What did Jesus mean by the story of the weeds among the wheat? In this familiar parable Jesus speaks of our human condition, on many levels. All of us can relate to weeds that seem to spring up spontaneously, most often to our annoyance. For a weed is not a weed because it is intrinsically bad; it’s simply a plant growing where we don’t want it to grow. I suppose that anything other than wheat growing in a wheat field would be considered a weed because it would interfere with the production of wheat – by choking out the wheat, taking up space, blocking the sun, absorbing water. In other words, the weed uses the resources needed by another plant, one that we would prefer to cultivate. But we are the ones who judge the value of the plant. To the monarch butterfly, the butterfly weed shown here is very attractive because of its color and abundant nectar. Even the much-despised dandelion is a very beneficial plant, with high nutritional value and many medicinal uses. My brother regards them very kindly as his wandering perennial flower garden.

            Jesus is warning us that we don’t always know what is good – whether we are looking at plants or our own qualities or deeds or at the people around us. It may sound strange to think that we sometimes don’t even know whether we ourselves are doing good or evil, but it is so.

            St. Teresa also warns us of the danger of self-deceit, particularly for “virtuous” people like us! We who are concerned with following Jesus, we who write meditations about Scripture, and we who read them, are prime targets for self-deception, with a little help from the enemy. We can easily fool ourselves, thinking, for example, that our condemnation of others is justified, or that looking respectable and virtuous is being virtuous. Similarly, we can believe that all our anger is evil, or that taking care of our own needs is selfish. The fact is that we don’t always know how to judge our own actions well. We can be sure that our motives for all our actions are mixed. We all have weeds growing along with the wheat of our lives; our task is not to uproot all the weeds, but to try to allow God to tend our garden. Through searching the Scripture, trying to pay close attention to the Spirit in our lives, spending time in the real dialogue of prayer, we gradually learn more and more how to discern the movements of God, allowing God to cultivate the good wheat in and through us.

For today, we might begin by trying to discover the good in ourselves, and in those around us. We may be very pleasantly surprised as we find that some of our weeds are wheat!

Sr. Judy Roxborough, stj

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

“We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now;
and not only that, but we ourselves,
who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,
we also groan within ourselves
as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies”

                                        - Romans 8:22-23

        The snows of Kilimanjaro are melting. Its life-giving waters are diminishing, the air is deteriorating, our companion creatures are disappearing, and human families are dying of starvation. So states the opening address of the World Federation of Lutherans at their meeting at the foot of Kilimanjaro just a few weeks ago. In his challenging and thoughtful address†, Bishop Hanson calls on Christians to be true witnesses to Christ and to a suffering creation, witnesses who – as in a court of law – will not just testify against others, but will also be asked hard questions about our own accountability as stewards of God’s creation.

        We all must acknowledge that creation is not ours; it belongs to God! And God delights in His creation. When we accept these two simple facts, we are already in a position of humility before the earth, its waters, land, and air; before all the creatures of the earth, who exist, like us, because God called them into being; before our sisters and brothers of all nations and creeds, who likewise are stewards of this same earth. We must acknowledge that our devastation of the earth is not just the result of unfortunate mismanagement of resources, but arrogant disobedience of God’s commands, to be stewards of creation, and to care for all peoples. We have sinned.

        The consequences of our actions will surely harm us all, beginning with the poorest and least powerful. The earth itself groans as land, water, and air are despoiled, and an estimated 20,000 – 100,000 species or more go extinct every year, impacting all of creation. And those whose lives are related to the land and the water, especially the poor ones, suffer enormously from the loss of clean air and water, as well as the loss of wildlife. It is clear that the earth cannot continue to degrade this way without soon taking a toll on every single living being.

        As Christians we too are groaning, as we await full redemption. We groan with God’s anawim, hungry and without hope; we groan with the voiceless creatures being eliminated forever; we groan with the wounded land and polluted seas. But it is not enough to bemoan the losses. As Christians, it is our call to speak out, and to move towards healing the wounds to our earth. We want to be faithful to our God, faithful witnesses of what we have seen and experienced in our own lives. We want to dare to ask about our own responsibility, and what God is asking of us now. We want to allow the Spirit to redeem through us. During this next week, let us look at our own attitudes towards the earth and its goodness, towards God as Creator, towards our fellow creatures and our fellow stewards. And let us dare to allow the Spirit to show us the path towards healing creation.

Judy Roxborough, stj

Page last modified: 07/29/2008
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