The Rev. Carol S. Wedell
July 20, 2008

It will come as little surprise to most of you that I am not a champion gardener.  It's not that I don't appreciate a well-manicured lawn and gorgeous flower beds - I really do.  But if the truth be told, I rarely have the inclination to spend what free time I have digging up weeds - OK, I really do hate to weed!

When I began my first position in Indiana, I lived in an old home on a city lot. With the encouragement of some of my associates I learned a bit about gardening, and managed to keep the very small yard in pretty good shape. 

When Mark and I moved to our home in Mentor, now on 1/3 of an acre, the challenge grew.  But with basically brand new landscaping - and really only one bed to speak of, the challenge wasn't that great.  I would plant two window boxes of flowers each spring and call it a day.

Then we moved to Pepper Pike, and any semblance of a glamour yard went out the window.  To begin with the entire acre lot was grass - if you could call it that.  The front yard is full of trees which aren't particularly encouraging to growing anything that requires sun. Weeds of all varieties were and are abundant. There is no possibility of watering a yard that big, and the weeds tend to be hardier than the grass.  The bushes and trees were totally overgrown - so much so that you had literally had to duck down to go in through the front door.  And then there are the deer - who seem to eat even the things they aren't supposed to like.

Mark and the kids keep the lawn mowed, and spread mulch each season.  On a good year, I might get some flowers planted in containers.  Then there are years like this one, where all those containers contain are weeds!  I even offered to pay one of our kids to put any kind of flowers in those pots.  It hasn't happened.  Obviously, weeding is simply not a priority in our house.  Church, softball, taking care of family needs and reading all take a higher priority.  Add hot temperatures and you may be assured that I will not be found in my yard weeding anywhere.

So a part of me was delighted to read this morning's parable and Jesus' instructions to the crowds to forget about weeding.  Sounds good to me!

Once again this week, Jesus is speaking in parables.  This one is found only in the gospel of Matthew and follows right on the heels of the sower and the seeds that we heard last week.  Of all the gospel writers, Matthew spends by far the most time speaking of the end of the world and of a final judgment. 

Matthew, like the people to whom he was speaking, the people of the early church, liked to have things crystal clear.  And so we hear of sheep and goats, blessed and cursed, faithful and wicked - you get the picture. No middle ground.  All bad or all good.  Wheat or weed. 

Perhaps some find such clear designations helpful.  They were undoubtedly comforting to the early church that expected Jesus' return to be imminent.  But for most of us, there are far more shades of gray.  My yard, at least, contains both grass and weeds.

Remember, that even when the gospel writer includes a detailed explanation of a parable - as Matthew did again this week - that parables never leave us with just one message or just one possible interpretation.  There is always some other angle, some other way of looking at it.

The servants look out into the field and see a problem - so they offer to fix it, "Let us go and pull the weeds!"  (Send them to my house!)  The weeds that they're talking about are called darnel.  It is a plant related to wheat - in fact it even looks like wheat.  The problem is that it hides out with the wheat and is actually poisonous - causing blindness or even death if too much of it turns up in the bread dough.   Darnel clearly meets the definition of a weed - a plant that does more harm than good.

The farmers in that region had learned to deal with it early on, removing the darnel a couple of times prior to the harvest so that they didn't have to separate the seeds by hand.  So the word of this master is strange indeed!  It looks like he is taking a totally unnecessary risk.

Jesus' words once again cause his listeners to shake their heads and wonder why he would say such a strange thing.  Throwing seed around carelessly and allowing wheat and weeds to grow together is no way to run a farm. It doesn't seem like much of a way for God to build the kingdom either.  Yet Jesus says,  "Let them both 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." (Mt. 13:30). 

In a sermon on this passage, Joanna Adams notes, "Not only did the weeds not have the effect the enemy hoped they would-which was to snuff out the life of the wheat-the weeds became free kindling for the householder. Perfect. In the arid, fuel-scarce region of Palestine, you couldn't ask for a better bonus. It seems that even the worst the evil one can do is to be transformed into energy to serve God's everlasting purposes."

 Remembering that there are many ways to work with a parable, two themes caught my attention this week.  The first is that you can't always tell the wheat and the weeds apart, which makes judging a bit problematic.  Darnel looks like wheat.  In children's books the "good guys" and "bad guys" are always very clear.  But in real life, most people, like my yard, contain both healthy seed and a variety of weeds.

Most of us are really good at seeing the weeds in other people's lives.  At least we think we are.  In any election year, and certainly in this one, it's not too difficult for the opposite side to point out the flaws of the opponent.

And things aren't much better, if at all, within the church.  We love to point fingers at those whose viewpoints are different than our own.  After all, we must be the healthy good seeds, right?  And how often do we expect people within the church to behave in a more loving manner, and then are disappointed when they don't act much differently than anyone else?

Perhaps you have heard the following story. A man was stopped at a traffic light, waiting for the light to turn green. When the light changed, he was distracted and he didn't budge. The woman in the car behind him honked her horn. He still didn't move. She honked again. By this time, she was pounding on the steering wheel and blowing her horn non-stop. Finally, just as the light turned yellow, the fellow in the first car woke up and drove through the light. The woman in the second car was beside herself. Still mid-rant, she heard a tap on her car window. She looked up to see the face of a police officer. "Lady, you're under arrest," he said. "Get out of the car. Put your hands up." He took her to the police station, had her finger printed, photographed, and then put her in a holding cell. Hours passed. The officer returned and unlocked the cell door. He escorted her back to the booking desk. "Sorry for the mistake, Lady," he said. "But I pulled up behind you as you were blowing your horn and cursing out the fellow in front of you. I noticed the stickers on your bumper. One read "Follow me to Sunday School." The other, "What Would Jesus Do?" So, naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car. (As told by Joanna Adams).

We laugh, but probably the only difference between that woman and many of us is that we lack the bumper stickers!  If we're honest, we know that both individually and as the church, weeds and good seed are all mixed up together.  So much so, that we often can't tell it apart.  When we are quick to judge others, we are judging ourselves, as well.

There are other times when we are absolutely positive that someone is a weed.  This week at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game was a young man who had done virtually everything to define himself as a weed. For years, a volunteer named Clay Council threw batting practice to hundreds of young boys and men, simply casting out his time and support to them.  One, Josh Hamilton, became the # 1 pick in the baseball draft a few years ago.  He was considered to be on the fast track to the majors, a five-tool player, a pure hitter with an incredible arm.  And as that # 1 pick, he signed for an incredible amount of money.

And that's when this incredibly gifted athlete got stupid.  That's when this five-tool player began to focus on only one thing - getting high. Alcohol, drugs, crack cocaine, Josh Hamilton threw away his talents, his career, his chances, and almost his life because of his addiction. Like many addicts, he tattooed his body, with over 20 'signings' of flames, and especially demons.  His family turned their backs on him, his wife threw him out, Major League Baseball suspended him for over three years. The patient work that Clay Council had done with him, the seeds of ability and promise that had been planted in all the hours of batting practice seemed to have been overtaken by weeds.

But with his only option, in his mind, being to die, Josh Hamilton went to his grandmother, who agreed to take him in on the condition that he clean himself up.  And to everyone's surprise, that's exactly what happened.  Through faith, through determination, through struggle, he sobered up, he convinced his wife to give him a second chance (for the millionth time), he became a new person, a person dedicated to his family, and to his belief in Jesus Christ. And wonder of wonders, he decided to try to become a professional baseball player again.

In only his second season as a major league player, Hamilton leads the majors in runs batted in, and is in the top ten in a host of other categories.  He has remained sober, through faith, through the love of his wife and family, and the support of his teammates.  And this week, at Yankee Stadium, Josh Hamilton stepped up to the plate as an All-Star, to participate in the Home Run Derby.  He didn't win, but on the first day he set an all-time record of 28 home runs!

Each player gets to select the person to pitch to him during his attempts to become the one to hit the most home runs in the contest. It is batting practice on an international stage. And out of all the people, the supporters, the friends, the teammates Josh Hamilton could choose to pitch to him, 71-year-old Clay Council took the mound at Yankee Stadium, a volunteer coach who influenced Josh so many years ago. (as told by Thom M. Shuman).  Weed or wheat?  If we're honest, he's just like us - both.

It also dawned on me that when the church spends much or most of it's time trying to figure out who is a weed and who isn't, that the real work of tending the garden, of building the kingdom doesn't get done.  While we're arguing about who is in and who is out, people go hungry, and need shelter, and are desperately in need of God's love and forgiveness.  But we pass resolutions, and debate on and on and on about who belongs in the garden.

A couple of years ago, we decided to try and be a bit more ecologically minded in how we care for the mixture of grass and weeds that is our yard.  We had been using a standard chemical fertilizing and weed killing service to try and keep things under control.  We switched to a company that uses very, very few chemicals and organic fertilizers.  Their theory?  If you spend your time, energy and money helping to make the grass healthier, you will have fewer weeds to deal with.  In other words, forget about the weeds, and focus on the garden as a whole.

Let those who have ears to hear, hear!