Life in a Messy Garden

The only way to get rid of this thistle in a garden where we want to grow other things is to painstakingly dig out and pick up each and every piece of root.

But when is the best time to do that?

It is not when there are small vegetables growing, for the roots of the thistle wander here and there, and one will likely pull out the vegetables along with the thistles.

At harvest time there can be a sorting of all the good things from all of the troublesome junk.

This is the same illustration that Jesus is using in his parable of the wheat and the tares.

No weeding now; it will be taken care of at the harvest.

It makes for a messy garden.

The other day I tried to pull out the dratted foxtail grass in my garden, and pulled out a bunch of onions in the process.

The application that follows Jesus' story talks about people instead of plants.

So the whole church, and this particular congregation also, are like a messy garden.

There are lots of weeds in this garden, and there always have been!

We're not going to be able to remove them all, even if we wanted to do so, for they are so deeply rooted here.

It is not so simple as merely saying let's clean the membership roll and get rid of those deadbeats.

That usually causes as much pain as it relieves.

Rather, we are recognizing that there are weeds in the life of each of us, weeds which we cannot remove on our own.

That makes Jesus' message into Good News!

Jesus will finally clear our lives of all the garbage, the weeds, the things that weigh us down, our daily messiness.

There will be a harvest, God's harvest, and the Lord will clean us up to be a part of it.

One of the most wondrous things in a farm of a generation ago was the threshing machine.

10' high, 6' wide, 20' long

pulled into position in the barn and chained to the main beams.

Sheaves of grain were tossed from the wagon into the chain-driven conveyor in the front, where great knives cut the sheaves apart.

The oscillating trays inside the machine shook the grain loose from the straw.

The straw fell to the back where a great fan blew it into the straw mow, while the grain was shaken to the bottom of the machine and cleaned of weed seeds and moved to wooden 1 bushel measuring boxes and carried to the grain bins.

Nothing was wasted: straw to the mow, grain to the bin, weed seeds were composted and eventually found their way back to the ground.

The comparison with Jesus' story points to good news.

Nothing in our lives will be wasted: the straw to aid and comfort one another in our needs, the grain to speak Jesus Good News to one another, and even the junk, the weed seeds in our lives will be given a good use, somehow, in the mercy of God.

Yes, God can do that. He chooses to do that. What a wonder!

There are some hints of that in the way in which Jesus tells the story.

Check out these little details:

The parable begins: the Kingdom of heaven may be compared with a man who sowed good seed in his field.

Why did he do it?

Wasn't that properly his servants' job?

Then the servants come back and ask him if they should pull up those weeds.

This is strange, because any farm-worker worth his wage would know that this cannot be done without serious danger to the crop.

The owner says emphatically “I will tell the harvest workers....”

Strangely, are not the servants also going to be the harvest workers?

The story ends by saying that the grain will be stored “in my barns”.

The cumulative effect of these little details is to put the full weight of the plot of the story on the owner: he sows, he instructs, he directs the harvesters, he gathers.

The direction is clear: this harvest is the owner's from start to finish.

The servants are secondary here, and will bungle things if they are left on their own.

So it is when we presume to advise God on his work; we bungle the effort.

We set up our own standards of what it means to be saved.

We claim an absolute knowledge of the will of God.

We are so sure of our own purity and righteousness so that anyone who opposes us is automatically evil to be discarded.

The parable says that we should stop and wait, since the harvest is God's and not ours.

When we hear one of these parables, one of the things which we regularly do is think about where we see ourselves in connection with the story.

There are several possibilities in this story.

Are we like the servants who ask not such bright questions?

Are we like the harvesters who only show up after the growing and tending are done, but are otherwise not part of the action?

Are we like the wheat, at those times when we are feeling especially good about ourselves and our accomplishments?

Are we like the weeds at those times when we are feeling especially bad about ourselves?

Perhaps the best point is when we see ourselves as the field, the scene of the action.

Within us and among us there is much going on.

The good seed of the promise of God has been sown and is beginning to grow, moistened by the water of Holy Baptism.

Unfortunately, much else also starts to grow: anger, intolerance, envy, and all the rest of the weeds.

There are so many seeds and they sprout so quickly; we'll never get rid of them by ourselves.

Sometimes we are not even sure what is a weed and what is the crop that God intends!

The judgments that we make must be given with a large dose of humility.

The problem of evil is not just the things that we do, it involves also what we are.

We are the field where good and evil both grow, and we are charged with the task of encouraging the one and discouraging the other, until God's harvest time.

That does not mean that we do nothing.

Our task is to witness to the final outcome of God's intentions, always pointing to Christ crucified and risen, and shaping our lives around that message and task.

The only way for us to do battle with evil inside ourselves and around us is to be constantly remembering that we belong to Christ Jesus, and that the hardest work is his work.

A Methodist bishop wrote recently of visiting one of the congregations in his charge on a day when they were engaged in their regular work of serving breakfast to 200 homeless people.

He recognized one of the men scrubbing pots in the kitchen as a lawyer and member of one of the most affluent suburban congregations.

“I think it is wonderful that you are here, washing dishes for the homeless,” the Bishop said.

“Good for you,” the lawyer mumbled, not looking up from his work.

“Have you long enjoyed ministry with the homeless? The Bishop asked.

“Who told you I enjoyed working with the homeless?” he replied. “Have you met those inner city folks? Many of them are mentally ill, some are so addicted or messed up that no one, not even their families want them around.”

“That makes it all the more remarkable that you are here,” stuttered the Bishop. “How did you get here?”

The man looked up from the dishwater are replied,”I'm here because Jesus put me here. How did you get here?”

What more could we say?
We're here because Jesus planted us here, God's good grain and Satan's weeds mixed together in each of us.

We and all those with whom we work are the object of Jesus life and death and resurrection.

Ah, the mystery and wonder of it all!

Last week we concluded that there will be a harvest.

This week we add the specification: It is God's harvest. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.