So first, I just want to share that I noticed earlier that yesterday's blog post was our 300th. Three Hundred! Wow. So Happy Three Hundred One!
Anyhow, I finally made it back to church today for the first time since before I left for DAR Continental Congress. If you'll remember, that Sunday's sermon was really tied into the 'job' I was scheduled to tackle at Congress. Now, long story short--I kinda think God laughed at my blog post and gave me one heck of a test. I seriously had one tough guest who did not inspire my welcoming spirit. If nothing else, at least I remembered the sermon and worked harder at being welcoming.
This week, I think that I've got an equally tough challenge. The Gospel lesson was a parable from Matthew about weeds and wheat. In it, some servants notice weeds growing in a wheat field and offer to pull them. Jesus' lesson is that the weeds should be left to grow together with the wheat and that, at the harvest, His angels will pull and burn the weeds, then collect the wheat. Here's my takeaway--it's not up to us to determine who is or isn't deserving of going to Heaven. In fact, maybe I'm not. I don't know. Neither do you. At the harvest, God will determine this.
On the one hand, this is kind of freeing. I mean, Jesus is telling me that I don't have to worry about judging my fellow man. I can check that off the worry list. Nice. On the other hand, I'm human. Don't we all like to judge others? And if Jesus is telling me to just live side-by-side and not worry about judging, isn't He really telling me NOT to judge? Eek. This might be a tough one, after all.
Thoughts?
2 comments:
Punkin:
Don't go all soft and squishy liberal on me! Completely without regard to some modernist clerics' interpretation, the parable in no way tells the wheat that it needn't act like wheat, or that "it's okay for wheat and weeds to grow together". In my opinion, he's not telling the wheat anything at all. Wheat will grow into wheat. Weeds will become weeds. The farmer and his hired hands are the action agents. The wheat (or the tares, for that matter) can't possibly do anything at all to influence the workers (nor can we, to influence
God). Our job as wheat (or weeds, if that's what we are) is to be the best wheat (or weeds) we can be, and leave all the rest of it up to God.
I note, too, that there are no instructions on how to become better weeds, whereas there ARE instructions on how to be better people, and I take that to mean that we're supposed to be wheat.
dad
Generally, I am not a fan of the more weedy looking gardens. I like more traditional, well sculpted gardens. Organized in nice rows and such. However, most of my neighbors gardens do not fit this. In fact, I noticed one neighbor who had a large weed (and by large I mean like over a meter) growing right up and through his gate out over the sidewalk. I made some comment to Amy "That weed annoys me, I should just pull it." She looked at me said, "I think it's not a weed." Sure enough, 2 weeks (and another 1/2 meter) later the plant bloomed with beautiful red flowers. I now just love seeing it tower over the sidewalk as I walk past it.
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