Weeds

The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling

July 19, 2020

Weeds 

Romans 8:18-25: I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.

What exactly is the problem with weeds?

A few years ago, when I was going through yet another transition in my life, brought about by expected and unexpected changes, I decided to make a stone walkway. Changes happen every day, whereas transitions are a long game. Transitions are those times when we endure “the suffering of this present time,” waiting patiently for them to end; or we love them so much that we want to stay there forever.

The beach is a lovely place to spend time in transition, or any time for that matter. Like this long green season of COVID 19, the ocean stretches out as far as the eye can see. When I began to create my stone walkway a few years ago, I had nothing else to do, and plenty of time to do it, and time stretched out endlessly before me. It took me many months of slow, painstaking work to transfer the stones from the beach to our house. Like my indoor puzzles, I would lay down one stone, or one piece of a puzzle, at a time. Frankly, I hoped that as I created this walkway, a path would appear, leading me from one way of living to another.

There were no weeds on my stone walkway, at least back then. And yet, when I recently returned to the beach house for some self-imposed quarantine, prayers, and projects, I found plenty of weeds. They had completely overtaken my stone walkway. A sign of the times, I thought to myself. And I had plenty of time on my hands again.

At its original creation, I had placed my rocks on shallow ground. Now, not only had moss spread around the rocks, weeds had sprouted up everywhere like a bad pandemic haircut. My husband suggested that we rip the whole thing up and begin again. What?? I reminded him how hard I had worked, and that tearing things down is far easier than building them up. Such is life.

Fortunately, his enthusiasm for that complete overhaul disappeared like fog on a sunny day. Besides, he had already found something far more interesting that required his full attention. Tuna fishing! Why sweat over hard labor when you can be out on the deep blue sea? I had to work on my sprouting resentments.

I do not like to fish. I prefer solid ground under my feet. I wanted my walkway restored to its original beauty, and yet I was a little overwhelmed by the work it would take. Weeding is tedious and boring work; pulling up those suckers hurts your back, your knees, and your fingers. “Weeds, what’s so bad about weeds?” I thought to myself.

Well, for one thing, they block the beauty of the original creation. Theologically speaking, weeds are “our sins.” They block our goodness! They will eventually choke the life out of us; and like change and transitions, they will always be with us. Until the Son of Man sends his angels to collect us, we will have weeds.

Recreation is what we do for fun, like working on puzzles and fishing. If we hyphenate the word recreation, however, we get re-creation, and this is what restoration specialists do. Whether it is a house damaged by smoke, an original artwork clouded by years, or a walkway overrun by weeds, restoration specialists slowly and painstakingly clean up the mess. They do not throw it away and start all over again. With the Spirit as our restoration specialist, we can pull up our weeds every day, whether we are on land or at sea.

I have come to believe that there is a stone walkway that will lead us to a new place. Anchored safely in the harbor is a boat, and on the beach, there is a roaring fire. The Son of Man welcomes us, takes the weeds from our hands, and throws them into the fire. Then Jesus invites us to sit down and eat the fish that Paul has caught. When that great transition happens, we will want to stay there forever.

Matthew 13:24-30

Jesus put before the crowd another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So, when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them 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.’”