Slug by slug, weed by weed,
My garden's got
me really teed
All the insects
love to feed upon my tomato plants
Sunburned face,
scratched-up knees
My kitchen's
choked with zucchinis
I'm shopping at
the A & P next time I get a chance.
The crabgrass grows, the ragweed thrives,
The broccoli has long since died.
The only things left still alive are some radishes and
beans.
My carrot plants are dead and gone,
Hear the rabbits sing a happy song
Until you've weeded all day long
You don't know what boredom means
Chorus
You get up early, work till late
Watch moles and mice get overweight
They eat their dinners on a plate from the hard work you
have done
As ye sow so shall ye reap,
But I smell like a compost heap
I'm gonna get that lousy creep
who said gardening was fun
(Parody of Dave Mallet's "The Garden Song")
((c)1982, Eric Kilburn)
So here we are in a garden again and added to it we got the
devil
I love the devil some of my favorite music he is in.
Songs like shut de door keep out the devil
Or why should the devil have all the good music or better
yet
The devil went down to Georgia he was looking for a soul to
steal…
The devil made me do it
“I hold communications with saints and angels, even with Satan
himself”. Elizabeth Barton
“I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear
him.” Saint Teresa of Avila
“I don't see any holy wars being fought in the name of
Satan.” Glenn Danzig[1]
“If you do not obey the word of God if you choose not to
follow his commandments you are going to hell and shall burn in the eternal
fire”
When I was a child there were two basic sermons one always
dreaded. The Catholic priest asking for
money or…the catholic priest doing his best at preach hellfire and brimstone
which always resulted in crying children and adult rolling their eyes. Believe me that was the general reaction
either of those sermons.
This parable can be harsh even condemning if looked at from
the wrong, umm, direction. It can become
hellfire and brimstone, it can become a lecture about Satan and his origins or
how he is the king of lies, the big half man half goat thing with a pointed
tale and a pitch fork. Right. It makes a
good story and it makes great art. Needless t0o say that is not what I see or
hear in this parable.
I lived in the desert for 7 years. It hardly ever rained but when it did it
would really rain and there were flash floods roads were washed out the air
become sticky with humidity and dust.
After a good rain or two we knew what was next the weeds! The desert bloomed with wild flowers of every
kind. The cactus would bloom and plants
that had not been green in ages would change color.
Then the weeds would come.
They came in their cars with their campers with their kids
and their cameras. They brought palettes
and paint brushes and you would see them out there at sunrise risking limb and
life for the perfect picture or just the right light. In order to get that
perfect picture they would pay no attention to where they walked, on what they
walked on or whose property they were on.
Many would go off on a trail and follow it till they were lost. Then we would have to send search parties
out.
Noticed I just referred to simple tourists excited by Gods
display of nature as weeds. Am I saying god is going to throw all those people
into the fiery pit just as God bundles up the weeds in today’s parable and
burns them. Of course not.
Weeds are just a flower you did not plant!
Remember last week’s “parable about the seed that falls on
rocky soil and can’t take root and grow because of the hot sun? Desert weeds
did not get that memo. They flourish up
through the landscaped gravel, the concrete pavers, the fake AstroTurf, even
the sizzling, cracked red clay. Call
them nuisance, call them an eyesore, but they are also a miracle of Nature.”[2]
A miracle of God.
You see just as a wildflower is beautiful and welcome in the
desert-scape, that very same plant is a nuisance when it is in one’s yard and
or sidewalks. Just as every person is a
gift of God one day we are a beautiful Flower and the next we are a weed!
So, what is the difference?
What makes one a kind and beautiful creature of God in one place and an
annoying weed in another. Judgement! Do you here that in this parable?
Let’s reflect for a moment on another parable. We all recall
the story of the mustard seed. You can
move a mountain if your faith is only as big as a small mustard seed. The image is classic you can find necklaces
with just a little mustard seed in some glass baubles with a simple search. But
let us recall what a “mustard seed is a weed. Unwanted, unruly, unlovely.” It doesn’t belong in most landscapes oh and
it never grows into a tree!
If we pay attention to this parable I think the important
bit is this “when the first green shoots appeared and the grain began to form
so did the thistles…the farm hands asked should we weed out the thistles?” the answer of course given is no let them
grow together.
In other words, this is not our job. Our job is not to sit in judgement and weed
out the good from the bad especially considering last week’s sermon. I mean did you listen to the metaphors I
used? We are all weeds, we are all
beautiful miracles of nature it just depends on how we look at each other and
quite frankly this parable is saying do not!
Do not sit in judgement of one another but tend to each other just as
the farmer instructs his workers.
Andrew prior shares this story and reflection:
“When I was a young teenager the largest paddock on the farm
was overrun with thistles. They grew thick as a crop, about 2 foot 6 tall,
after a summer rain. You could not walk through them without being shred round
the shins and thighs.
I thought we were very lucky this had happened after the
harvest. I was beginning to understand the problem of weeds and, very
clearly, we had a problem. I suspect I had pleasant anticipations of burning
off the paddock, always good fun, to rid ourselves of the weeds.
Instead, Dad produced an enormous length of railway iron,
from somewhere out the back of the shed, and towed it down to the paddock. Then
he chained it at both ends, so that it could be pulled behind the tractor like
a huge rake.
I was tasked to circle the paddock at quite high speed for a
tractor, knocking over the drying thistles. It turned out that this would
shatter the seed heads, leaving a rich summer harvest for the sheep.
Subsequent to my efforts, the sheep were turned into the
paddock, and spent a couple of weeks doing very well for themselves. I learned
a lesson about what constitutes a useless weed, and about listening to the
wisdom of my father.
On Facebook, this week a friend posted the following:
In the year 385, a synod of bishops condemned Priscillian of
Avila for heresy: he and six of his followers were beheaded. He was the first
Christian to be executed by his fellow-Christians for his religious views.
One historian estimates that in the next 2 1/2 centuries,
Christian imperial authorities slaughtered 25000 more for their lack of creedal
correctness. (Rowland Croucher)
Here the servants of the householder did not wait for the
harvest, or the instructions of the householder, but got busy weeding out the
paddock, ahead of time. How much good wheat was uprooted in this cleansing of
the crop?
One of the interesting things about plants, is that weeds
evolve to mimic the crops we value. It helps them survive. In ripping out the
weeds it is not only possible to uproot the wheat, so to speak, but also
possible to mistake a good plant for a weed.
We might also remember the stories of husbands, or children,
who sought to do Mum a favor by weeding the garden, and who instead removed a
prized garden plant.
Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. It should stay that way
because, in our ignorance, we know not what we do.”[3]
It is interesting he goes on in his analysis of the text
“I don't find judgement a helpful image, but the text
clearly imagines judgement.
41The Son of Man will
send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and
all evildoers, 42and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
I can only understand judgement in this way: judgement is a
logical necessity. If we are people of free will, truly human, we must be free
to reject the love of God and exclude ourselves from the harvest- if that is
what we insist on doing. But the love of God is such that God will wait
forever in case I should change my mind.”[4]
I have said this many time and I will say it again here and
now there is nothing, nothing that can separate you form the love of God. Except ourselves. We can choose to be separated. We separate ourselves in our anger. We separate ourselves in our pain. We separate ourselves in our blindness. We separate ourselves in our own guilt and
shame.
And if we dare sit in judgement of others oh dear lord…
“I tell you as human one of our worse traits is the way we
sit in judgement. Not so much of others
but ourselves. We are our own worst
enemy when it comes to forgiveness.
Farm boys love to have a good burning- as more than a few
haystack fires can testify! The church, sadly, is not much different.”[5]
Often, we as Christians as the church may sit in judgement
of one or another. Sometimes we get on
each other’s nerves. Sometimes we see a behavior and it triggers something in
our own psyche. We, meaning we humans,
often see a behavior in another that annoys us because it is a behavior in
ourselves we do not like. Other times we
sit in judgement without knowing the whole story.
When we see something arise in ourselves, which often occurs
in hindsight, but we must ask why did I react such a way. We also must ask
ourselves what do I not know?
I was once in disagreement with another classmate during the
prop 8 fight about how the gay community and the African American community
work together or didn’t. The discussion
got pretty heated both of us accusing the other of not seeing the truth. But
when we took some air relaxed came back together and listened to each other’s
experiences we realized we were both right and how could that be…well his
perspective was Los Angeles mine was mainly Detroit. Two very different cities four very different
communities.
Had I just dismissed this as an argument or dismissed my
brother as wrong neither of us would learn or grow.at that moment we were both
weeds blinded by pride or arrogance because we each knew “I was right he was
wrong” which turned out to be true in the end we were both.
“When we “burn” our sinners, they are a scapegoat for our
own fears and failings.” How much better it would be if we were more cautious
around each other. If we feel something
being triggered, may we explore what we are seeing reflected in the other we do
not like in ourselves and offer love, compassion and understanding. We can
start by truly trying to love ourselves and forgive ourselves for whatever we
hold against ourselves is separating us from the love of God.
Do not reject what God has planted for God truly did make
both weed and Flower alike
“In Matthew 21 Jesus
says
Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes”?
One thinks of other rejected stones; Luther, Mandela, Martin
Luther King, a no-account bishop like Romero...
Perhaps it would be best if we did more loving, and trusted
God to sort what needs sorting at the end.”
[1] Brainy qoutes,
Satan Qouites, accessed July 19, 2017,
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/satan.html.
[3] Andrew Prior,
Feeding on Thistles, 2011, accessed July 20, 2017, https://www.onemansweb.org/theology/the-gospel-of-matthew-2011/feeding-on-thistles-matthew-13-24-30-36-43.html.
[5] Andrew Prior,
Feeding on Thistles, 2011, accessed July 20, 2017,
https://www.onemansweb.org/theology/the-gospel-of-matthew-2011/feeding-on-thistles-matthew-13-24-30-36-43.html.
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