I've often heard it said that "one person's flower is another person's weed"—and vice versa. But then there are some in our world who, horticulturally speaking, are so illiterate, or so indifferent, or, perhaps, so "all-inclusive" that they have no opinion one way or the other on the subject of "flowers vs. weeds"—begonias/dandelions, wheat/goldenrod, same/same. And I'm one of this latter kind, I'm afraid. So, as you can imagine, it's Margaret who's the gardener in our family. As for me, it's not so much a matter of whether I've got a "green thumb" or a "brown thumb." It's just that I've really got no interest at all in having any kind of a "thumb"!
Now, if my father had had anything to say about it, I wouldn't have turned out this way. He grew up on a farm. And although he didn't stay there—he became a pastor—he nevertheless turned out to be quite an avid gardener. He took particular pride in his roses and, oh my, in his tuberous begonias. And boy, did he hate weeds! I can still picture him out there in our yard, hour after hour, urgently rooting up every last dandelion and "ugly" piece of crabgrass. But somehow I just never caught his fever for gardening. So, grass/crabgrass, begonias/dandelions, same/same—pretty much a matter of indifference to me.
It wasn't until I'd left home and finally reached seminary and read with "academic" eyes the parable by Jesus that's today's Second Lesson—it wasn't until then that I came to realize that my outlook on these matters could actually be theologically justified—or, at least, rationalized! For right here in this parable, Jesus is clearly telling his disciples not to worry about any old weeds! "Let 'em be," he's saying. "Learn to live with 'em!"
Now, to be frank, the indifference to the world of gardening that I've cultivated over the years probably has much more to do with sloth than it has with anything like theological acumen. Still, it's nice to know, religiously speaking, that whether as individuals we develop as metaphorical "begonias" or "dandelions," as metaphorical "wheat" or "goldenrod," somehow, in the end, God will be able to make something useable out of us, something that can help to set this table at which we gather today, this table of the Lord's Supper—to set this table with the Bread of Life.
But whoa! I've raced way ahead of myself.
When it comes to reading and interpreting a parable, there are many different ways of doing so. That's one of the reasons why Jesus loved so very much to teach people by means of these parables. For no single hearing or reading of any of these stories of his can ever exhaust the rich treasure trove of its potential meanings.
Sadly, we usually get into a rut as readers. We get used to reading each parable by Jesus in just one way—the same old way that we've always interpreted it. So our minds and hearts fail to explore the great variety of possible meanings that lies in wait for us within each of Jesus's stories.
In the case of this morning's parable, Christians have long been reading it solely as a story about "The Last Judgment," as a story whose meaning is this: because we humans aren't very good at telling the difference between wheat and weeds—that is, between good people and bad—because of that, let's leave all the judging to God, and let's let it be done way at the end of time.
Now, this reading of the parable is truly a sound one, and the message to be derived from such a reading is certainly one we all need to take to heart in this day and age, when there are such a whole lot of preachers urging a whole lot of people to do a whole lot of judging—preachers who offer to identify for us exactly who the good guys are and who the bad guys, preachers who then urge us to get rid of these bad guys as fast as we can. So from this parable we do need to hear the message, "Let God do the judging at the end of the human story, and let's not put ourselves in the place of God in the here and now."
But this time-honored interpretation is not the only possible meaning that this parable has! It's just one of the many. And today I want to share with you another of these possible meanings—one discerned by the American Episcopal preacher Barbara Brown Taylor, one that she has presented to us in her book The Seeds of Heaven (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, pp. 32-37).
Now, I suppose the reason I was attracted to this reading of hers was precisely because no one would ever mistake me for a discriminating gardener. For you see, Taylor offers this observation: whereas the author of the Gospel according to "Matthew may have been clear that there are only two kinds of people in the world—the wheat and the weeds—" that kind of "clarity escapes most of us, we who have encountered both kinds in ourselves, and in our neighbors, and in the world." (pp. 32-33)
"Sometimes," Taylor writes, "it is mighty hard to tell the difference between a good plant and a bad one, especially when [that plant] can act both ways. I suppose we have all had the experience of uprooting the raspberries by mistake, or protecting something interesting that turns out to be a thistle. I don't know what makes us think we are any smarter about ourselves or about the other people in our lives [than we are about plants]. We are so quick to judge, as if we were sure we knew the difference between wheat and weeds, good seed and bad, but that is seldom the case." (pp. 35-36)
So, as I said at the beginning of my sermon: grass/crabgrass, flowers/weeds, wheat/goldenrod—same/same.
But if we are all the same, if there is no qualitative difference between flowers and weeds, between wheat and goldenrod, then how are we to interpret the ending of Jesus's parable, where he takes some to be stored in barns and some to be burned?
Well, listen to this modern retelling of Jesus's parable offered to us by Barbara Brown Taylor (pp. 36-37). I believe her retelling carries a meaning that has quite a special relevance for us Christians, especially on a communion Sunday like today.
Taylor begins in this way: "One afternoon in the middle of the growing season, a bunch of farmhands decided to surprise their boss and weed his favorite wheat field. No sooner had they begun to work, however, than they began to argue—first about which of the wheat-looking things were weeds and then about the rest of the weeds. Did the Queen Anne's lace pose a real threat to the wheat, or could it stay for decoration? And the blackberries? They would be ripe in just a week or two, but they were, after all, weeds—or were they? And the honeysuckle—it seemed a shame to pull up anything that smelled so sweet."
Taylor continues: "About the time they had gotten around to debating the purple asters, the boss showed up and ordered them out of his field. Dejected, they did as they were told. Back at the barn [the boss] took their machetes away from them, poured them some lemonade, and made them sit down where they could watch the way the light moved across the field. At first, all they could see were the weeds and what a messy field it was, what a discredit to them and their profession, but as the summer wore on they marveled at the profusion of growth—tall wheat surrounded by tall goldenrod, ragweed, and brown-eyed Susans. The tares and the poison ivy flourished alongside the Cherokee roses and the milkweed, and it was a mess, but a glorious mess, and when it had all bloomed and ripened and gone to seed the reapers came."
And Taylor concludes: "Carefully, gently, expertly, [the reapers] gathered the wheat and made the rest into bricks for the oven where the bread was baked. And the fire that the weeds made was excellent, and the flour that the wheat made was excellent, and when the harvest was over the owner called them all together—the farmhands, the reapers, and all the neighbors—and [he] broke bread with them, bread that was the final distillation of that whole messy, gorgeous, mixed-up field, and they all agreed that it was like no bread any of them had ever tasted before and that it was very, very good."
So, here's the Good News! God is able, miraculously able, to take the whole glorious mess of intermingled wheat and weeds that on one metaphoric level is the field of our individual lives and that on another metaphoric level is the field of our corporate human existence—God is somehow able, through the agency of the crucified and risen Christ, to take this whole glorious intermingled mess of ours and to bring forth from it both excellent flour and excellent fire. And when this flour and fire interact with each other, through the alchemy of Christ's grace, somehow there emerges from the oven the Bread of Everlasting Life—the Bread that is offered to us at this table. In this way, Christ's table becomes for us not a place of judgment, but an occasion for hope. And that's great Good News indeed!
Let us pray:
O God, as we now approach Christ's table, take the glorious mess of our lives, our wheat intermingled with our weeds, and, through the alchemy of Your grace, transform it into the Bread of Everlasting Life. Through the crucified and risen Christ, we pray this. Amen.