Learning from God's Patience

7 Pentecost, Cycle A Proper 11, July 23, 2017
Genesis 28:10-19a,  Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23
Romans 8:12-25 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Lectionary Link
The parable of the weeds and the wheat is in some ways a retelling of the Garden of Eden story and the human condition of knowing good and evil.

God created a perfect garden with innocent people.  Innocent people are not morally advanced people because they are robots who do what is instinctually good and not knowing why.  A baby's behavior is not bad, it is only cute.  Innocence is cute and endearing.

We as adults know that we and the world has lost its innocence.  The serpent in the Garden of Eden came and sowed seeds of dissention.  The weed of sin entered the innocent lives of Adam and Eve when they disobeyed the law of God.  God said, "Don't eat from this tree."  They disobeyed and so the weed of sin entered and flourished.  And the innocent children were evicted from paradise to live in a world where weeds and wheat were growing in competition with each other.

When each person comes into moral awareness, each discovers the profound experience of living in a world of freedom.  We live in world of freedom that is mixed with good and bad and everything in between.  The mixture of good and bad in a world of freedom is so interwoven that it is impossible to surgically remove the sources of what is bad without also injuring what is good.

When one plants a garden, one can wait too long to do some weeding and when one finally gets to pulling the weeds, one can find their roots so interwoven with the intended plants that to pull the weed means that the good plant is pulled up as well.

The conditions of freedom are so set in this world that to "smart bomb" all that evil and bad in this world is impossible; there is always collateral damage done to what is good and the condition of freedom itself.

The message of the parable of the wheat and the weeds is that God, the one who planted this world, is very patient to wait for harvest to sort things out.  God is not a panicky farmer;  God is a patient farmer.

We, as modern people, are not always very patient.  Modern science and technology have made us feel the need for speed.  We upgrade our computers and our internet access to increase our speed of access.  Modern life with its need for speed does not want to wait for nature.  We want ripe tomatoes year round in any location; we don't want to be limited to what can grow in a certain place at a certain time.

In our story lives, we live by time-lapsed presentations.  In one movie lasting an hour and a half, an action adventure hero can win lots of battles against bad guys with such surgical precision and save the world from nuclear destruction.  We get used to time-lapsed presentations.  Time-lapsed presentations are not actual time.  Real life is slow and cyclical.   Because we live our lives with too many time-lapsed presentations, we can get real impatient with the uneven distribution of good and bad that is found in our world.  The experience of  rage is this drive to think that one could suddenly correct what is bad in this world with a single act of intervening violence.

A farmer lives under the both the promise and threat of freedom.  A crop can turn out to be bountiful or it can end up being destroyed or minimal based upon other conditions.

In our rage, we sometimes wish that all that is evil and bad could just be "smart bombed" out of existence, but what does this really mean?  If all that is evil and bad could be "smart bombed" out existence, it would mean the end of freedom as the very underpinning of human significance.

God created in freedom.  God is patient in tolerating the conditions of freedom.  There are weeds and wheat that will coexist in the field until harvest.  There are weeds and wheat in our personal and social worlds that co-exist; things do not always get sorted out immediately.  How is it that slavery and the subjugation of women co-existed with a belief in God for so long?  There are many weeds in human history that we did not know were weeds until the time came for justice to be extended to sort out and consign inhumane treatment to arrive at its end.   Enlightened human society has and is arising to condemn slavery and the subjugation of women as unworthy of human dignity.  In the cycle of farming there is a harvest phase when the good and bad is sorted out.  In human experience, we often say, "hindsight is 20/20."  Sometimes we don't understand the past until later in the future.  Jacob was running away from home because his brother was angry at him.  On his journey, he fell asleep and had his "Jacob's ladder" dream.  When he woke up, he thought, God was there and I did not know it.  In our mixed lives of good things and bad things, sometimes we can only recognize that God was with us at a later time.  Sometimes we can seem overwhelmed by what is apparently going wrong that we cannot discern God's presence.  In patience we can learn to wait for things to be sorted out  from our past and we can come to have this hindsight wisdom:  God was there but I did not recognize God was there.

St. Paul in his writing about the spiritual psychology of a person, taught that we as human beings have the mixture of flesh and spirit.  We are not ghosts.  We have bodies and in the training of our bodies anchored by desire we come to know that we can do what is right and what is wrong.  The same energy of desire which can propel us to do good works and also be used as energy to drive wrong things that we do.  St. Paul writes about having a graceful patience with ourselves as we seek to have our desire directed by God's Spirit toward that which is good and worthy.  If we get so obsessed about our flesh and its weak tendency, we may want to shut off all functions.  We can get paralyzed if we begin to think that all that we desire and do is somehow wrong or bad.  Temporary states of depression are characterized by this shutting down of all desire because of the fear of unsatisfactory outcomes.

The meaning of the parable of the weeds and the wheat for me is that God who is pure freedom and creativity respects the genuine freedom that is evident in our lives.  Freedom happens.  And in freedom the good and the bad occur.  And while we work to avoid what is bad do what is good, we can never kill off the possibility of the bad happening.  The patience of God is a respect for growth and perfection.

So let me leave you with this for today:  Let us respect the freedom for anything to happen in this world.  Such freedom is the sun that shines on the good and the bad.  Respect freedom but expect cycles within freedom to do some significant sorting of the values of good and evil in our lives.  Harvest time allows the sorting of the wheat and weeds.  The harvest cycle in our lives are when we are able to reap the good outcomes that have arisen even in the face of serious opposition.  Learn patience with this world and with your life.  Do not let the time-lapsed habits of modern life bring us to the rage of thinking that we can smart bomb all that is bad and evil out of our lives or our world.  As a farmer is patient for the harvest, let us be patient in waiting for the times when we sort the good and the bad in significant ways.

And finally, let us create a better past through a faithful present.  If we are faithful in the present, we can re-write our past as being providential because of current outcomes.  We can come to the same hindsight wisdom that Jacob had about a memorable night of dream-filled sleep.  "Surely God is in this place and I did not know it."  May God help us to this insight:  "Surely God has been in all of the times and places of my life, even when I did not know.  But now I do, and everything past is now providential for what is now."  Amen.

Sunday School, July 23, 2017 7 Pentecost, A proper 11

Sunday School, July 23, 2017    7 Pentecost, A proper 11

  

Theme:

A story about God’s patience with the free conditions of the world

Does sun shine only on Americans or does it shine on people of other countries?  Does the sun shine only on me when I am good or does it continue to shine when I do something wrong?

Does the sun shine only on plants that are useful or does the sun shine to make weeds grow as well?

God has made this world in a way so that everything and everyone has the sunshine of freedom.  This means that some good things can happen and some bad things can happen.

If there was not freedom for bad things to happen or for people to make bad choices, then life would be like a big machine.  A machine does not do good or bad, a machine does what it is programmed to do.

The parable of the wheat and the weeds  told by Jesus is a story about how God is patient with the freedom that allows both good and bad things to happen.

Weeds and wheat grow so closely together that when a gardener tries to remove the weed, the wheat is pulled up as well and the good wheat dies.  So the gardener waits until it is time to harvest and the garden separates the good wheat from the weeds at harvest.

Sometimes we want the world to be a world where only good things can happen and we want to be people who automatically do good things. 

We grow as human beings by being free and by learning to make good choices.  We don’t want to be punished with a death penalty when we make a mistake.  Why?  Because we know that we need more time to learn to get better and make good choices.  We want God and other people to be patient with us as we continually learn to make good choices.

Sometimes we might be impatient about the badness we see in the world or we might be impatient about our own faults and weakness.  We need to know that God is patient and God always allows us more time to get better.

Let us be thankful for a patient God.  Let us be thankful for people who are patient with us.  And let us learn to be patient with others as we wait for all to make better choices.

Let us be patient with the freedom that is in life.  Let us be glad that we are not machines and appreciate that our choices really mean something special.

Prayer:  Thank you God for being patient.  Thank you God for freedom.  Thank you God for being patient with me while I learn to make good free choices.  Help me to be patient with the freedom in this world even as we learn to make good choices.  Amen.

Sermon:

  Have you ever planted a garden?  Have you ever planted some seeds in the ground?

  If you plant pumpkin seeds or tomato seeds or spinach seeds, there is always some extra plants that grow too.

  So if I plant some flower seeds, and I get some extra plants, that should be a nice surprise, shouldn’t it?

  But those extra plants are not nice surprises….why?   What are those surprise plants called?

  They are called weeds.

  Weeds are plants that grow every where.  They grow even when you didn’t when you don’t plant them.  They grow in places where you don’t want them to grow.

  And sometimes they are a big problem.  They grow so close to the plants that you want to live, if you try to pull the weeds, the plant comes out of the ground too.

   Jesus told a story about weeds and wheat.  A farmer wants wheat to grow so that it can be made into flour to make bread.

  But the farmer does not want weeds to grow in the wheat.

   But when the weeds start growing in the wheat, one of the farm workers wanted to pull out weeds.  But the farmer said, “Don’t pull the weeds, because if you pull the weeds, the wheat will be pulled out with it.  Waiting until the wheat is fully grown and when it is cut, the weeds will be cut too…and then the weeds will be separated from the wheat.

  What does this story mean?  This story is about God’s patience.  Sometimes, when we see something that we don’t like, we want to correct it and make it right.

  If you’re doing something wrong in front of lots of people.  Sometimes your Mom or Dad won’t correct you until you get home alone, because they don’t want to embarrass you or make you feel badly in front of people.  They have the patience to wait because you will learn better if you are not embarrassed.

  So God is patient with our world.  Some times we wish God would get rid of all the people who are acting badly, but God is patient.  Why?  God knows that even bad people can get better and they can say they are sorry.  So God is patient and waits and waits to give us many chances to make good choices.

  So today, let us remember that God is patient and God is always waiting for us to become better.  Amen.

St. John the Divine Episcopal Church

17740 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037

Family Service with Holy Eucharist

July 23, 2017: The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Gathering Songs: Jacob’s Ladder, He’s Got The Whole World, Spirit of the Living God, The King of Glory

Liturgist: Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

People: And Blessed be God’s kingdom, now and forever.  Amen.

Liturgist:  Oh God, Our hearts are open to you.

And you know us and we can hide nothing from you.

Prepare our hearts and our minds to love you and worship you.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Song:  Jacob’s Ladder  (Christian Children’s Songbook,  # 130)

We are climbing Jacob’s ladder; We are climbing Jacob’s ladder;  We are climbing Jacob’s ladder; Soldiers of the cross.

If you love Him, why not serve Him?  If you love Him, why not serve Him; If you love Him, why not serve Him; Soldiers of the cross.

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

First Litany of Praise: Alleluia (chanted)

O God, you are Great!  Alleluia

O God, you have made us! Alleluia

O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Alleluia

O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Alleluia

O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Alleluia

O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Alleluia

O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Alleluia

A reading from the Book of Genesis

Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 139

LORD, you have searched me out and known me; * you know my sitting down and my rising up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.

You trace my journeys and my resting-places * and are acquainted with all my ways.

Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, * but you, O LORD, know it altogether.

You press upon me behind and before * and lay your hand upon me.

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God! (chanted)

Litanist:

For the good earth, for our food and clothing. Thanks be to God!

For our families and friends. Thanks be to God!

For the talents and gifts that you have given to us. Thanks be to God!

For this day of worship. Thanks be to God!

For health and for a good night’s sleep. Thanks be to God!

For work and for play. Thanks be to God!

For teaching and for learning. Thanks be to God!

For the happy events of our lives. Thanks be to God!

For the celebration of the birthdays and anniversaries of our friends and parish family.

   Thanks be to God!

Liturgist:         The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew

People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Jesus put before the crowd another parable: "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. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, `Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?' He answered, `An enemy has done this.' The slaves said to him, `Then do you want us to go and gather them?' But he replied, `No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"  Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field." He answered, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!"

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.

People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon – Father Phil

Children’s Creed

We did not make ourselves, so we believe that God the Father is the maker of the world.

Since God is so great and we are so small,

We believe God came into our world and was born as Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary.

We need God’s help and we believe that God saved us by the life, death and

     resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We believe that God is present with us now as the Holy Spirit.

We believe that we are baptized into God’s family the Church where everyone is

     welcome.

We believe that Christ is kind and fair.

We believe that we have a future in knowing Jesus Christ.

And since we all must die, we believe that God will preserve us forever.  Amen.

Litany Phrase: Christ, have mercy. (chanted)

For fighting and war to cease in our world. Christ, have mercy.

For peace on earth and good will towards all. Christ, have mercy.

For the safety of all who travel. Christ, have mercy.

For jobs for all who need them. Christ, have mercy.

For care of those who are growing old. Christ, have mercy.

For the safety, health and nutrition of all the children in our world. Christ, have mercy.

For the well-being of our families and friends. Christ, have mercy.

For the good health of those we know to be ill. Christ, have mercy.

For the remembrance of those who have died. Christ, have mercy.

For the forgiveness of all of our sins. Christ, have mercy.

Liturgist:         The Peace of the Lord be always with you.

People:            And also with you.

Song during the preparation of the Altar and the receiving of an offering

Offertory Song: He’s Got the Whole World(Christian Children’s Songbook, #90)

He’s got the whole world, in his hands.  He’s got the whole wide world, in his hands.  He’s got the whole world, in his hands.  He’s got the whole world in his hands.

He’s got the little tiny babies…

He’s got the boys and the girls….

Doxology

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Prologue to the Eucharist

Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, for to them belong the kingdom of God.”

All become members of a family by birth or adoption.

Baptism is a celebration of our birth into the family of God.

A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.

The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.

It is right to give God thanks and praise.

It is very good and right to give thanks, because God made us, Jesus redeemed us and the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts.  Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all of the world that we see and don’t see, we forever sing this hymn of praise:

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 

Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

(All may gather  around the altar)

Our grateful praise we offer to you God, our Creator;

You have made us in your image

And you gave us many men and women of faith to help us to live by faith:

Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachael.

And then you gave us your Son, Jesus, born of Mary, nurtured by Joseph

And he called us to be sons and daughters of God.

Your Son called us to live better lives and he gave us this Holy Meal so that when we eat

  the bread and drink the wine, we can  know that the Presence of Christ is as near to us as  

  this food and drink  that becomes a part of us.

And so, Father, we bring you these gifts of bread and wine. Bless and sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Bless and sanctify us so that we may love God and our neighbor.

On the night when Jesus was betrayed he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, "Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks, and said, "Drink this, all of you. This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me."

Father, we now celebrate the memorial of your Son. When we eat this holy Meal of Bread and Wine, we are telling the entire world about the life, death and resurrection of Christ and that his presence will be with us in our future.

Let this holy meal keep us together as friends who share a special relationship because of your Son Jesus Christ.  May we forever live with praise to God to whom we belong as sons and daughters.

By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory

 is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever. AMEN.

And now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we now sing,

Our Father: (Renew # 180, West Indian Lord’s Prayer)

Our Father who art in heaven:  Hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done: Hallowed be thy name.

Done on earth as it is in heaven: Hallowed be thy name.

Give us this day our daily bread: Hallowed be thy name.

And forgive us all our debts: Hallowed be thy name.

As we forgive our debtors: Hallowed be thy name.

Lead us not into temptation: Hallowed be thy name.

But deliver us from evil: Hallowed be thy name.

Thine is the kingdom, power, and glory: Hallowed be thy name.

Forever and ever: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread

Celebrant:       Alleluia.  Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast.  Alleluia!

Words of Administration

Communion Song: Spirit of the Living God  (Renew!  # 90)

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.  Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.  Break me, melt me, mold me, fill me. Spirit of the living God.  Fall afresh on me.

Spirit of the living God, move among us all; Spirit of the living God, move among us all.  Humble, caring, selfless, sharing.  Spirit of the living God, fill our lives with love.

The God of Jacob is our God.  The God of Jacob is our God.  The God of Jacob is our God.

Post-Communion Prayer

Everlasting God, we have gathered for the meal that Jesus asked us to keep;

We have remembered his words of blessing on the bread and the wine.

And His Presence has been known to us.

We have remembered that we are sons and daughters of God and brothers

    and sisters in Christ.

Send us forth now into our everyday lives remembering that the blessing in the

     bread and wine spreads into each time, place and person in our lives,

As we are ever blessed by you, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Closing Song: The King of Glory  (Renew! # 267)

Refrain: The King of glory comes, the nation rejoices.  Open the gates before him, lift up your voices.

Who is the king of glory; how shall we call him?  He is Emmanuel, the promised of ages.  Refrain

In all of Galilee, in city or village, he goes among his people, curing their illness.  Refrain

Sing then of David’s son, our savior and brother; in all of Galilee was never another.  Refrain

Dismissal:   

Liturgist:    Let us go forth in the Name of Christ.

People:      Thanks be to God! 

   

Sympathy for Weeds

6 Pentecost, Cycle A Proper 11, July 20, 2014

Genesis 28:10-19a,  Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23

Romans 8:12-25 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Lectionary Link

  Allow me to introduce myself, I'm a plant of stealth and distaste.  I was there when Adam and Eve were evicted from the perfect place.  Pleased to meet me you, hope you guessed my name. Being a pest is the nature of my game.

  With apologies to the Rolling Stones, you've guess my name.  My name is Weeds, and we are many.

  Today, we have read the well-known parable of the weeds and the wheat, or in good ol' proper English, The Parable of the Tares.  Now doesn't "Tares" sound more romantic than "Weeds?"

  Following the reporting style of the Gospel, we first have the parable of Jesus and then it is followed by an interpretation, given authority by being associated with the teacher.  One could see this as an example of teaching and learning.  A parable is told with many meaning possibilities and the first example of interpretation is given.  This is a pattern of teaching and learning. The wisdom teacher provided a story and then requires the students and disciples to project their meanings upon the allegory because we learn by continuing to seek to find meaning from the words of the people whom we respect to model excellence.

  And so we continue in this tradition of seeking meaning  in our efforts today.  Now some churches would like for you to believe that all of the meanings of the Bible are precisely fixed and final and so everyone should have the same meaning as prescribed by the religious authority of choice.

  The Bible is inspired because it encourages us by written example of practitioners of faith to work continually to come to applied meanings in our lives as individuals and as a gathered community.

  This parable of the weeds and wheat provides for us the occasion to come into many different meanings to give us insights about having faithful wisdom in the art of living today.

  One of the striking things about this parable is that it evokes the truth of how the great freedom of life means that the process of life is always a mixture of the values of human experience.

  Another striking thing about this parable is that like many parables it is perhaps wrongly labeled by many Bible scholars.  A label or title can give a pointing sign to get the wrong or incomplete message.  This parable is called the parable of the Weeds or Tares and the Wheat.  I think that it would better be called the Parable of the Patient God.

  We as people are mostly not patient for what we think is effective and immediate fix of things particularly if we have wealth and power. We often want quick resolution by intervention because something can seem so right and wrong in a precisely either/or type of way.  The majority of humanity the majority of time wants all of the issues of life served up to us in either/or answers for our convenience.

  If we really knew who all of the bad guys and the good guys were in Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan or Pakistan or anywhere, then we could just smart bomb the bad guys out of the way.  In Hiroshima, we did find the quick and catastrophic way to end the war, but not only weeds but lots of "wheat" was destroyed.  The strategic decision was made to sacrifice an entire field to stop the spread of war, we thought.  On the personal level one can know the terror of living with a person of rage who wants to correct someone or something with a sweeping fit of anger because the power of rage gives one the false sense of knowing precisely what is right.  There can be the false sense that an angry intervention can take out evil and establish good in one fell swoop.

  And then it is gotcha!  Because the anger that we used to correct the evil that we thought was so obvious ends up being as bad as what we thought we were trying to correct.

  The irony of Bible readers is that some many people today are possessed with apocalyptic fatalism because they believe the Bible to be a book which inspires such apocalyptic fatalism.  There is fatal wish that God would get really tired of all of the really, really, bad stuff in this world and just accomplish a final retribution where there would be a final sorting out and solving of the issues of what is good and bad in this world.

  There is always enough poverty and inequality and brutal oppression of people in our world that we would hope that God would act upon the world situation with the same clarity of what's right and wrong that we think we have.

  As it turns out God is a patient God.  And indeed the parable hints that there will be a sorting out and a resolution.  But the sorting out and the resolution is but a subsequent event of interpretation and re-interpretation of the conditions of God's garden of wheat and weeds.

   The world, each nation, each community and each one of us are made up of weeds and wheat.  In short, because of the truth of the process of freedom in this world we and life itself is a mixture of apparent blessing and curse.

  We should have great sympathy for weeds today.  Weeds really get a bad rap.  Weeds stand for plant life that rises up against God's perfect Garden of Eden from which Adam and Eve were evicted.  In the biblical story the weeds entered the picture as the result of the curse of the sin of the Fall.  When Adam and Eve were evicted from the garden they had to deal with weeds.  One can see in this story the frustration of every farmer: "Why doesn't Nature fully cooperate with my efforts to grow crops?  These pesty weeds hinder success and just require more work."  The origin story of weeds is the attempt of ancient farmers to give meaning to their hard work.

  People who study weeds today have a different view; if it weren't for weeds the majority of the soil of the earth would be eroded by wind and water.  When forests are cut down, weeds and brambles set in to keep the soil in place.  So the weeds that we want to kill out in one place are of great value in another.

  I think that the wisdom of this parable can also be about the wisdom of both a mythical and an actual understanding of the last days.  The last day is the day when the wheat and the weed are sorted out.  For literal apocalyptic interpreters one could see this as some return to conditions of a heavenly life of where only goodness and innocence can be known, a state of robotic goodness.  We can become so frustrated with the contrast caused by knowing good and evil that we would wish away the possibility of life being one without any judgments or comparison.  I don't think anything is solved by simply removing the very conditions for judgment and comparison.  This is not real to life as we know it.

  What is real is the fact that  "now" is always the last day, or more correctly, it is always the latest days.  And in the last and latest day, we have the responsibility to sort out the weeds and the wheat growing in our gardens of life.

  We are never absolved from the task of making judgments and comparisons.  And we most often do so poorly because of the nature of the process of life and because of our limited views.  Some thing that once was considered to be a worthless weed can become a composted matter for a better and redemptive outcome.  Life is ironic; every intended and unintended event in life can have intended and unintended good and bad consequences.

  The poor hard working family who suffers can end up making life easier for their children who turn out to be wasteful and unproductive because their suffering parent did not want them to suffer in the same way.  That is the irony of the parable of weed and wheat; every intended and unintended event can have intended and unintended good and bad consequences.

  What is the Gospel insight for us today?  We need to have the patience of God.  The wrath and rage of men and women cannot work the righteousness of God.  And having that patience is very difficult in the face of some great ills in our world where we feel helpless.  Another insight for us today is that we live in the last day or the latest day and we cannot avoid but be interpreters of the now and the past.  We are not infallible interpreters of life and yet we cannot avoid designating things in our life and world as weeds or wheat.  We ask for the wisdom of love and justice in interpreting what is weeds or wheat in our world and we know that receiving the patience of God does not mean being passively accepting of things that seem to violate justice and love..  We get out our hoes and weed our patches and we fertilize the good that we see to promote the growth of that which we regard to be just, loving, kind, creative, artistic, humane and joyful.

  And we thank God for the last day, our latest day in the garden of God's world.  Amen.

Futility and God's Patience

Lectionary Link

5 Pentecost, Cycle A Proper 11, July 17, 2011

Genesis 28:10-19a ,Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23

Romans 8:12-25 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

  What if I were to let you get on your soap box with the following unfinished conditional clause: If I were God, I would  (fill in the blank).  If I were God, I would have eliminated that large pit in the avocado.  Think of how much more guacamole you could get from each avocado without that big pit.  If I were God, I would have finished creating the human foot by making every pinkie toe beautiful.  If I were God, I think I would have left the cockroach on the R & D table.  If I were God I would not have allowed the coming into life experience people such as Hitler or Stalin.  How would you finish this conditional clause if you were given a soap box?

  When we have finished speaking and begin to look at our statements, we might find that we express an intolerance or impatience for many things in this life.  Such intolerance or impatience might be proof that at heart, we are all utopians in wanting a better life and a better world.

  What our intolerance and impatience would also express is that if to truly be God is to allow freedom in the world, then we could not be such a God.  If to be God means to be the most patient of all beings, then we would fail at the task of being God, because as we look at things that are evil or occasions of innocent suffering, we do not think that we can have such patience.  In our temporal pain and suffering we are too willing to sacrifice “freedom” for automatic or robotic good outcomes.  Would good be good, if it were automatic or robotic?

  In the parable of the weeds and the wheat, Jesus presents the message of a tolerant and patient God.  In the biblical writings, God was not always been presented with such patience.  In the story of the great flood, God is presented as seeing the human community to be so depraved that he has to use a great flood to rid the earth of its evil population and save only eight people.  And what does his saved hero Noah do after he comes out of the ark?  He gets drunk and curses his son.

  By the time Jesus comes, God is seen to be much more patient and God’s patience has to do with the fact that good and evil have true meaning because of freedom.  To limit human experience to the sole ascendency of good or evil would be to remove freedom and also the definition of good or evil.

  The parable of wheat and the weed gives us an insight about God’s tolerance and patience.  But it does not suggest that we should just wait until a final day of judgment before we do anything about improving our world.

  What it suggests is that catastrophic intervention would mean destroying the potential good crop of the future because of the presence of some inconvenient inter-mingling pesty weeds.  Some of the legal penalties of the Old Testament law were catastrophic in nature, sometimes called the law of the claw, an eye for an eye, a tooth or a tooth, and a life for a life.  There was a law that said an insolent child should be stoned to death.  What sort of future redemption is present in such catastrophic reactions?

  Catastrophic intervention is the chief mythology of Hollywood.  In action adventures, catastrophic intervention by a hero doing super human martial and military acts wins the day in less than two hours.  This virtual cinematic myth is rotten with the rage of a perfect one who knows that good and evil are so clear cut that good can be forced with the rage of catastrophic intervention.  Such cinematic myths do not have the patience necessary for the way life really is.  Nor do they represent the patience of God.

  How can we come to grow in the patience of God?  How did Jacob come to have patience?  Jacob came to have patience by believing that he had a future and for him to have a future, he had to escape from the wrath of his twin brother Esau, whose birth right he had tricked from him.  Jacob escaped to an unknown future and in his night of sleep he had the dream about the angels ascending and descending upon the ladder from heaven.  In this dream, Jacob was reassured that there was and would be messengers from another realm who could bring messages to his own realm of comprehension to enable him to be patience with the unfolding events of his life.

  St. Paul was aware of the tolerance and patience that he needed to have with himself and he also preached of a cosmic patience that we need to have with this world.  If Paul did not come to have patience with himself, he would have said, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.  He participated in the stoning of Stephen; therefore he too deserved to be stoned.  But if Paul had died of a stoning, the entire mission of the Gospel to the Gentile world would not have happened in the way that it did.  Being complicit in murder is perhaps a great weed in one’s life that would challenge one’s right to live and go on.  How could Paul forgive himself and accept the forgiveness of Christ?  The severity of his murdering ways cried out for a great redemptive mission in his life. 

  What did St. Paul call the conditions of weed and wheat of this life?  He called it the condition of futility.  Futility is when we hope for so much more than can become actual.  Futility is when we know that the aspirations of hope cannot be accomplished in the span of an action movie, or even in a span of one’s lifetime.  Futility is when our actual lives seem to tell us that our hope is not valid and we are to be pitied for being so delusional.

  But the Gospel of Jesus and Paul would tell us today that the experience of the Spirit in our flesh is in fact proof that the wheat of hope will someday be ascendant for us.  The experience of God’s Spirit even in our actual weakened conditions of our flesh is the proof itself.

  Let us today accept our limitation as beings who are much less than God.  In our limitations, we do not have the capacity for catastrophic intervention in this world, nor do we have the ability to know that we have the best vision of what is truly good.  What we do have is the presence of the Spirit of God in our lives to inspire us to begin to do a little weeding in our own patches.  O, Spirit of God, what kind of weeding do I need to do to rid my life through personal choices of the things that hinder more excellent human fruitfulness?

  I often worry about apocalyptic fatalism of some people who wish for a catastrophic end of the world as we know it.  They assume a position of God in thinking they truly know from their precise and certain Bible knowledge who is good and who is bad.  Let us not be so certain that we know how the situation of futility in our world, country, community, family or personal lives can be resolved in a final way.

  But let us be certain about the Spirit of God in our futility to be energy and power of hope and patience with us and with each other.  And let us get busy by the Spirit of God to do a little weeding in the patches of our lives.  Amen.