07.19.2020 Homily

The 13th chapter of St. Matthew's gospel contains a series of parables about the kingdom of God. And this is the first of those parables, the story of the wheat and the weeds. The word that is in the Greek text for the weeds really does not mean just ordinary, everyday garden variety weeds. It refers to a special kind of weed, which is called Darnell. Darnell is a pernicious weed. It's a poisonous weed. And Darnell looks almost exactly like wheat. In fact, you can't tell the difference until you come near harvest and the wheat will have a head on it. The Darnell will have a flower. So when these servants come to the master and say, I'm going to go out now for you. And I'm going to pull up all the weeds. Really what he's saying is you're not going to be able to tell what's weeds and what is wheat. They all look the same. Let them grow side by side, the wheat will not be harmed. Let's be patient enough to wait to the end. And then in the end, we'll gather the Darnell tired in bundles and burn it and bring the wheat into the barn. 

This weed, that grows grows about, oh, maybe three, four feet tall. Maybe not that much with three feet tall. And the flower on top is about two inches in diameter, the very large flower. And it's a beautiful flower shades of purple and pink and red make up this flower this round blossom. That weed has since become help in a curative way in that. Now we can know how to use that weed to help it help people who have disease. So in its raw form, it's poisonous, but when it's, when it's processed, it becomes a very helpful thing. 

It's been said that a weed is nothing more than a flower before it's time. Jesus says, let them grow side by side, let the good and the bad live side by side, because you don't know which is the good and which is the bad for sure. That's a challenge that he puts to each and every one of us that to live in the kingdom of God is to live in a mixed circumstance. We know that there are parts of existence, parts of, of the lives we lead that are, that are harmful and parts that are wonderful. We know that there are aspects of life that are destructive and aspects of life that are life giving and what we want to do. You know, we want to just rip out the bad stuff and keep only the good stuff, but we're not always sure what's the bad stuff and what's the good stuff. And we are not always sure what God seeks to bring out of what I call the bed stuff. 

Now we're facing that in a very dramatic fashion right now, the entire world is caught up in a pandemic. People by the hundreds of thousands are dying. People by the millions are becoming sick throughout the country. And throughout the world, people are walking around, covering their face with a mask so that they don't harm their neighbors so that they don't breathe on their neighbor and friends for disease to the name. And that's okay. Call a very strange and a very difficult and a very uncomfortable and a very frightening way to have to live. And we've been doing that for the past four months. And we'll probably be doing that for some time. Yet. The temptation is to say that the way things were was what is good and the way things now, are what is bad, but you and I don't know what God will bring out of this moment. What he's saying now is we're going to have to let this grow side by side. And the time will come when the Darnell, the weeds that which is poisonous will be tied up and thrown away. And the wheat that, which is good, will be brought into my barn. 

So he's asking patience  from us, be patient, allow the plan to work out. This is not being played out by my standard or yours, that there is a reason for this somewhere in the world. There's nothing I can do about it as the, the owner of of the fields so there's nothing I can do about those weeds there. I just have to be patient and I need to wait until harvest time. Well, you and I are called to be, to be patient with the image of the kingdom of God, is the patient faithful life of you. And to be in the midst of the mixture, that is the world.