To weed or not to weed?

July 23rd 2023

Year A; 8th Pentecost

Genesis 28: 10-19a

Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23

Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43

Matthew 13:24-30,36-43

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!”

Homily by Rev. Megan Limburgh

In the name of the Holy Three. Amen.

This is my ninth year of gardening in the Northern Neck, and I have come to believe that weeds grow bigger and stronger and faster here than in Richmond! Goodness, sometimes I think I can hear the weeds snickering at me as I pull some in one area, and they are galloping across another!

Weeding, that slow, mindless work of pulling and tossing, does give me great time to think. And as I weeded recently, I found myself thinking back to my first gardens in Richmond. Tim and I just celebrated our 27th anniversary, so those first gardens were about 25 years ago.

In those early years, I would follow the same pattern each spring: planting, doubting, tending, rejoicing and finally, lamenting.

For the first few years I planted only seedlings, putting them in on a Saturday in late April, and then greatly enjoyed visiting them every morning before I left for St. Christopher’s, watering, pulling an occasional tiny weed, and looking carefully for growth and health.

Now Tim claims, though I do not recall it this way, but Tim claims that EVERY year, after about 3 weeks of daily tending and observations, I would slam the back door, stomp into the kitchen, and declare:

“Well, those useless plants are dead! I might as well rip them out; and I think I’ll do it right now.”

Tim further claims that he would always talk me into giving them a few more days, and I would, and I’d remember that roots must grow before a plant can stretch upward. And a few more days would pass and then I’d declare again:

“They are dead. And they have no root growth whatsoever. That rain and wind last night almost pulled them up. I am going to go pull one up right now just to prove my point.”

Tim would again beg me to leave them alone, but I would not be dissuaded so he’d follow me outside, and I’d gently, just in case I was, by some obscure chance, wrong, gently but firmly pull up the tomato plant I had observed as dead.

And, surprise! A beautiful mass of roots would appear as I pulled, attached to that vulnerable plant, and I’d gasp, and hastily replant it.

And Tim kindly never said: “I told you so”, but his smile said it loud and clear.

And then the garden would take off in late May and into early June, growing tall, flourishing, first fruits appearing. I would be quite proud and a bit prideful of how beautiful and orderly my garden looked.

I kept up on the weeding and congratulated myself on how tidy my garden was, healthy plants, straight rows, clear paths between the plants.

And then our July vacation time would come, and we would be off to Michigan and Iowa for visits. I’d ask our teenage neighbor Alex to come over and water, confident that not much could go wrong in a just 2 weeks.

Well, I’d return to a well-watered jungle of weeds encircling my beautiful plants, creeping over my paths, tangled on my fences. Who planted all these weed seeds? Out of control and never again in that season able to re-gain the order and beauty of the early summer.

In our Gospel today Jesus tells the parable of the wheat and the weeds. And though I am always ready to jump in and start pulling weeds, the householder in the parable tells his workers not to pull the weeds, but to wait until the harvest. The wise householder knows that pulling the weeds will uproot the wheat, and that one cannot distinguish the weeds until all the fruit is on the vine.

Of course, Jesus told this and other parables not as gardening advice but clearly, and at times, painfully, talking about us, and our tendency to judge.

If we are honest, we all love to judge, to be a bit snarky, pass judgement, rolling our eyes about someone else and their decisions and actions.

We are sure we know who the weeds are in our world.

Think for a moment of that one person in your own life or in the larger world, that you would weed out, that you know right now, trust me, needs to be weeded out, politicians are allowed.

We positively ITCH to decide and are sure the time is now to do so.

But the householder says no to us, you are too eager to judge before the harvest, before the fruits are fully seen.

And besides, judging is my job, and mine alone; stay out of God’s work, do not make yourselves God.

But can’t we have one exception? NO, judging, as much as we love it, or perhaps, because we find it so appealing, is God’s work, and God’s alone, and only at the end.

Just as I marched out to my garden sure those lousy seedlings were dead and I’d rip them out and cast their useless selves aside, unseen growth and change were happening, and this humbled judge had to hastily replant God’s work and exit the judgment seat.

And just in case we want to argue with God about our skills as judges, our Old Testament reading picks up the story of that pillar of our faith, Jacob. Jacob, son of Isaac, who knew his twin Esau’s vulnerabilities and used them to his advantage to get his birthright. Jacob, who went on to lie to his dying father, repeatedly, to cheat his brother out of their father’s blessing. Lying, cheating, self-serving, egotistical, manipulative, might somehow remind us of a few of those weeds we conjured up a few minutes ago.

And yet, even as Jacob is fleeing Esau’s anger, the result of all his own devious actions, God is not harvesting but offering a new chance. Jacob takes an ordinary rock and uses it as a pillow and falls asleep, to dream of that glorious ladder and the angels ascending and descending and God! God’s own self, speaking to Jacob. When Jacob wakes up he sees things differently! He is no longer scheming but afraid, in awe, and keenly aware, as he says:

“Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!”

And he takes that ordinary rock he had slept on and makes it into something holy, a monument to God and God’s new-found presence in that place and in him.

So, if judging is not our work, then where will we put our energy?

Well just as God is waiting patiently for the growth in all those folks we are sure are useless, hopeless and even evil, God is waiting for our harvest too. Our psalm today speaks of how God knows us:

“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 traced my journeys and my resting-places

And are acquainted with all my ways.”

All my ways yes, ALL my ways, the wheat and the weeds, all my ways.

I know I am so much faster to judge than God, and so much quicker to give up on a tomato plant, on another person, on myself.

I think I better get back in the garden and spend less time pulling weeds and more time water, feeding and nurturing all that grows so lavishly in my garden, in God’s garden.

Amen.