Proper 11A + Good seed + 7.19.20

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(Genesis 28:10-19a; Ps. 139:1-11, 22-23; Matthew 13:23-30, 36-43)

If you are like me, there has been good news and sad news this week. We lost John Lewis and CT Vivian, respected leaders in our tradition. One piece of sad news for many has been the roll back to greater restrictions in our public life. I get it- it feels like a setback in our progress. However many of us say this is right –what needs to happen to avoid more people getting sick and dying. I for one felt a sense of relief, although blended with prayers for local business owners.
And so it seems to me that the passage from Genesis today comes just in time. Isn’t that just like God, to give us the right word in the right moment?  Because God finds Jacob in the wilderness and shows him love and a promise. Jacob is worthy of love not because of what he has done but because he is God’s creation. He’s on the lam, lies down in this place without a name and it becomes a place where he encounters God! Jacob sees this vision of angels ascending to heaven. He remembers that we are not separated from the stars, i.e. from God, but we are all loved. Because a bit later, Jacob’s name will become Israel, and he will embody the people of God. God’s love for him is God’s love for all of us, like the stars in the sky, who are the descendants of Abraham.[1]

I am certainly no paragon of all the virtues all the time, but I trust that God is reaching out to me, even at this time. Especially at this time. But it is hard, sometimes, to feel that connection to God when day to day life has uncertainty, and when the “right” is mixed with a lot of “wrong.” Which brings me to the reading from Matthew for today, the “Parable of the Weeds.”

Good seed is sown, but secretly weeds are sown right in – darnel – a poisonous weed that pretends to be wheat until it is harvest time.[2] And what looked good for nourishment is good for nothing. Why would God allow this to happen? Put in our current context, why would God allow good people to get sick, or this virus to upend our lives?  Why would God allow politicians to politicize science, potentially allowing more people to die? Why would God allow people of color to suffer as they have? And others to continue to benefit from economic benefits of slavery and racially prejudiced laws so many years later, even if they would not wish to? Why is so much evil allowed to be sown into what is good and nourishing in this world?

And why can’t we just yank out the weeds of oppression by the root? Sometimes we can, but sometimes good, nourishing wheat is tangled up in with the weeds. We must be cautious in our interactions – be they in person or online, not to assume someone is a total weed. Actions are good or bad or neutral but people are a big mix.

I see some hope in the words of Jamie Waters in America Magazine.

She urges us not to be complacent until the final harvest about the evil in our world but says:

“The reason God waits to burn the weeds is to protect the wheat as it grows. When we recognize the weeds as harmful, destructive entities, we too have an obligation to prevent them from choking off the potential of the good seed God has planted.” ^[3]

We must work against the evil and destructive powers of the world and remember that God is the one who can ultimately loosen the root of evil in any one of us. Let us pray that God will deliver us from the time of trial and save us from evil. In the meantime, must not only fight. We must also nurture. So let us ask: what good is God bringing out of even this dark situation we are living through? I see it in so much kindness to others- the overwhelming response of so many to wear masks to protect others around them. Those who selflessly have made and given masks. Those who continue to risk their lives and endure extra mental stress to serve in hospitals and other essential fields. Those who have found a way to speak out for justice for someone who is oppressed or in pain despite the restrictions we are living under. Those who quietly sit at home and pray for a better world and for healing for those who are suffering.

We are on the cusp of many good things! Let us not allow them to be choked by weeds, but let us find a way to delight in the fact that God loves us and invites us into relationship. That God is working out the weeds in our lives even now, under the surface, in a way that will not be visible until the final harvest. But in the meantime, every place where we pray can be the stone that becomes the pillow, the place for an encounter with the holy, a place to remember that we are loved!

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[1] Inspired by: Madeleine L'Engle, A Stone for a Pillow, p. 5: https://books.google.com/books?id=Hr6mDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

[2] Dan González Ortega, “Comentario del San Mateo 13:24-30, 36-43”, de  http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2118 (Julio 2014).

[3] Jamie L. Waters, “How the parable of the weeds compels us to fight for justice,” America Magazine, June 26, 2020, https://www.How the parable of the weeds compels us to fight for justiceamericamagazine.org/faith/2020/06/26/how-parable-weeds-compels-us-fight-justice.