How many of you who are gardeners tolerate the presence of
weeds in your gardens? I am not a gardener, but my lovely bride is. Ruthie has
zero tolerance for weeds among the flowers and they are quickly pulled and
eliminated from the garden. Today we hear the parable of the sowing of wheat
and the sowing of weeds in which Jesus is telling us to not pull the weeds, for
in pulling the weeds, we could possibly pull out the wheat that is planted
alongside them.
The parable today is a tale about the sorting of good people
from bad at the end of the world, the good receiving their eternal award for
having lived good lives, and the bad receiving their eternal punishment for
having lived evil lives. Toward the end of Matthew’s gospel we will hear Jesus
speak similarly about separating the sheep from the goats at the Last Judgment.
However, I would like to look at this parable from a
different angle. Each and every one of our lives are gardens in which are sown
both wheat and weeds. We can identify the wheat in our lives as the grace which
God bestows upon us and the weeds as those areas of our lives in which we are
prone to sin. Or we can identify the wheat as our individual strengths and the
weeds as our individual weaknesses. If we get scientific about it, the wheat
may be the good genes we have received from our ancestors and the weeds the bad
genes of our genetic pool. No matter how we interpret the wheat and the weeds,
we need both in our lives for they shape who we are and define who we are as
individuals, and as children of God.
It is how we approach the wheat and weeds in the garden of our
lives that will determine whether the wheat will flourish and grow fuller, or
whether the weeds will overgrow the wheat. While this may sound strange, it
would be unhealthy and hinder the growth of the wheat by pulling the weeds in
our lives. Being aware of our weaknesses, our sinful tendencies, is a positive
action because by acknowledging them we build within us the virtue of humility.
St Paul complains in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians about “the
thorn in the flesh” he has, by which an angel of Satan beats him, and begs God
three times to remove the thorn. He follows this by saying that though he has
no power himself by which to remove the thorn, he recognizes that it is through
his weakness that he sees the power of God’s grace operative in his life. Paul
writes that God said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made
perfect in weakness.” In an ironic way, it is the thorn, the weeds in the life
of St Paul that has made the wheat in his life flourish and grow.
30 years before J K Rowling wrote about Harry Potter,
Dumbledore, and Hogwarts, the author Ursula Le Guin wrote a novel entitled, The
Wizard of Earthsea. The novel is about an adolescent wizard whose name is
Ged. Ged discovered at a very young age that he possessed magical power, and
was sent to wizard school to learn how to use that power for the good of all
Earthsea. With the arrogance and the brashness of youth, he misuses his power
and disturbs the balance of Earthsea introducing into it a dark, sinister
shadow that pursues him. Throughout a good portion of the novel he is in
constant flight from this dark shadow, but is finally counseled that rather
than flee from it, he needs to face it and confront it. When Ged and the shadow
meet, they both introduce themselves by the name, “Ged.” They embrace and
become one. Ged laughs and weeps to his friend, “I am whole, I am free.” His
friend then understands that the shadow was Ged’s spirit of death, and that by
reuniting with the shadow, Ged finally became whole again by knowing his whole,
true self.
The weeds, the dark shadows sides of our lives are not to be
fled from, but rather embraced. They are a part of who we are as a whole
person. By embracing them, we do not have to succumb to them. Rather, in our
embracing the shadow, weedy side of our lives, we place into action the
spiritual practice of the Irish Anam Cara, the Soul Friend, by inviting Jesus
into these weedy places of darkness and shadow and introducing them to his
Divine Light. The wheat and the weeds becoming one and whole in the light of
God.
As we continue to grow into these summer months, may we tend
the garden of our own lives well, inviting the light and the power of God into
the wholeness of our garden, wheat and weeds alike.
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