Sharing the Soil

Life is so multi-layered and complex.

There is an infinite mystery that inhabits all existence, and when we humans approach it and begin to sense just how deep its roots go, it can take our breath away.

When awe, wonder, and these glimpses of God confront us we humans tend to respond along a continuum that runs between ardent, unshakeable faith and fearful reaction.

Do we allow the multiplicity and the mystery of God and the vast fields of all we do not yet know to draw us into a journey of deeper spiritual exploration, or do we deal with the discomfort of such complexity by drawing distinct lines and borders between us and them, holy and profane, in and out?

Our readings today, especially the Gospel parable of the Wheat and the Weeds held in tension with Jacob’s dream and relationship with the land, sparked my own curiosity about the ways we respond to glimpses of the reign of God.

The lesson from the Gospel parable runs counter to very human knee-jerk and fearful responses that are quick to identify evil insurgents and root them out so the holy wheat can grow unsullied and unchallenged in the spiritual fields of heaven.

Instead of spending the bulk of this lifetime pointing out harmful weeds among the wheat and seeking to be rid of them, Jesus instead instructs his hearers to allow the two to grow together and trust that God can make the appropriate distinction between wheat and weeds at harvest time.

The reality is that in the growing phase, which is the lifetime we are given on this earth, the roots of wheat and weeds are so intertwined that uprooting and destroying one will kill the other as well.

Agriculturally, wheat and darnel (the weed most likely referenced in this parable) are virtually indistinguishable until they begin to produce ears and ripen; the wheat turns brown and has a single contiguous ear, while darnel has a divided ear and turns black.

A ripe ear of wheat has grains that are connected to one another in a single body, and a ripe ear of darnel has spikelets that are separate and diverge from the stalk. 

This difference makes it easy to separate the two at harvest time when their “fruits” are clearly distinguishable.

It’s parables like this that remind me of what a genius Jesus was to take a natural phenomenon that farmers and laborers could understand and relate it to the call to community we know as the Church.

Many of us may be so removed from the agricultural and natural worlds that informed these parables that we may find ourselves after hearing them exclaiming like Jacob, “Surely the Lord is in this place— and I did not know it!”

But once the call becomes clear, how do we apply the wisdom within the details of our lives?

In my own experience, there is a constant tension in our faith community between advocating for justice and prophesying against the powers and principalities that hinder, dehumanize, and destroy the children of God and developing the spiritual fortitude that allows our interpretations of who is good and evil to be decided by God and the angels alone.

It is easy to see how abdicating all responsibility for calling out evil would be harmful to our attempts to see the reign of God flourish in our world, and similarly easy to see how a rush to judgment about who is evil and who is holy, who deserves to be destroyed and who deserves to live, has become the favorite tool of dividers and conquerors.

I believe that Christ calls us to tell the truth about the ways we humans fail to live up to the standard of love that undergirds the reign of God—which means standing with the oppressed, fighting for justice, and persisting in the face of mighty worldly opposition.

All great civil rights movements that arise out of the fertile soil of our faith are rooted in this call.

But if the transformation we seek is not just about putting ourselves and our constituency in power in the place of those we consider wrong and evil—if we are about MORE than adding another empty chapter to the never-ending saga of human games of power—then our advocacy and actions must begin with acknowledging the shared humanity of those we consider opponents.

Trusting that the fruits we produce will become evident and apparent, and trusting God to do the separating and distinguishing frees us from harmful obsession with the flaws of others and allows us to more clearly work on our own.

A community of faith that boldly announces the reign of God, that strives to see its character influence the world in which we’ve been planted for this season, and that does all it can to look for allies first instead of enemies is a community that lives out the wisdom from the parable of the wheat and the weeds.

Life is multi-layered and complex.

It is not always simple to discern what is good and what is evil, what is of God and what is not, what is deserving of our focus and effort and what is better left to God’s end-of the-age discernment.

As we seek to be faithful together, and as we do the personal work of focusing on bearing wheat within ourselves that can yield bread for the world, let us allow our worship and formation to expand our capacity for remaining with ambiguity and embracing the mystery of how God allows good and evil to exist together in this lifetime.

This same greater capacity is what allowed Jesus to speak of forgiveness from the cross, it is what enables transformative love of enemies, and it is what allows the justice for which we advocate to be rooted in the seedbed of God’s love instead of in any lesser human power struggle.

If you find yourself frustrated or angry about the evil of another this week, I encourage you to use that moment as a chance to ask yourself, “How can I acknowledge the humanity of this person?  How can I confront the fallenness I observe in the other with love that transforms instead of mere opposition?”

By taking that pause, and asking such questions, you will be acknowledging the common soil in which we are all planted, and become more aware of God’s guidance and presence in helping you discern how best to respond while we are bound together in this growing season of life.

And when the fruits arise and the harvest is ripe, God and all heaven will know what is wheat and what is weed—what is fuel and what is food—what will be gathered into the barn of the future age and what will fade and pass away.