“A weed is but an unloved flower.” ― Ella Wheeler Wilcox
As Jesus speaks in parables to us about good seeds, weeds, and the kingdom of God, I got to thinking about those weeds.
“A weed is but an unloved flower.”
We live in this pandemic where too much of our time is spent on us vs. them and today’s parable would seem to fit with that, the good seeds and the children of light vs. the weeds and the children of the evil one.
Surely, we who are watching online and sitting on the Green are the good seed…
“A weed is but an unloved flower.”
And yet the seed that flowers and the weeds grow together, can we tell them apart? Is that what we need to spend our time doing? Or as our Presiding Bishop would say, we follow the example of the planter of those Good seeds and follow Jesus way of love…
“What would love do? Love is the community praying together, in ways old and new. Love finds a path in this new normal to build church communities around being in relationship with God.
What would love do? Love calls us to care for our neighbors, for our enemies. Love calls us to attend to those in prison, to those who are homeless, to those in poverty, to children, to immigrants and refugees. Love calls us to be in relationship with those with whom we disagree.
What would love do? Love calls us to be gentle with ourselves, to forgive our own mistakes, to take seriously the Sabbath. Love calls us to be in love with God, to cultivate a loving relationship with God, to spend time with God, to be still and know that God is God.”
I think we need to spend more time on nurturing the good seed with love and less time worrying about the weeds…for maybe by love that weed will grow into something else…
“Jesus said the weeds would grow with the wheat until the Judgement," Dietrich answered, "so one finds both good men and bad in the Church. By our fruits we will be known, not by what name we have called ourselves. I have come to believe that there is more grace in becoming wheat than there is in pulling weeds.” (Michael Flynn)
That grace is the love we live and share with the world, and what will grow with our love?
In her book My Grandfather’s Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging, physician Rachel Naomi Remen tells of the many unusual gifts she received from her beloved grandfather, an Orthodox rabbi and scholar.
Once, when she was four, her grandfather brought her a paper cup. She expected to find something special inside. It was full of dirt. Rachel was not allowed to play with dirt. Disappointed, she told her grandfather that she wasn’t allowed to play with dirt. Her grandfather smiled. He took her little teapot from her doll’s tea set and took little Rachel to the kitchen where it filled it with water. He put the little cup on a windowsill in her room and handed her the teapot. “If you promise to put some water in this cup every day, something may happen,” he told her.
This made little sense to a four-year-old, but little Rachel promised. “Every day,” he repeated. At first, Rachel did not mind pouring water into the cup, but as the days went on and nothing happened, it became harder and harder to remember to do it. After a week, she asked her grandfather if it was time to stop yet. Grandfather shook his head. “Every day,” he repeated.
The second week it became even harder, but Grandfather held her to her promise: “Every day.” Sometimes she would only remember about the water after she went to bed and would have to get up in the middle of the night and water it in the dark. But, in the end, Rachel did not miss a single day of watering.
Then, one morning three weeks later, there were two little green leaves that had not been there the night before. Rachel was completely astonished. She could not wait to tell her grandfather, certain that he would be as surprised as she was -- but, of course, he wasn’t. Carefully he explained to his beloved granddaughter that life is everywhere, hidden in the most ordinary and unlikely places.
Rachel was delighted. “And all it needs is water, Grandpa?”
Gently, he touched her on the top of her head. “No, dear Rachel. All it needs is your faithfulness.”
Faith is the ability to see in the smallest of things that it is part of God’s creation and the courage and perseverance to love it. Humanity’s dreams of peace, community and justice will be realized in the everyday acts of such goodness that comes from each one of us.
For Jesus through the Spirit continues to plant the good seeds.
May we with our lives be faithful to his work.
Tending to this world with love.
Making good trouble, necessary trouble, so that the seeds and the weeds don’t feel unloved, and that there will be a rich harvest at the end of the age. Amen.
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