New Word

Today I learned a new word:

PETRICHOR (n)  - the smell of earth after rain

Isn't that beautiful!?  Who knew that such a mystical and renewing smell had its own word?! Awesome!

The Redemption of Thistles

Pent 6A-2014

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.

There are various translations for this passage, perhaps you remember the King James Version where the weeds are rendered as tares; my favourite refers to the weeds as thistles. Thus the title for the sermon: redemption of the thistles.

This passage can so easily be a black and white reading, where the passage is understand as the good and the bad, the churched and the un-churched, the righteous and the unrighteous, the godly and the ungodly, us and them ... where God is supreme judge, and people either go to heaven or go to hell... simple math. But I’m not so sure that the parable is that simple.

When I hear the passage my mind goes searching for an applicable story from living in farm country. Picture fields the size of Point Pleasant Park, row upon row of potato plants: dark green course leaves, about knee height, no movement when the wind blows.  The good seed coming from last year’s potatoes, cut in to three pieces, ideal so each piece usually has an eye, from which, when planted in good soil the eyes sprout, grow and make more potatoes. When growing seed potatoes there are few weeds that grow amongst the plants, but those that do, it really doesn’t matter because at harvesting time the fields are sprayed with top killer and all the weeds and all the potato plants die.  All that is left are the potatoes underground to be harvested via a vacuum machine.  In the years when grain is planted as a crop rotation, the combine goes through the field and the blade cuts everything spitting the wheat heads into the truck and the stock and anything else goes out the back and is left in the field to be tilled under as fertilizer for ground.  That which is tilled under becomes of value to produce good soil for the future.

The real problem with growing seed potatoes is that potato plants themselves can become the weed, the thistle.  Hundreds of acres of seed potato fields are walked every season, two or three times, by roguers.  Roguers are hired hands who look for abnormal plants – either due to disease, or they are another variety of potato, or are just simply different – and those plants are disposed of.

What are weeds? Plants we do not want growing in a particular place.  Weeds are a judgement call. In the seed potato field the plants removed are often fine potatoes, but they corrupt the purity of a particular kind of seed. Other weeds too -- dandelions, camomile, chickory, golden rod, thistle, et cetera – weeds, but also grown for medicine, for tea or coffee substitutes, hardy stock for rope making, fire starting. Who said the weeds had no use; no gift to offer?

Unlike the seed potato farmer who ruthlessly rogues the fields to eradicate that which is different, the farmer in Jesus’ parable of the field allows for both the wheat and the thistle to grow side by side.  The same attention is given to both: the same good soil, the same amount of water, the same amount of sunlight – there is no preferential treatment for the wheat, both wheat and thistle are loved equally.

Is there a possibility that Jesus is flipping human logic on its ear? Redefining our sense of judgement, the other, the things we quickly wish to throw away? Could Jesus’ explanation of kingdom be pushing the disciples buttons to contemplate notions of fair, faithful, whose included? The planter and creator is so generous in this story. The wheat and the thistle grow together.  Could it be for the welfare of both?  Perhaps God waits for the harvest, still waiting into our day, waiting for the wheat to rub off on the thistle, for the thistle to challenge the wheat to grow deeper roots, for both to learn the necessity of sharing the soil, the sunlight, and the rain.

What I sense in this kingdom story is a gratefulness, a gratitude that grows from the heart of the farmer.

I am grateful that I have come to know a God that is not a God of black and white, rather wrinkled in grey because grey allows God to look beyond the designation of wheat or thistle and offer unconditional love regardless.

And I live out of gratitude because I am not so sure that the interpretation of this text is for us to judge ourselves against others; that the wheat and thistle are just to be interpreted as two separate plants.  I live out of the understanding and experience of God’s unconditional love and abundant grace. And I am so thankful so very thankful because I am both; wheat and thistle. I hear the phrase attributed to Martin Luther, simul justus et peccator, a person is simultaneously saint and sinner. Wheat and thistle?

Notice what Luther mentions first -  the saint part, for by baptism into Christ’s death we have been redeemed

The wheat is planted first, and through the wheat there might just be redemption for the thistle.

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio in 1495 painted his work The Virgin and the Child. In it the Virgin Mary wears an Italian looking silk brocade gown decorated with the pattern of the thistle, at the time the thistle commonly symbolized the redemption of humankind through Jesus’ passion.

Interestingly there is a whole theology construct of redemption described through the biblical use of thorns and thistles.  Thorn and thistles first appear in Genesis 3; this is after Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden of Eden.  The story goes that God curses the ground; thorns and thistles begin to take over the fields. The connection to the consequences of original sin, the thistle, was used in art over and over again through the centuries to symbolize earthly sorrow and sin.

Yet God takes that which is sinful and broken -thorns and thistles- and incorporates their very nature into the story and beauty of redemption:

The next time thorns are referred to is in Moses encounter of the burning bush. Some translations of scripture interpret that the bush was a thorn bush, Jesus even referring to it as such.  Catholic tradition holds that the bush was a bramble bush.  And from the thorns – God speaks and the people through Moses are brought from slavery into freedom.

As the Israelites settle in the Promised Land the Temple is built.  It is built out of Acacia wood, a small tree whose branches are covered in long thorns.  Thorns are redeemed as the building material for God’s house of worship.  It is said that the Acacia wood was covered in gold.

And then the highlight of redemption of the curse is the crown of thorns placed on Jesus’ head in his suffering on the cross; the curse is reversed.

 Thorns and thorn branches signify grief, tribulation, and sin. According to Thomas Aquinas, thorn bushes suggest the minor sins, and growing briars, or brambles, the greater ones.  The crown of thorns, when shown in connection with Saints, is a symbol of their Martyrdom.

I am wheat and thistle; this community has wheat and thistles; the city has wheat and it has thistles; God’s kingdom has wheat and thistles --- and I’m not sure how in the end it will all be figured out --- how the farmer will decide to harvest or when; but I am a plant ... I am to be about growing and bearing fruit, side by side with whatever kind of plant is growing beside me.

The thistle is Scotland’s national flower.  A commentary suggested it is so because of the thistle has these attributes:

• It has The delicately beautiful flower heads,
• It has viciously sharp thorns,
• It has a stubborn and tenacious grip on the land,
•  It has a defiant ability to flourish in spite of efforts to remove it

Last week and in coming weeks we hear Jesus making comparisons, drawing pictures of what the kingdom of heaven is like, and what the kingdom of heaven is about.  Perhaps it is being wheat that picks up the attributes of the thistle: delicately beautiful (think lives of goodness, love, joy, forgiveness), yet with sharp thorns that protect against those who would want to take gratefulness, faith, and hope from us; stubborn and tenacious to hold our ground, God’s ground against injustice, intolerance, poverty; and a defiant ability to flourish in spite of efforts to get rid of us – the church – God’s voice calling to live a different way, to understand an abundant kindom, to love and love and love some more...and never give up growing beautiful hope, by sharing our good soil, the sun, the rain, the air; signs of God’s redemption and unconditional love, indiscriminately applied to all.  

Today I feel a need to add positive energy to the world.  After more than a week of being home from vacation and resuming regular operating procedures ----- reading the daily newspaper, connecting on Twitter, hearing the news on the radio, and pariticipating in not-so-hopeful meetings ----- I wish to remind readers that Jesus said, "Peace be with you."  Know that today, someone (ME), is thinking about you.  You are valuable and loved!

Back and REFRESHED

This is the continued part of Tim's journey.  Please see the post below for the beginning of the journey.

Week 3 results from Focus T25. This really works!!

This is my husband. I am very proud of him.  This Youtube video leads to others of his journey.  Tim just posted another and it went to a different channel it is a great statement.  Please share this with others and view the post above this and pass it along too.