Unfortunately, as much as we would like
it to be, life is not simple. Life is
not “black and white”. Things are not
neatly divided into “us” and “them”.
People are not either “saints” or “sinners”. “Right”. “Wrong”.
Despite our inclination to simplify life into two distinguishable
categories for the sake of ease, life is not simple.
Life is a lot more complicated than we
ever imagined it would or could be.
Instead of being “black” or “white”, it is more gray . . . a mingling of
all things instead of a separation. Life
is difficult. Life is hard. At least that is what M. Scott Peck alludes
to in his book The Road Less Traveled.
So important is this thought that it appears right at the start of his
book. He writes: “Life is difficult.
This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths.”
And . . . we know it. We know that life is complicate, difficult,
and hard. Yet we continue to want to
shove our understanding and experience of life into a neat little package that
keeps the “good” from the “bad”, “us” from “them”, “right” from “wrong”. In that division of “black” and “white” we
always see ourselves on winning side . . . the right side. It is just human nature.
In his book, Peck says that life gets
easier if people can just acknowledge and accept the fact that “life is
difficult”. He writes: “Life is
difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great
truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know
that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no
longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult
no longer matters.”
Changing the way that we view life and
the world is not easy. Yet in learning
to acknowledge and accept life and the world as it is makes it easier. That is the key.
Last week I stated that nothing that
Jesus says is as ever as simple as we think it is. Reality shows us that there are many
different levels of thoughts and ideas that play out in the words of Jesus . .
. nothing is quite as it seems. For
example, this morning, our scripture reading sounds pretty simple.
A crop is planted, but during the night
someone comes, and plants weeds among the wheat. Not just any weed, but weeds that look much
like the wheat that is growing. It is
difficult to distinguish between the wheat and the weeds. Of course, the solution to the problem is to
remove the weeds from the wheat. But the
owner is afraid that the crop would be damaged in the removal of the
wheat. He tells the servants to let the
weeds grow among the wheat. When harvest
comes, the weeds will be removed first and then destroyed. Once this is accomplished the wheat will be
harvested.
Sounds pretty “cut and dry” doesn’t
it? But then we get Jesus’ explanation
of the story he told. The owner or sower
is God. The field is the world. The seed being sowed are God’s people. The weeds are the evil ones. The Harvest is the end time. The weeds are burned. The wheat will be saved.
If only it were that simple.
I am not much of a gardener or even
keeper of the yard. This summer we have
beautiful pink poppies in our garden. Apparently,
my wife, Dana, planted those years ago, but this is the first summer that they
have blossomed and made their presence known.
Which made Dana wonder why this year and not the other years. Well, it dawned on me one day a few weeks ago
as I was reaching into the flower bed to pull some weeds what the problem was. At some point in my life I had been told that
weeds had jagged leaves. What I was
about to rip from the earth had jagged leaves.
Just as I was about to give the plant a yank, Dana stopped me. She informed me that what I was holding in my
grip was not a weed . . . it was a pink poppy.
It has been said that confession is good
for the soul. So, I confess to you . . .
and especially to Dana . . . that for several years I had been pulling out the
pink poppies because I thought they were weeds.
They sure looked like weeds . . . jagged leaves and all. But they weren’t. I was the scourge that had been eliminating
the poppies for years! I couldn’t tell a
weed from a flower.
Which was the problem facing those
dealing with the field of wheat and weeds.
No one could tell the wheat from the weeds. Which makes one think, if the weeds and the
wheat look so much alike and there are so many weeds anyway, why bother at all? Plow them the whole thing under. Solves the whole problem, right? Just start over from scratch.
The problem is that God doesn’t work
that way. God puts up with the wheat and
the weeds . . . remember God says, “Let both grow together until the harvest.” It is what it is . . . the weeds mingle in
the midst of the weeds. Sometimes it is
hard to see the difference between the two.
Sometimes it is difficult to even know whether or not any of us is a
“weed” or “wheat”. We might see
ourselves among the “wheat”, but others around us might see us as “weeds”. Remember there really is no “black” and
“white”, but lots of gray. Life is lived
in the gray.
Let me give you an example. It has been said that “white” America has
been “woken” since the George Floyd incident in Minneapolis a few months
ago. His wrongful death at the hands of
that city’s police has woken the sleeping snake of racism. Since that time white Americans have become
more aware of racism towards people of color . . . more aware of what it means
to have privileges that people of color are not afforded. It has made all of us more aware of our own
prejudices and references that are often just below our consciousness and are
very subtle to us.
How many of us have said, since our
nation has become “woke” to racism that we are not racist? I know I have said it before . . . “I’m not
racist. I’m not prejudice.” But the
truth of the matter is that I do have prejudices . . . I do have
preferences. For example, I could not
tell you whether or not a person in a room full of people is from Montana or
Wyoming . . . they all look the same to me.
But, put me on the highway between Laurel and Rockvale . . . well, I
have a few choice words and opinions as I see cars with Wyoming license
plates. Trust me, rarely is what I am
saying words of hospitality and welcome.
In those moments, when I catch myself
acting like an idiot, I know in my mind and heart that I have shifted from
being “wheat” to wallowing with the “weeds”.
I have moved from being unprejudiced to prejudiced.
We all do it. We wade back and forth between
being “wheat” and “weeds” . . . between being “good” and “bad” . . . “right”
and “wrong” . . . between “black” and “white”.
We fluctuate between the two, but probably spend the majority of our
time standing around in the gray between the two. Thankfully, God does not work that way. God is willing to wait . . . to allow the
crop to grow . . . to see how it all comes out before the harvest comes. God is patient. And, through it all, God is there . . . with
us all. And, in the end, it will be God
who decides who is the “wheat” and who is the “weed”. It is God’s choice.
So, here is the deal. Life is not simple. Life is difficult. Life is hard.
And, all we can do is to live. To
live to the best of our abilities to emulate the words that Jesus spoke . . .
to emulate the way that Jesus lived his life . . . to honor who God created us
to be as we strive towards intimacy with the Holy. This is the journey we have all been called
to make as the followers of Jesus . . . towards God and others. Thus, we must recognize and acknowledge that
truth . . . life is not simple or easy.
Life is difficult and hard.
Through this parable Jesus wants us to
not deceive ourselves into believing that life is simply between “right” and
“wrong”, “good” and “bad”, “us” and “them”.
Life is made up of it all. Our
task is to travel through it all as we strive to grow closer to God and one
another. Some days we will be “wheat”, other
days we will be “weeds”, but most days we will be somewhere in-between. And, we are never going to be able to solve
it . . . only experience it. Some days
we are going to win, other days we are going to lose. Jesus wants us to know it is all a great big
mystery that we can only live.
M. Scott Peck states it this way: “We
must be willing to fail and to appreciate the truth that often ‘Life’ is not a
problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.” It is what it is and it is God’s job to clean
it up when the time comes. In the meantime
our job is to make the journey, work on being the best of who God created us to
be, and to be open and willing to admit that at times we don’t always get it
right . . . some days we are “wheat” and other days we are “weeds”. We are to do our best and rely upon the mercy
and grace of God that in the end we got more of it right than wrong. God will decide.
Isn’t it great to know that it is not us
who have to make the decision? It is
God. Amen.
