Turf wars

A homily for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 19, 2020

Wis 12:13, 16-19, Rom 8:26-27, Mt 13:24-43

Crabgrass. Goosegrass. Chickweed. Dandelions. Clover. Those tall spiky things with the leaves every two inches up the stem: Whatever they are.

For those of us with lawns, keeping weeds under control can be a never-ending struggle. Because, at best, we control weeds. We never defeat them. They’re stubborn and invasive and pervasive.

One weed becomes two becomes four becomes 16 becomes 256 becomes a math problem and that’s less fun than the weeds themselves. If only we can rid our lawns of that first one, we’ll be spared the outbreak. But how often does that happen?

To rid our lawns of weeds, the fertilizer people would have us believe, we have to prevent them. And that’s actually pretty accurate. The years I’ve been able to sprinkle down some crabgrass preventer in the spring, my postage-stamp-sized lawn has been relatively free of crabgrass.

(Scott’s, I’ll send you my address for the check.)

So if we have any difficulty relating to today’s parable about wheat fields, we simply need to transform them into lawns. Same message, different cultural touchstone.

Jesus doesn’t talk about prevention; it wasn’t an option in his day. But prevention is an option for us. We can prevent figurative weeds in our lives. And we can selectively weed them out.

It’s a simple task, but it isn’t always easy.

Step One is identifying the less-than-Christlike things that have invaded our lives. A lot of them seem exciting or otherwise attractive, and they are growing in us like … you know. 

But, wait….

We’ve been locked down. We’ve had to minimize our contact with others. How did we even have the opportunity to do WJWD (what Jesus wouldn’t do)?

Well, in our efforts to be speedy and efficient in grabbing groceries or doing other out-of-the-house activities, have we transformed social distancing into being antisocial?

Kindness isn’t locked down. Eyes smile, even when masks hide a grin.

There’s never been a more important time to recognize that everyone else is just as worried as we are about staying healthy, about paying bills, about getting over cabin fever. Everyone is harried and hurried and hurting. Courtesy is Jesus’s Way.

Has being out of touch with people made us selfish? Selfishness can pop up like a dandelion, a weed that masquerades as a sunny little flower but which squeezes out the fescue and bluegrass. Selfishness that was bred in a quarantine situation like ours manifests itself as entitlement. Of course I should get ahead in line; I’ve been stuck at home all this time. Of course someone else should pick up my discarded mask and gloves, which I didn’t want to wear in the first place. And why hasn’t this shopping cart been sanitized yet?

We need to take a breath, exhale slowly, and blow away any selfishness. Giving someone else their six feet can leave room for the grace of the Spirit, which is what we should be breathing in.

What have we been bingeing while staying indoors? As a retired newsman and hardcore news junkie, I recognize that reports from around the world focus on the negative and, at the least, they can be a downer. For others among us, news and commentary are downright gut-wrenching. I can fall back on years of training and experience to keep myself from being sucked down the rabbit holes of anger and despair. Many others cannot, and this is another weed to recognize and pull out.

This particular personal weed leads to our seeing everyone and everything as bad, as hateful, as hate-filled, and the world is quite the opposite. The world, all of God’s Creation — especially us, God’s children and, we believe, God’s greatest creation — all of God’s Creation is good because it came from God.

We can go on and on identifying the figurative weeds in our lives, and because each of us is different, with different perspectives and different life journeys, our final inventories will vary. There are many weeds out there, and there are many kinds of weeds spreading their seeds on the gentlest breeze, literally and figuratively.

Now, we can try to prevent the spiritual crabgrass in our lives, and we can try to pull out that first antisocial weed to prevent an overspread, but what if we’re too late? What if something evil slips past us, the way the farmer’s foe did in today’s parable? Because we will be too late sometimes. Because there will be ugly stuff that happens in our lives. Because there will be times when we’re choked by weeds.

We have the wisdom and the grace of the Spirit to identify those weeds, especially the pretty ones, the seemingly fun ones, the attractive nuisances in our lives that draw us away from The Way of the Christ.

The quest for earthly riches at the expense of others.

Mistreating and underpaying workers who have proved themselves essential.

Spending time in online echo chambers where people already on the margins because of skin pigment or who they are or who they love are ridiculed or threatened or bullied or driven to harm themselves.

We can live Christlike Christian lives alongside those life-weeds, not embracing them but not being choked by them. We can wait for the right time to pull them out and burn them in a spectacular blaze that serves as a beacon of hope, charity and understanding.

For some of us, the Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and countless others are our great weeding-out. For some of us, the time is not yet right. But we will know when it is.

Our lawns, our wheat fields — our lives — are growing, and we are challenged to grow them the way God wants us to. We need to constantly watch for weeds, and act appropriately at the right time. The Spirit will give us the Word when it’s right.