From the Pastor's Pen

Pastor Sally’s Devotional 8/21

| August 24, 2020

Dear Friends,

What is about weeds?  They are so pervasive!  Six weeks ago I dug all the crabgrass out of our back yard.  We are wanting to reseed back there, and I didn’t want to put down weed killer for fear that it would hurt the grass seed.  Additionally our Basset Hound, Theo, spends a lot of time in that back yard and I don’t want poisons seeping in through his paws.  So I dug them out by hand!  What a job.  And then today… I dug them out again!  They had managed to regrow. Sigh…  I suppose I will have to dig again in a few weeks, but perhaps in September it will be cool enough to try growing some grass seed again.  I’m hoping it will overtake the crabgrass eventually.

Jesus once told a funny little parable about weeds.  Take a look:

24 Jesus put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 27 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?’ 28 He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 30 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.’”  (Matt 13: 24 – 30)

What an odd little parable.  I can’t imagine leaving the weeds in with the good seed, but I don’t think Jesus was talking about gardening.  In fact Jesus says at the beginning of this parable that he’s talking about the Kingdom of Heaven.  I think he’s talking about how God’s Kingdom seed takes root in all of us. But unfortunately there appears to be weed seed in our world as well. I suppose some people might suggest that the weed seed explains the bad people in the world, but I’m more inclined to think that we each have both Kingdom seed and weed seed that grows in us.  Certainly there are days when I do things or say things that dismay me.  “Where did that come from?” I wonder.  I’m thinking that the weed seed.

So I think it’s very interesting what Jesus says to do with the weeds in us.  Jesus says leave them alone and he will tend to them in time.  In fact the word for “Leave them” can also mean “forgive.”  I suspect from the context that “Leave them” or “Let them” is probably the right translation, but it intrigues me that Jesus’ words might also include a ting of forgiveness.  I suspect that if we have to live with weeds in our lives, forgiving ourselves for our mistakes might be a good way toward diminishing their hold on us.  It might also be useful to forgive the weeds in others while we’re at it.  A little grace goes a long way.

Peace,

Pr. Sally

 

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