Weeding

Proper 11 A 2014
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp11_RCL.html

It’s funny what you find in your lawn.

We have some lawn around our house, a cheerful mixture of grass and clover and dandelions and some things I cannot even name. It’s green, which is all that matters to me.

But the dandelions bug me because they’re greedy. They spread out and claim big round patches of ground, killing the other stuff. And they’re greedy of air space—ignore the lawn for a couple of weeks and you’ll see them, tall and insolent, waving their high stalks in the breeze.

On the rare occasions that I have time and energy to do so, I like to take my favorite tool, a weed-ripper shaped kind of like a screwdriver with a wide pronged tip, and dig them out. It’s very satisfying—I push the tip down as far as you can and patiently pry. I love the satisfying “pop” of the root—it’s like popping a big pimple. My reward is a surprisingly large plant cradled in my palm, a “lawn cabbage” as I like to call them.

The clover flowers came in late June. A neighbor keeps bees, and honeybees need all the help we can give them. So I cut the grass around the clover and left big patches. The bees seemed to appreciate that and the clover was astir with tiny flecks of gold.

Well, the clover dried up and began looking sad, and my daughter was stung on the foot as she walked through with sandals. So last night I got out our electric mower and began to cut the whole business.

As I cut the clover, I marveled. Hidden among the clover I found several of those nasty sort of dandelion cousins, those weeds that grow really savage spikes on their leaves. Stepping on one barefooted is like stepping on a land sea-urchin. They took total advantage of my compassion for the clover and the bees and grew their ugly spines tucked away from sight.

Good timing, for today’s parable is about seeds and weeds. This is one of the parables in which Jesus’ interpretation is his way to deal with the unwillingness of the disciples to use their imaginations.

Sometimes I feel that we are the ground, open for all kinds of seeds, good and bad. The older I get the more aware I am of the array of plants growing inside of myself. The good growth, the sweet nourishing harvest of kindness and forbearance and humility and prayer, grow very quietly. The Spirit crying “Abba” is a whisper. I am more aware of the big, thorny weeds—my capacity for judgment and for resentment and for selfishness. I see the spiritual task as a process of consistent weeding. If not, the dandelions quickly rise to wave in the breeze.

But sometimes I think that God is the seed and also the ground.

On Friday I drove once again to Mt Angel/Woodburn for hospice work. The abbey at Mt Angel has a bookstore and coffee shop with good wi-fi—it is a good place to catch up on charting and e-mail while absorbing some peace by osmosis.

On the table were some copies of the Houston Catholic Worker. The issue was mostly devoted to the enormous human tragedy of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the borders. The writer spoke of the racism of those who imply that these Central American children must have neglectful parents. No, they love their children passionately. Only because of the desperation of conditions in Central America do they choose the slim chance for survival vs the nearly certain fate of keeping them at home. Keeping them at home, to face conditions that we helped create by participating actively in their civil wars, by creating the economic conditions that foment poverty and desperation.

But the article spoke of efforts not only to help the children, but also to address the root causes of Latin American poverty and desperation. To not only cut the field, but to address the roots of seeds we planted.

I felt the stir of my old commitments and activist work in the 1980’s, the old passions that had gotten lost in the business of life and family and running church programs. I thought of our work here, to birth a community that addresses inequity and racism and cultural control, to be equals all together.

I thought with gratitude of those who have passion to ask the questions and to do the work. And as I sat in the coffee shop, I thought of all the good being done every day by good people, caring for the sick and the dying, speaking up for the vulnerable, the ways in which the world remains a place where compassion still has a voice.

Wisdom says, “For you show your strength when people doubt the completeness of your power,
and you rebuke any insolence among those who know it.
Although you are sovereign in strength, you judge with mildness,
and with great forbearance you govern us;
for you have power to act whenever you choose.
Through such works you have taught your people
that the righteous must be kind,
and you have filled your children with good hope,
because you give repentance for sins.”

Repentance means another chance, another day for weeding. Another opportunity for us to make it right, to bring compassion. For the ground is good ground, and there is good seed, God-ground and God-seed.

I looked at the insolent little thorny plant, capable of ruining someone’s evening if stepped on unawares. I dug down with my favorite tool.

I do love the sound and feeling of that “pop.”