PREACHING AT ST. MARK’S CHURCH “Weeds” The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost 17 July 2011 Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church Berkeley, California |
Isaiah 44:6-8
Psalm 86:11-17
Romans 8:12-25
St. Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
INI
Fennel
I love fennel. You know the plant, with the feathery leaves, a bulb that tastes faintly of anise, and the seed that definitely tastes of anise. It is wonderful braised in meat stock, or served raw with a salad, or grilled and served with lemon. It can be cooked with potato and then puréed, or mixed into other meats to make a very tasty sausage. Fennel and pasta, fennel and pork, or in a nice sauce over fish. Ah, fennel!
Then there is the fennel that has invaded my neighborhood. Brought to California by some enterprising immigrant, the fennel that has graced so many Italian, French, and Greek dishes has become something of a nuisance. It has invaded the basins around the street trees in my neighborhood. Whole back yards of negligent homeowners have become fields of fennel. It stands up, feathery and light green in vacant lots and train yards. It is impossible to get rid of. I hate fennel.
The weed is a funny thing – as it seems to be in the mind of an observer. I had a late friend who had a wonderful country home up in Sonoma County. There in the almost Mediterranean landscape, typical of Northern California, she made her home nestled in wild oaks, the grounds strewn with Lavender and California Poppies. On a visit, as I accompanied Nancy through her yard, I saw her (to my amazement) uprooting hundreds of California Poppies and throwing them into her compost heap. “Nancy,” I said, “you can’t do that. Those are California Poppies, the state flower, it’s illegal.” “Weeds!” was her succinct reply as she tossed another load into the heap. Weeds, indeed.
"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.”
The Kingdom of Heaven? We had best take notice. Jesus wants to teach us something about our environment, and indeed about ourselves as well. In his parable there is the seed – the good sown by the farmer, and the bad sown by the enemy. Which however is which? There is an economy in Jesus’ answer, which I will save for the close. In the meanwhile, let’s savor the fennel, or the stinging nettles, or the tumbleweed.
What both Jesus and Matthew assume is that we understand the allusion – that the field filled with both weeds and wheat (or whatever) is ripe for harvest, ready for the barns, ready to feed the harvester and the family that keeps the fields, ready to be useful. The harvest is the people, you and me. What is interesting to me is the notion that an “enemy” has come to do the harm, not some nice Italian immigrant who planted fennel in her San Francisco back yard, not realizing that it would soon infest the whole of the peninsula. Or nature – could Nancy not realize that the lovely poppies she hated so much were a product of nature, and not of someone who wished to annoy her.
If the field is the harvest, and if the harvest is those who have grown up into the word, then what are we? Are we the good plant or the bad plant – the grain, or the weed?! (That would be an interesting tangent).
Weeds and Crops
Over a decade ago, we became acquainted with cousins who live in Germany, in the Schwartzwald, in a small town called Swann. Initial contacts were with my mother and my two sisters as they made their way to visit these new relatives of ours and were greeted one winter’s day in the ancestral village of Nabern – greeted by 40 individuals who had come to discover who we were. The following summer, my daughter was in Frankfurt am Main, polishing up her German, and went to visit one of the cousins who lived there. As Anna and Elle poured over photo albums, my daughter Anna suddenly startled. There in the photos was one relative in a Hitlerjugend outfit, and another in a Luftwaffe uniform. Suddenly she realized that she was no longer necessary the good seed, but that there was an aspect to her existence that was weed. It would no longer be easy to cast aspersions on others.
Just as Christ has two natures, both human and divine - an initial realization in reading this parable is that we may share that proclivity in that we are both seed and weed, good and bad. Saint Paul, a couple of Sundays ago, put it well (or as well as Saint Paul can be expected to put anything).
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
This convoluted and twisted argument, and psychological dilemma was put more simply by Martin Luther who stated the Christian (you and me) is simil Justus et peccator – at the same time justified and sinner. We are wound up in each of these conditions. We are seed and weed. What will come of it all will have to wait.
Renewed with Water
And that is precisely Jesus’ answer to the question of “what then are we? What shall we become?” The economy of his answer is instructive of how we should not only live life, but also of how we ought to observe and honor our neighbor. I know plenty of people who think that I make a marvelous weed – unworthy of the water that sustains me. I suspect that you have similar relationships as well. The slaves of the household approach the owner and wonder what to do about all of the weeds in their fields. The owner (Jesus – God – perhaps even ourselves, urges their patience. “Wait”, she says. The owner is a wise woman, for in tearing out the weeds, she may lose some of her crop.
Paul makes the same comment in the second lesson for today:
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Who have we torn out of our lives simply because they were weeds, inappropriate and troublesome in our lives. And who has torn us out of their lives for the same reason? This is Jesus’ economy of time – there is plenty of it, and we are enjoined to wait it out. What will be redeemed at the harvest will be redeemed for our good.
It is important that we remember we are both: weed and seed, good crop and bad crop, useful and useless, saint and sinner. It is God’s judgment in the end as to what we have turned out to be. For this reason, we have placed the baptismal font at the entrance to our nave – the place where we gather to worship. It is a bit of an obstruction. We will make it easier to get around in the coming weeks, but right now it confronts us in the middle of aisle. It says something to us about our nature as a redeemed individual or a redeemed people.
When I grew up, the liturgy of the Lutheran Common Service began with these words, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” to which the people responded, “Amen,” (so be it!) That was then followed by confession and absolution. A similar realization was in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer where the worship was initially confronted with this collect:
ALMIGHTY God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
The instinct of both is to remind us of our dual nature, saint and sinner. There is an aspect of the Lutheran entrance that I find to be instructive and helpful. We knock at the door of the church, a sort of “Knock Knock?” moment. Realizing that we are both seed and weed, we invoke someone else’s name. “Who’s there?” “I am,” we say in our hearts, and continue with “but I am coming and entering here in someone else’s name, I come, “in the name of the Father…” When we are obstructed by the font, we reach down with our fingers, touching the water and remember that in spite off our difficulties we are baptized and redeemed. Using Jesus’ model of the harvest, the weed part will be overlooked, and we shall be retreaved as the ripe harvest, the product of the Sower’s finest intent.
We need to begin to look at ourselves in this manner, for in doing so we can begin to see the seed in others, their redeem ability, their being loved of God along with us. So with no further ado, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Amen.
SDG
