Don't Be a Weed

Readings: Ezekiel 33:10-16   Colossians 3:12-17

Matthew 13:24-30 

Being married to a farmer for a number of years, I learned a whole new definition of the word "weed". Before, when looking out over a field of soybeans and seeing the occasional single corn stalk rising above here and there, I would simply think how healthy that corn plant looked, albeit out of place. Then I learned that anything that didn't belong was a weed, regardless of its worth in another location. So, the corn stalk among the soybeans was a weed.
A new way of thinking...or maybe not.
Whenever I have a little garden in the yard, I draw the line of where I think the grass is welcomed and where it's not; a couple of inches inside the garden and I look at that same blade of grass with a great deal of disdain and attack it as the enemy. 
Let's face it--we're just wired to not like weeds.
So why do we allow ourselves to be "weedy" from time to time?
In Ezekiel, the idea of self-ownership of one's own sins is defined. Up until this time, there were a myriad of excuses used to explain being a "weed" in the "garden of good". Before now everything was blamed upon the sins of the fathers--he's just like his father was a commonly used explanation. But now each person came to the realization that if you're known as a good person but doing bad things, you're just being a weed. And, as stated in the parable of the weeds in Matthew 13:24-30, the weeds of the world will be allowed to exist among the garden of good in the world until it is time for the harvest. At that time, the separation will take place and the "weeds" will be cast aside.
Feeling pretty weedy right now? Only we, unlike those intruders out in the garden or in the field have a chance to transform back into a lovely productive, useful member of the garden of life. In Colossians we are called to "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God" (16). 
We have the opportunity, every day, to be a weed or to be a thriving, growing, and productive member of the garden of life.
Don't be a weed.


Peace be with you.