Thursday, May 17, 2018

Matthew 13:24-30

“Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’

Fields of gold

Watch the wheat. Keep your eyes on goodness and grace, beauty and care. You live amid fields of gold. Refuse to be distracted by the weeds within, and your soul will grow expansive and great ... like the heart of God.

In Nebraska, I lived on a knoll surrounded by broad where I witnessed the annual drama of planting, growth and harvest. Two moments of exquisite beauty never failed to move me.

In late winter, there always came a sunlit day when the warm rays reflected translucent green, the color of hope, as sun light illumined tender shoots, still encased in ice, as the wheat, long dormant, was raised to life.

Then came late June, when west winds stirred waves of wheat rolling like ocean swells across the fields. Golden stems, their heads heavy with grain, flowed like water, an unceasing tide of life across gentle slopes that stretched to the sunset.

There were weeds, of course, green and scraggly, that spoiled the perfection that moved my heart. But mostly, I looked beyond them to see the beauty of land and sky, the gratuitous bounty of the earth, eager I was to dig my hands into deep piles of harvested kernels and feel the life-sustaining kernels run through my fingers.  

This is how God sees the world and the weeds that spoil the beauty of life we each are. The Holy Love remains undistracted by the weeds, the problems, the evil that threaten the beauty and joy of this good creation.

God’s eyes and heart focus on growing wheat ... and will not risk losing one single plant, not one single grain. Not one.

We do well to imitate this, looking at the grain, the beauty, the hope, freeing our vision from fixation with what is wrong. For then the seeds of God’s life and love grow in us to greater harvest.

Pr. David L. Miller