Rogue Corn Stalks

Scripture
Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field.  But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. “The farmer’s workers went to him and said…. ‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ ….  “‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do.  Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.’” (Matthew 13:24-29NLT)

Rogue Corn Stalks
Last week we had another run through our favourite agricultural vistas dodging horse drawn buggies. At Stratford we saw Moliere’s The Miser. The grasping figure of the miser is a great contrast to the wild generosity of the God of springtime and harvest.

The soybean fields, once intense green, are now ripening golden, which makes the occasional rogue stock of corn spoil the picture. The farmer had ploughed last year’s corn under, but some stubborn seed escaped the cleanup. Removing the rogue plants would kill a lot of beans, so it gets sorted at harvest.

We can spend a lot of time weeding out things in our lives, community, church and world but end up destroying a lot in the process. At our healthiest, with the help of the Spirit the life of Jesus is producing in us crops of patience, kindness, hope, mercy,  justice…even love.

In quiet moments of prayer, plants from our past can pop up with the very opposite effect. I can suddenly be preoccupied with envy, resentments, replays of hurtful moments and lose focus on the good. But spending too much time in trying to eradicate them loses my focus on Jesus and his life. Better to spend the time on the good and true and let the rest sort itself out.

A Prayer for Today

O God you sow prodigally and creatively in our world against a lot of competition. We long for our lives to be filled with the goodness of the life of Jesus – a field that grows in love and compassion. Forgive us for the rogue plants of judgment, anger and condemnation that pop up in our lives. Give us grace to deal with what we need to fix and await your harvest for the rest …. For Jesus’ sake