect look, but they are never successful because the weeds keep coming. The homeowner is us, and the lawn, which we are so desperately trying to perfect, is our lives. We keep getting rid of the things that we believe do not belong, or that we don’t think we have time for, but in our zealousness to create a sense of perfection, we forget that we are not capable of perfection. You see the weed is God, continually pushing into the perfection we strive to create in our lives, perfection based on our own desires and our own sense of order, not God’s.

            The parable of the mustard seed is trying to teach us several things. One is that God does things their own way, sometimes God will be mixed in with the things we think we are supposed to be doing, like the farmer who plants wheat and finds mustard trees, we strive to be people of faith, but sometimes we fall short, sometimes we forget that maintaining an ordered and controlled life may not actually be doing God’s work. The other thing that I think this parable teaches us is that faith starts small. At some point we all felt the presence of God in our lives and that is why we are here today, at least that is why I hope we are here today. The kingdom of God will not be built by following rules or by perfectly adhering to the daily office, it is built through relationships; both our relationships with God and our relationship with one another. Loving our neighbors means we must be in relationship with them. It means that we actively look for the mustard seed that God has planted in them so that we can do our part to help that seed grow into a strong tree of faith, that other people can then rely on. Jesus, of course, is the perfect example of this. He loved so much that we continue to turn to his teachings and his actions as an example of how we are to conduct ourselves. Jesus turned no one away, whether they believed his message or not, he treated everyone the same. The kingdom of heaven, like the mustard seed, invades the cultivated soil of our lives, it messes with the perfection we strive to create, and it grows in unexpected ways. It is not our place to determine how or where, or even when the kingdom of God will appear in someone else life. It is not our place to tell someone else how to cultivate their relationship with God, nor is it our place to judge them for any reason. God meets all people where they are and so must we. The most we can, or should do is cultivate our own relationship with God through the study of scripture, through prayer, and through active love; active love that embraces not only the people we meet in church, but even the people who resist the idea of God and then ask us to bury their parents. Our only job is to love them as God loves them, the rest is out of our control. Amen.

A few weeks ago, I was meeting with my spiritual director and during our conversation we did an exercise where she asked me to explain what clergy do to a Martian. My initial response was that clergy are people who help other people be the people they are supposed to be. To which she responded, what are people? I explained that people are beings like me, she is a Martian and I am one of many people. She then asked, what people supposed to be? My response was that people are beings that are supposed to love and help other people.

In today’s parable the Master indicates that the weeds should be allowed to grow with the wheat because if the weeds are removed then the wheat may be damaged. At face value it appears that this parable is about the end times when the angels will separate the believers from the non-believers, but I caution us from jumping to that conclusion. I caution us about assuming that there is such a thing as those that are in and those that are out, and I do so because binary thinking is not only dangerous, but it is usually wrong. It is natural for us to want to have clarity and on the surface this parable provides that, the people who follow the rules, the wheat, will enter the Kingdom and the people who don’t, the weeds, will not; and the slaves, who represent us, want to hurry up and get rid of the weeds, the people that do not fit our vision of who belongs. God has been lovingly tolerating humanity far longer than we ever will and it is not our job to decide who belongs; our job is to love each other like Jesus did, which to go back to the Martian discussion, is what it means to be a person. The hardest part of this whole situation is that we do not naturally love each other, often we just tolerate each other and try our best not to exclude the people that annoy us the most. So on one hand we know it is so much easier to just do what feels right in the moment, to just take care of ourselves and the people who are closest to us; but on the other hand our entire faith tradition says that we are supposed to do the complete opposite; we are supposed to give aid and comfort to everyone, no matter what; we are supposed to include everyone, no matter what, we are supposed to love everyone, no matter what. Jesus is the prime example of this. He knew that one of his friends would betray him to his enemies and yet he still sat down and ate dinner with him on the very day that the betrayal was going to happen; Jesus even gave him leave to do it, telling him to do it quickly. Every week we confess that we have sinned, in thought word and deed and we say that we are sorry for doing so, which I am sure is true even though we probably haven’t really thought about what we did or didn’t do and why those things might be sins. I also suspect that it isn’t very long before we turn right around and commit the very same sins we just said we were sorry for doing. I certainly don’t make it a day before I am right back at it, and I would be very surprised if anyone could claim that they make it longer than that because if any person can go longer than a day without sinning then they can’t be human because sinning is just what we do.

Earlier I cautioned us about binary thinking because it can lead to misinterpretation and inaccurate assumptions. The reason the master, who is God, said to leave the weeds is because he knew that some of those weeds might actually turn out to be wheat. There are many plants in my garden that I mistake, every year, but I leave them because I suspect that they might be flowers and when they do flower I am grateful that I left them; It is also worth mentioning that a weed is only a plant growing in a location you do not want it to be in. It is very possible to cultivate a weed into a beautiful thing, but it takes time and that is what God in their infinite patience realizes. The process of becoming people of love takes time and if we kick people to the side too soon then they will not have the chance to grow into the people God intends them to be, and if in the end they don’t “make it” that is between God and them. So, the only weeding or dividing, we can, or even should do, is within ourselves. We need to look deep into our souls and weed out those traits of our character that inhibit our ability to love like God. A good friend of mine quoted Daniel Berrigan, who was a Jesuit priest, the other night and for some reason this quote stuck with me. He said, “If you are going to follow Jesus, you better look good on wood.” Let me repeat that, “If you are going to follow Jesus, you better look good on wood.” The message of Jesus was radical. It was radical two thousand years ago and it is radical today because it is contrary to human nature and that is the point. Jesus was nailed to a piece of wood because he told people to love each other and that idea was so radical, so contrary to the way his society thought, that they killed him. You see, Jesus was killed because people thought he did not belong, they thought he was the weed. Whether we are a weed or wheat does not matter because we are all children of God and we are all loved wholly and equally, even though we are really bad at loving other people. Jesus was willing to die for his radical message of love; he was willing to look good on the wood, are we ready for that? Are we ready to love so deeply that we will face death on the cross for that love? My guess is no, and in the end I don’t think it matters, what does matter is that we try to love each other, and when we fall short, not if, but when, we work even harder to make sure that we don’t fall short again.