Sermon: Staying Rooted
Do
y’all have Dandelions here in Nebraska?
Growing up, the weed we always did battle with was the dandelion. Working with my dad as a landscaper, I
remember how challenging it is to pull them out of the ground. How insidious their root structure is…how
there is always another one erupting where you thought you had eradicated
it. But I haven’t noticed a lot of lawns
full of dandelions here in Hastings. I’m
not sure if that shows that dandelions aren’t too problematic here, or if
everyone in Hastings is just better at lawn care than everyone in Chicagoland.
But
Dandelions are kind of an amazing weed… not only are they ingenious invasive weeds
and have that great fuzzy seed globe that fascinates kids everywhere…
but did you know they are also edible? From the leaves to the blossoms to the
roots, all parts can be roasted or eaten raw. And they can tell you about your
traits? When I was a kid, we used to
take the blossom and rub it on our chins.
If it left a yellow stain, we said it was proof you liked butter. (That’s not ridiculous, right?)
What
do you see when you come by a lawn chock full with dandelions? Do you see a
lawn full of weeds? Or do you feel the
urge to pick a feathery globe and make a wish as you blow away all the seeds?
Our
gospel passage today details a parable about wheat and weeds planted in the
field. In the story, the sower has sown
good seed in his field for a healthy wheat harvest. But in the dark of night an enemy came and
sowed weeds among the wheat. The crops
are stand-ins for disciples; those that will serve the light, and those that
will serve darkness.
I
admit, this is not a favorite parable for me – mostly because it intimates that
some people are weeds, servants of the dark, from their beginnings, and not
subject to redemption. My modern mind
tells me that each of us has divided hearts, the potential to produce good or
evil, and in fact each of us may act in good or bad ways both intentionally and
unintentionally. But Matthew was writing
to a community that was just in the beginning stages of the frustrations of
community life. And, as is our human
tendency to judge each other, they were probably just beginning to question the
motives and actions of the people around them.
But I still believe there’s insight to be had. A theologian once said, parables are like
houses. You have to live in them for a
while to really know them, to find all their secret rooms and features. So, let’s take up residence for a bit.
The
wheat fields planted in Jesus’ time were, of course, not like ours. They were not orderly lined rows of
monoculture that are sculpted just perfectly for tractors or harvesters or even
feet, for that matter. They were probably
fields of seed that had been scattered to grow everywhere, without particular
order. And, while we may think of
dandelions when we hear the word ‘weed’, Jesus’ audience may have had a very
different interpretation. Like the
features of a Mustard Seed when seen by a farmer – that it is invasive, unruly,
and overwhelms other crops – understanding the features of weeds may help us
hear what his audience heard in his words.
The
Darnel weed, a type of wild grass, is a plant that is nearly identical to wheat
and is plentiful in that region of the Middle East, and in many other parts of
the world. The resemblance is so close
that it’s called “false wheat” – although darnel is poisonous. It’s difficult to distinguish the Darnel from
the Wheat plant in the growing stages, and the roots of the darnel actually
grow around the root structure of neighboring plants. The only way to clearly tell
the difference from darnel or wheat is when they go to seed. Darnel is called a ‘mimic plant’ by
biologists – it mimics wheat, all the way until reproduction. While the seeds of each look the same when
harvested, on the stalk the seed ‘ears’ of wheat are linear, heavy and cause
the stalks to bend, while the seeds of the darnel weed alternate like branches
and stand noticeably straight up. And until recent technological advances in
machines that can distinguish between the seeds, harvesting these two together
was a real danger.
Imagine
you have a small segment of land you’ve seeded, watered, carefully nurtured and
protected. It begins to sprout, and this
brings you such joy. But questions creep
in….there seems to be some differentiation in the
growth, but you aren’t sure if that indicates additional shoots, late bloomers,
or different plants altogether. Worse,
you know the dangers of world, and the consequences of the weeds in it – weeds
from the devil – weeds that are literally poison.
Of
course, in that anxiety, we would all be impatient to weed, and to protect our
crop. Reading this in the context of
looking for ourselves in the wheat and the ‘false wheat’, we can be tempted to
make some pretty rash judgments. It may take all our strength to listen to
Jesus, who says, ‘let them be’. Let’s
wait and see how they turn out. Perhaps Jesus knew a thing about growth, and
growing; about maturing and making mistakes; about not being able to
distinguish who we are and who others are until the heads of grain form in
maturity. Until we’ve had a chance to
show the fruit of our labors.
I
doubt there’s a person among us that wouldn’t have qualified as a weed at some
point in their life. There’s hardly
someone here who hasn’t ended up where they weren’t supposed to, or mimicked someone
to be like someone else. How many of us
have grabbed on to another’s roots to have their strength for ourselves? I’m sure we’ve made mistakes, during our
growth, that have knowingly or unknowingly been poison to someone else. I find in this parable the patience for
mistakes in growth, the grace for forgiveness as we reach higher, the
possibility of redemption in the fruit we bear in life.
The
laborers’ immediate desire is to pull the weeds, of course. In today’s agriculture, we may live in a place
where we ‘weed’ our gardens and the agricultural crops are so perfectly
determined, seeded, and raised that weeding is made easy. When a weed shows up, we can identify it
immediately and stamp it out. (or more
accurately, the wheel of the tractor will likely roll it out.) And in the modern miracle of efficiency that
is today’s farming, we have mastered the crop so that we get only the seed we
want, in the most efficient way possible.
But
monoculture farming also comes at an ecological cost, and here we can find
another secret room in our parable-house. While our rows are straight and our
fields are easily harvestable, when you have monoculture, one bug infestation
becomes a much huge threat. If one plant
in the field gets infected with disease that impacts only that type of plant,
and you have a field full of that type of plant, it’s likely that all the
plants will have it before too long. When our fields lack diversity, what
remains is a perfect and easy feast for bugs and disease. The wide-open invitation of a monoculture
field necessitates the use of herbicides, and pesticides, and special Round Up
Ready seeds, and the lack of year-round groundcover adds to soil loss.
Jesus
instructs them to “Let it be”…to let them grow together until the harvest. I
wonder if Jesus knew something not just about farming, but about ecology
too. Because, while darnel is an
obnoxious, poisonous menace of a plant, it mimics wheat simply because that’s
the best way it has found to survive.
And the root structure of darnel, the roots that grow to encompass the
roots of wheat… well, those roots make the soil stronger and
prevent erosion.
Sometimes
there are benefits to being among weeds or other crops. Sometimes, the roots of others helps keeps us
steady in a downpour. Sometimes, having
something ‘mimic’ us makes us hyper aware of our actions and makes us try to be
better people, better examples to others. Sometimes, mimicking others helps us
become a better version of ourselves. Sometimes, having to make our own
decisions in connection with others helps us to define our own values. Sometimes, in responding to good things, or
bad things, we find our roots deepening, our choices clarifying. Sometimes, when impacted by other people’s
mistakes – or our own – we are thankful that there may still be a chance to go
to seed, to show the true fruit of our labors.
If,
in first century Palestine, you tried to go into the fields to weed on foot,
without our neat and orderly rows of crops, all of the growth would become a
trampled mess. If you waited until later in the season closer to harvest,
brushing by the plants in the field could disturb and disperse the dry heads of
grain atop wheat stalks. If you tried to pull up the darnel plant at any time
before the harvest, you would uproot the wheat you were trying so intently to
protect.
But
it you let it be, you may find your harvest stronger. More productive. Better rooted for next year. We are a product of our environment, both the
good and the bad. And whether the
adverse things we experience in life are a result of other peoples’ mistakes,
or our own, or completely random… our response to those things carves out our
value system, our attitude, our example to others, and our resilience. And for
everything that shows up in our field, creates havoc or messes with our plan…
as the prophet Isaiah says, God is with us.
Whether we live through storms, locusts, fungus, flooding, fire,
freezing temperatures in our lifetime, it will show in our seeds. How we respond to the planting, growing and
harvesting in our field is what helps us bear fruit.
There’s
a picture of a Dandelion with a caption that reads, “Some see weeds, others see wishes.” This is a reminder of what might exist
beyond what we can see - a reminder of the depth of each person we know. How we perceive things we encounter plays a
role in how we see and respond to the world and those around us. If we think we
can see the weeds, it can determine how we react to that person, their choices,
their mistakes, and their fruit.
Rather
than look for weeds, could we see wishes instead?
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