July 23, 2023
I do not like weeds! They drive me crazy! And this might be why I am drawn to this parable that Jesus shares with us from our appointed Gospel reading for today. It’s a parable about what to do with the annoying weeds that can ruin a beautiful garden.
Jesus begins his parable by saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away. So, when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well.”
I’ve heard of stories of people who get back at people they don’t like by toilet papering their front lawn, bashing in their mailbox or egging their house, but I’ve never heard of someone doing something like this! Planting weeds in someone’s garden while they sleep at night???
But in a way it does make sense because I know how much I can’t stand weeds. They drive me nuts! My mom who loved to garden instilled in me a strong work ethic to weed our garden every single day. As long as there was one weed out there, it needed to be plucked so the good plants would be able to grow.
Rarely does a day go by where I don’t pull at least one weed from the landscape around our house. It’s my life mission to eradicate weeds from the face of the earth. Even when I’m taking our dogs for a walk, it’s all I can do to not stop to weed around someone else’s mailbox when I see weeds growing on their property. I know, I need help!
Removing weeds is a never-ending process. And I haven’t found the perfect way to get rid of them. I’m reluctant to use weed spray because those sprays can be unsafe. A friend of mine gave me a wonderful homemade spray that has worked for her.
You just need some white vinegar, some epsom salt, and a little bit of hand dish detergent from a squeeze bottle. You mix that together in a spray bottle and then spray the weeds. It works pretty well but I have found that it clogs up the bottle making it hard for any spray to come out.
So usually, I just use the old-fashioned method of plucking each weed out by hand. But of course, that hurts the back and it takes forever which brings me back to this parable about weeds. Maybe Jesus will offer us the best way to get rid of weeds! What is Jesus’ solution?
Sorry to disappoint but Jesus actually tells us to leave the weeds alone because we just might pull out the good plants with them. And yes, I have been known to pull out some good plants now and then when thinking that they were just weeds.
So, what do we make of Jesus advice to just let the weeds and the good plants to grow together? Well, before we become too disappointed with Jesus’ weeding advice, it’s important to know that when Jesus is referring to weeds in this parable he is using a Greek work that refers to a particular kind of weed that closely resembles wheat.
And the only way to tell the difference between that particular kind of weed and wheat is by waiting for both the weeds and the wheat to grow and mature. And once they both mature, the ears of the real wheat will drop while the ears of the weeds will remain straight up. You can only tell the difference between the two by waiting for both to mature. That’s when the harvesters come to separate the two.
While this weeding advice doesn’t offer me a new way to deal with the weeds around my house, it does offer all of us an important long-term perspective on what it means to live out our faith. It’s going to take time to root out the weeds that we encounter as people of faith.
When Jesus is referring to weeds, he’s referring to the injustices, sins, brokenness, pain, and suffering that we see in our world. But of course, we know that pulling the weeds we find in our flower bed is very different than pulling out the weeds of selfishness, greed, and exploitation that we see in how people treat one another especially those who are most vulnerable and marginalized.
This is why I admire people of faith who have worked tirelessly in the pursuit of making this world a better place. They know that it’s not going to be an overnight process. They know that it takes a lot of time before we see the change that we want to see in the world. Change and transformation often take years before we see God’s new creation breaking forth.
This Saturday, July 29th marks the death anniversary of William Wilberforce. He died in 1833 at the age of 73. He was a devout Christian who lived in England during the 18th & 19th centuries in England. He was a member of the British Parliament from 1780 to 1825. He is best known for abolishing the slave trade and slavery itself in all the British territories.
He can trace his calling to May 12, 1787. Sitting under a large oak tree, a friend challenged him by saying, “Wilberforce, why don’t you give notice of a motion on the subject of the Slave Trade? You have already taken great pains to collect evidence and are therefore fully entitled to the credit which doing so will ensure you. Do not lose time, or the ground will be occupied by another.”
Wilberforce’s response is not recorded, but he later declared in old age that he could distinctly remember the very knoll on which he was sitting near Pitt where he made his decision.
It took William Wilberforce 18 years to get his motion to abolish the slave trade passed. 18 years. And then just four days before his death, Parliament finally passed a motion to end all slavery in the British territories. A year after William Wilberforce died, almost one million slaves were set free from the evil force of slavery.
One of the reasons why Wilberforce didn’t give up during those long 18 years was because of a letter of encouragement that he received from John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Wesley wrote that letter of encouragement just before Wesley died.
Here is what Wesley wrote to him: “Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well-doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of His might, till even American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun shall vanish away before it.”
Whenever I get frustrated when seeing the injustices in the world that are so persistent, I think of people like William Wilberforce who spent much of life focusing on a cause that would lead to freedom for those who had been enslaved. Some weeds don’t come out very easily but through prayer, the encouragement of others, remaining patient, and continuing to sow seeds to make this world a more beautiful place, in God’s own time, those annoying weeds will finally be uprooted.
Depending on the weeds, they might not get uprooted in our lifetime, but as we live out our faith from generation to generation, God will do the rest. Jesus even tells us in this parable that a day will come when justice will be done. Our Romans scripture reading for today offers us these encouraging words, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
Being patient and continuing to sow seeds that will lead to this world becoming a better place is a good word for us to hear today. We are called to be a “sow-sow” church and by that I don’t mean a “so-so” church that just tries to get by, but a “sow-sow” church in which we continue to sow seeds of God’s love all around us.
By the way, I would be careful in sharing with people that we are a sow-sow church. They might not take it the right way and wonder why you are bragging about being a mediocre church.
Every Sunday when we receive the benediction, we are reminded that God has called us to be a “sow-sow” church in a good way. Each and every person here today is called to sow and sow and sow seeds for God’s kingdom knowing that the weeds will not win in the end. This is our good news for today. The weeds will not win!
Say that with me… “The weeds will not win!” That is music to my ears!
As we prepare to hear the benediction at the end of our service today, let’s ask ourselves, “Lord, what seeds do you want me to sow this week to help make this world become a better place?”
Let’s be a sow-sow church that is always sowing seeds of God’s love all around us.
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