Harvesting

He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” Matthew 13:24-30

The abundance of squash and pumpkins is almost overwhelming this time of year. The varieties, shapes and sizes are always amazing. We planted pattipan squash this spring and the plants were huge and beautiful. We were heart broken when they began to struggle and then to whither. They had been infested with a worm that bores into the leaf stems. We tried all the fixes the books and the folks at the nursery knew, but in the end the lovely flowers dropped off and the plants died. Some crops can make it despite weeds and disease and others, which look so healthy and robust can go almost overnight.

Jesus tells another parable about faith. Now, I have always wondered about Jesus believing that weeds can from the enemy. Weeds seem to me to be part of life, and are the most hardy of all plants, traveling on whim and wind and taking over all fertile soil they can find. The point of his story is about patience and the presence of weeds. We can rush to judge and to destroy the weeds, when we end up tearing out the good, the healthy and the potential fruit in our lives. In the end, God is the judge anyway, and will separate out all the bad stuff that seems so prevalent in our every day lives. Weeds are part of every garden, and we are invited to focus on the incredible abundance and nurture the living goodness around us.

Today I ask God to help me nurture the good in myself and others and not focus on the challenges and the weeds in my life. May my work be focused on healing and abundance rather than judgement and weeding out. May we all use our labor and our lives for the feeding and renewing of our world, no matter how challenged our gardens may be.