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.
